Because You Never Asked

   

(2/06)

     I’ve insinuated somewhere in these pages that no single cultural event on the American landscape more represents the nation’s personality than the Super Bowl (for more, see essays “The Super Bowl” and “Janet’s Boob”). More than anything else, it has become an exercise in excess and exaggeration, in everything an imperial culture represents and needs in order to fill its lungs and exhale the breath of its quest for power and ego satisfaction. In some hazy, ambiguous way, the evolution of the Super Bowl seems to run parallel with the bloated imperial designs of its native country. Over the course of the last few years, this writer has begun to notice, in both cases, the arrival at some kind of summit that will go no higher. Both the Super Bowl and The Empire have begun to over-extend themselves. The resources and effort needed to maintain such excess are beginning to show signs of diminishing material returns, as well as severe psychic problems.

     In the context of the Super Bowl, we can see such symptoms in the following way: “The Event” itself --- and when I say The Event, I don’t just mean the game, but the whole fandango --- has become so huge, so extended, so exaggerated beyond any importance it could possibly have in the general scheme of things, that it is beginning to strangle itself in the folds of its own fat. The football game itself is being sucked and swallowed into the voracious vortex of The Event’s unruly size.

     This year’s game helps to illustrate this point. In this man’s mind, it was a pretty good football game: Steelers 21-Seahawks 10. It had a little of everything; good football, bad football, controversy, praise to be heaped upon, blame to be doled out, coaching gaffs and strategic brilliance, in short, what a football game should be. It raged and blustered up and down the field in a highly competitive manner, as the sport was designed to do. And yet …

     Almost every pundit paid to say something about this was overwhelmingly negative. The expectations aroused by The Event have raised the bar almost beyond reach. A similar environment was created around this year’s collegiate championship game when the twin undefeated Goliaths, Texas and Southern Cal, squared off. What ensued was perhaps the greatest football game ever played. Anything short of that would have been considered a “bad” game.

     Besides the obvious commercial incentives, such magnified posturing is often the result of an over confident, unreasonable belief in oneself that can lead to trouble. One of my favorite expressions evolved over the last few years is to say that “the NFL is Iraq”.

     In spite of the fact that I am a bona fide American jock, ironically, as the sport of football becomes more popular, I find myself moving further away from it. When I examine the reasons for this, the word “nobility” seems to be at the helm of the ship. Athletic endeavor is designed to be an uplifting experience. It should make us better people, not just physically, but even more importantly, emotionally.

     I have no problem with a physically aggressive sport. If the nobility of competition is adhered to, it can still be a worthwhile exercise. In general, I find boxers to be noble competitors. But pro football has begun to lose its nobility. As usual, the commercial culprit is in evidence. It is always easier to play to the banal instincts of the mob rather than try to uplift them. As a result, the players are allowed to taunt and tease each other, to rub it in, to show each other up, to get in your face, as if it were a gang fight in the back alleys of our urban ghettos. Every mundane act of success --- a tackle, a sack, a first down --- is followed by a premeditated display of chest thumping buffoonery we used to consider in poor taste. The culmination of all this degradation is the adolescent end zone theatrics of Terrell Owens and all his cheap imitators. Even worse are the majority of sports pundits that apologize for it. ”It’s entertainment. People pay to be entertained.”

    True … but it’s supposed to be entertainment for adults. It’s supposed to be entertainment for young people learning how to be adults. It’s supposed to be entertainment for people beyond the age of 12.

     This lack of nobility on the field has its effect on that pulsing mass of macho wanna-be’s, the spectators. I have a good friend who was the third baseman on the collegiate baseball team I played on. I shall simply call him John. John is one of the strongest men I’ve ever known. He could hit a baseball telescopic distances. This was back in the 60’s, and while everyone else in college was trying to find ways to stay out of the Vietnamese war, John was in ROTC and couldn’t wait to go. He served as an officer for over a year in southeast Asia, and got into “the shit”. He was never in the Texas Air National Guard. He knows what war is.

     John is no wimp.

     I mention this because about a year ago, John was offered some free tickets to a pro football game. He went. He found the pervasive environment of drunken debauchery not to his liking. He saw fist fights. He saw idiocy in abundance. John has an emotional age beyond 12 years old. He left before it was over. He vowed never to go again.

     One cannot get too specific in linking this lack of nobility in football to the current posture of the United States in the world. These are abstract notions felt in one’s gut, rather than the precision of a mathematical equation. But logical assertions can be arrived to in many ways.

     Current American foreign policy is wrong because it lacks nobility. It lacks nobility in the puny targets it chooses as “enemies”. It lacks nobility in justification. It lacks nobility of purpose. It lacks nobility in the way it is carried out. It is totally unfaithful to the nation’s most noble attributes. It is a self-centered, over confident, insensitive act of physical aggression out of control.

     The NFL is Iraq; Iraq is the NFL.

     But there is an even more serious cultural cancer detected through the Super Bowl.

     Over the last decade or so, one of The Event’s main attractions has become the commercials. The Super Bowl has evolved into a kind of Oscar-Emmy-Grammy show for the “Super Commercials” that will be shown during it. People now watch the commercials with almost the same intensity they reserve for the game, and debate their worth in the same way they critique the football.

     There is a pathetic quality to this the word itself cannot live up to.

     One must remember that this multi-billion dollar world of commercial persuasion uses every aspect of artistic expression, be it written, visual or musical. It expropriates an enormous amount of the artistic talent available for the world of market consumption and economic indicators. By now, only a very small percentage of artistic output in the developed world is produced as an expression of the artist’s soul. When an artist’s talents are bent to the needs and demands of someone else, its creativity, its humanity, its positive role in life is emaciated. It loses its message. It ceases to matter. It breaks no new ground. It may be clever, or beautiful, or it may catch your eye, but it has no lasting impact. It could be good art work, but it is no longer “art”. It might serve its commercial purpose, but it serves no higher purpose. It is to art what pro wrestling or roller derby are to sport. It is a low point in the history of art.

     But for the “powers to be” who have traditionally ruled from that small space at the top of the human pyramid; for the Murdoch-like puppeteers pulling the strings of massive control, this feverish devotion to the Super Bowl commercials is their Picasso. It is their crowning achievement. It is the ultimate triumph for those who spew forth the brain pollution that corrodes and bends the minions to their destructive idea of happiness. It must go beyond their wildest dreams. They must be pinching themselves. “We no longer have to sneak up on them with our garbage. We no longer have to blindside them, or craftily find a way into their consciousness.” No! They want it. They love it. Go ahead, fuck me up the ass!

     And they do, everyday, with 10 inches of steel.