The Super Woke Bowl?
The 2021 Super Bowl was more like the 2021 Superfluous Hole. This life-long Giants fan reluctantly stopped watching the NFL about three years ago, mainly due to the Commissioner’s inability to present football as an athletic event as opposed to a political spirit beast. Based on Sunday night’s endless, non-athletically focused pre-kickoff productions, my suppositions have not moved the chains.
That said, with our plans cancelled by a glorious snowstorm, my laptop and I hopped up on the couch with one goal in mind: Commercials. I won’t lie, expecting to see an endless cavalcade of 11 million dollar per minute, over-woke propaganda montages, I had a spare ink ribbon at the ready for my MacBook Pro as I prepared to ferociously clickety-clack my satirical outrage. With fingers on keys, I sat expectantly; watching. And waiting. Only to realize, the fodder for my ire never emitted through the plasma on my mediocre flatscreen. 2021 may have been the most banal, unimaginative collection of lazily produced vignettes a Super Bowl has ever sold.
My first thought was, maybe they are saving the best for last? But as the darkened pigskin snooze-fest slogged toward the final whistle, the parade of catchy, woke ad executive mantras never came. I thought; maybe tanking NFL ratings caused advertisers to pull back their chips? Research so far doesn’t really support that. Then I wondered, were corporate budgets slashed so drastically that they couldn’t afford to coax over-compensated diversity, inclusion and equity experts from their non-ivory towers to write snappy progressive copy? Oddly, that didn’t seem to be the case either. So, my own hypothesis began to coalesce.
Jeep rushed to the failed rescue and promised a, “Re-united States of America” without ever saying how and when de-unification had occurred. Logitech birthed the compelling slogan, “Defy Logic”, as if logic were a bad thing, (And not to mention, the lead-in of their own brand name). And just in the nick of time; the Chipotle Burrito promised to hold power enough to save the planet. As I slid my ink ribbon back into the Selectric case wondering why a stadium filled with vaccinated health care workers still had to wear masks and socially distance themselves from creepy, cardboard cutouts, I pondered: Why didn’t corporations showcase their best Mad Men work?
They are afraid. That’s what I think. Ad executives are thoroughly petrified. Today’s woke-infested waters will surely devour and cancel anyone who dares swim in their shallow end. I’m old enough to still remember Cindy Crawford’s famous Pepsi guzzle and the dim-witted, belching Budweiser Frogs. But back in those days, race-car misogyny and amphibious speech impediments weren’t fiercely prohibited. In fact, it’s been hinted the long admired Budweiser Clydesdales refused to take part in this years lineup because three no longer identify as horses.
Yesteryear’s talking E-Trade baby declined comment after being arrested at an Occupy Wall Street protest, and Spuds Mackenzie could not be reached since transitioning to a cat. The Fed-Ex speed talking superstar, “Peter may I call you Pete”, tragically became a Mime after losing his Guinness Book world record and the kid who caught Mean Joe Green’s jersey is serving out his sentence for the crime of cultural apparel appropriation.
Happily, this year’s one serious breakthrough was fielding the first female referee in Super Bowl history. Unfortunately, she received little fanfare when it was discovered her preferred pronouns are, “Her and she”, and is allegedly a cisgendered Mom.
Having opened the envelope announcing, “And the Cringe Award goes to…Cure Auto”, for their disgusting, Junior High School-level office banter substituting the male appendage for the word, “Opinion”; (He whipped out his opinion. I didn’t just whip it out, she was into it. Besides I have a pretty a big opinion. It’s not that big. Not everyone in this office wants your opinion). Yuck. I quickly zipped up that envelope and gave the Cringe Award to: The Half Time Show.
While I see many people are enthralled with what The Weeknd stands for, he neither dances like Bruno Mars nor sings like Justin Timberlake — only a Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction could have salvaged this mess. His laser-eyed choir of ghouls and Hannibel Lector jock-strap dancers were about the least-imaginative thing ever, particularly for the fact he wouldn’t have made it past Simon in an American Idol regional audition.
Let this be a warning: If Kevin Hart can lose the Oscars gig for a 10-year old joke and J.K. Rowling can be treated like an unpublished rube for mentioning biology, be extra certain that nothing you do today can be digitized as Exhibit A in the futuristic courtroom of Judge Dorsey two decades from now and render a Seinfeld-ian verdict; “You’re Banned”.
Super Bowl 55 take-aways? Waynes World for the win, it’s legal to lower your mask, make a wish and diffuse spit across the top of a flaming birthday cake, and Kansas City’s loss has been classified as a Covid Death. Oh, and I feel strangely uncomfortable that the renewed Brady / Gronk duo may have culturally reappropriated the term, White Passing…
