by Lynn Mandaville

Lately, it seems, I’m bothered by the dumbest things.

Take Super Bowl LVI for example.   The game itself, its half-time show, and the advertisers who compete with both for our attention.   Like I said, bothered by dumb things.  

Well, that’s not entirely accurate.  To be clearer, the things are not dumb.  It’s dumb that I let them bother me.

I don’t know why I let that happen.

I used to have no beef with the Super Bowl — in theory.

Initially nothing more than a competition between two professional football teams that had risen in ranking because they had particularly good seasons, but now the game is less about the actual competition and more about the marketing.

This concept is not new to me.

I was raised by a man who believed that a “classical education” in the 20^th century included such things as being familiar with purveyors of parody and biting satire.  And one of the kings of satire in the 1950s and 60s was a man named Stan Freberg.

A theme to which Freberg returned time and again was American advertising.

He poked not-so-gentle fun at the ways advertising had altered significant social constructs and institutions, such as Christmas (which he did very effectively in a radio sketch called “Green Christmas” in 1958, which you can hear on YouTube).

Freberg was so adept with the psychology of advertising that he not only poked fun at its power of manipulation, but he made a more-than-decent living shilling, with a comedic twist, for such memorable products as Sunsweet Pitted-Prunes, Chun King Chow Mein, Heinz Great American Soups, Charlie the Star Kist Tuna, and Contadina Tomato Paste.

Oh, the delicious irony!

Advertising has successfully used psychology to turn our attention away from the game and focus on the advertisements.  And in true Stan Freberg fashion, advertisers are using comedy to lure us in during our once-treasured bathroom breaks to laser-focus our attention on the commercials instead of the ballgame.

This year, I’ve read, it cost 6.5 million dollars for a 30-second spot.  I could find no statistics for this year’s advertising onslaught, but there were 70 commercials during the 2020 game for a total of 47 minutes of airtime, and I’d bet dollars to donuts that it was more – maybe much more – for 2022.

Statisticians, like NBC’s Steve Kornacki, tell us the average televised NFL football game runs 3 hours and 12 minutes, though we’re all aware that that time can vary widely due to officials’ time to review plays, the number of fouls during a game, and the number of coaches’ challenges.

This year’s Super Bowl ran over four and a half hours.

That means there was at least one additional hour to fill with increased advertising time, plus the obligatory talking-heads commentary, plus the extravagant half-time show, which this year ran about 15 minutes (bracketed by 10 minutes at each end for setup and break down of the dazzling set).

Which takes me to that half-time show.

I used to have no beef with a half-time show — in principle.

For the people at the actual Super Bowl game, it’s part of the justification for the outrageous ticket prices.  And a great show with big names and bigger production values offsets that hit to the wallet.

Whereas halftime shows used to be limited to non-controversial but extraordinary college marching bands, modern half-time shows are now expected to be edgy in their artistry and social messaging.  

This year’s show was no exception.

It was totally hip-hop and rappers, twerking dancers, and flashy costumes designed to titillate and entertain the stadium audience as well as the viewers at home.

I followed reactions to this year’s half-time show.  The reviews were a contrast in extremes.

But I set aside those comments that complained that it wasn’t the show mainstream America wanted and expected, and those comments that complained about costuming and dancing.

Rap music, in truth, is mainstream among Americans, especially people far younger than me.

And the dance styling is a form of misunderstood and underappreciated art.

But neither, in my opinion, is a valid criticism of the show, except to account for differences in taste.

My gripe was that I couldn’t understand the lyrics in any of the songs.

Which was unfortunate, because rappers are the poets of this time and place, much as Bob Dylan and Paul Simon were the poets of theirs.

Case in point is Kendrick Lamar, one of the performers, who, like Bob Dylan, has won a Pulitzer Prize for his impact on social culture through his music.  

Yet I couldn’t understand a word of his poetry.  I had to Google the lyrics of his songs to appreciate the power of his social statements, and to intuit the focus on modern Black culture that was the theme of the half-time show.

A fair amount of the criticism of the halftime show was that many of us couldn’t understand the words.

And some complained that the power of the message was lost in the controversy over Eminem’s taking a knee during his performance, a reflection of Colin Kaepernick’s gesture during 2016 NFL games when he was quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers. 

So, as I said, here I am, being dumb to let these things bother me.

It’s just a football game with advertising and a half-time show.

Where do they matter in the greater scheme of things?

I guess it could be said that they matter because we’ve become a nation of obsessive consumers, easy prey for corporate America at a time when a far too large proportion of Americans is living below the poverty line, where average families require two incomes just to keep up with food, shelter, and clothing, where the average American has no savings to cover an emergency costing more than $400.

Americans, it might be claimed, don’t have two nickels to rub together.  Yet we NEED those big Ford and Chevy trucks.  We NEED Lay’s Wavy Potato Chips, and 5G technology.  After all, since the advertisers say we do, it must be so.

It might also be said that they matter because all the glitz and glamour of a hip-hop halftime show can’t adequately showcase the social upheavals that have been magnified in recent years when its crucial message is drowned out in poor sound management and superficial controversy over twerking and TV cameraman crotch-shots of dancers.

So I don’t know why, lately, I let these things bother me.

It’s just another Super Bowl.  Just more advertising.  Just another halftime show.

Besides, I have a new season of “Survivor” to look forward to in March.