Super Bowl Sunday came and went, a bit later then usual this year, but with the same glitz, Americana, bizarre theatrics and glow of capitalism that has enclosed the otherwise pleasant game of football the past few years. Given the seemingly endless tango of corporate and business interests tied to the game, it is truly amazing that by this point it's not the American Express Super Bowl or the Pepsi Super Bowl. Perhaps some things are still sacred.
Nothing is more sacred to us now, though, then the phrase "September 11," or, in our penchant for making things short and catchy "9-11." Indeed, the prevailing dogmas are so entrenched that any reference of that day, positive or negative, must be illustrated with the brutal, senseless tragedy of it. Since it must be done, it will be done: it was a brutal, senseless tragedy. And it shall be left at that.
But, culturally, Americans are not just leaving it at that. And with its usual world-admired skill of turning the sacred into the profane, America turned a good portion of Super Bowl 2002 into a tasteless grab bag of gimmicks centered around September 2001.
The only suitably witty and appropriately ironic part of the Super Bowl's patriotic fervor was the cheap dress of glitter and ear-splitting octaves of Mariah Carey's performance of the national anthem. Unwittingly, she served to remind that this great nation is still obsessed with pathetic celebrities and their notorious pitfalls. Those who are not fans of Carey's blond, monotonous R&B poses could smirk at her emoting, remembering she had just been dropped from her contract. Carey's anthem and Britney Spears' nauseating Pepsi ad proved that even after our darkest hour, we still have our bizarrely unsexy sexy pop stars front and center to show off titties and bad music, which is as American as apple pie.
Although neither a purveyor of titties or bad music, the absolute prize of the tasteless grab-bag was U2's performance of "Where The Streets Have No Name". Not the actual song or the band's execution; the song is a beautiful piece of 80's pop rock and the band sounded strong. But the scroll of victim's names behind the band was morally reprehensible. Our national grief and the victim's families' grief cannot be lessened by seeing names flashed on a screen at a half-time show.
The scale of the WTC attack is too immense to be turned into a concert visual aid. Give us Madonna riding her mechanical bull; if we have to have spectacle, keep a still raw human tragedy to the sacred and not the profane. Obviously, human tragedy has an honored place in pop music; Dylan, Springsteen and U2 themselves, among many others, have stirred and shaken events and issues nobly and honestly. But the scroll of names was too much; not only does it have absolutely nothing to do with "Where The Streets Have No Name", the Super Bowl, in actuality, has nothing to do with the terrorist attacks, except that they are both American events.
Trying to force an audience to have an emotional response is sometimes effective and rarely in good taste. There are enough American flags fluttering in the breeze of every nook and cranny of this country that we are not going to forget the events of the last six months. We need no grandstanding from self-important pop stars.
There's something obsessive about the attempt to make The Tragedy a gut-wrenching focal point of every facet of American life. It's one thing not to forget and it's another thing to be constantly reminded.
Occasionally, and certainly, during the U2 performance, the attacks seemed to be played out like an increasingly bizarre fiendish drama, with bit players, heroes, villains, catch phrases ("let's roll"), soaring theme songs, red, white & blue imagery, and horrific special effects. It's a Jerry Bruckheimer film or an episode of "ER" that most Americans watched from the safety of their television. All that's needed is a dead Bin Laden to safely conclude this episode. The scroll of the dead gave many a shiver or a goose-bump, but it's hyperbole.
And, ever so effectively, the drama, the sacred profanity, serves as a unique American opiate from the true horror and pain of those buildings collapsing. The eeriest moment was when the screen on which the victim's names were being scrolled was lifted and the names were ghostly imposed on the football spectators in the stands. Literally, the dead throwing their shadows the living. Perhaps accidental, and yet truly macabre.
Perhaps nothing, however, is more offensive then using our national (and natural) hatred of those responsible for the attacks to further a completely different political agenda. Our out-of-date smack-addled, corrupt war on drugs, for example. This writer found herself almost sick with anger at the two ads that one of the many anti-drug council ran during the bowl game. It could only have been more hideous (but also ironically amusing) if it had been placed between two beer ads.
The gist the audience was supposed to have gathered is that if one buys drugs, one is financially contributing to terrorism. This message was vocalized in the ad entirely by those under-25. There was no visual facts to back up these allegations; no easily visible numbers and percentages.
Not to doubt the logic of the argument; for it may very well be true that Al-Queda sold drugs to supplement Osama Bin Laden's inherited fortune. But if there is one product that the equation buying product=giving money to terrorists works beautifully for, it is oil. And there were car commercials aplenty during the Super Bowl.
It may be prudent that we fight one euphemistic war at a time. Whether the greater enemy is drugs or terrorism is for another to decide. The welding of these two wars into one is entirely unwise; if we are to be successful in the war against terrorism, it's probably best that we NOT model it after the war on drugs.
It's entirely doubtful that all of the pot manufactures or dealers are terrorists in disguise. Usually, they're the kid renting the basement down the street. But the sheer gall of the anti-drug movement to assume such a holier-then-thou attitude when many Americans have been using drugs (including alcohol and tobacco) to anesthetize after the WTC tragedy is contemptible. Nothing is noble about using a tragedy to push your particular non-related social issue.
But the most bizarre reference to Americana was Pat Summerall's referring to Coke as an "American" beverage. By now, Americans must have realized that they no longer have possessive power over Coke. Native tribes in the mountains of Nepal drink Coke. The classic scene of "The Gods Must Be Crazy" no longer applies.
Equating patriotism to a can of soda, although strangely accurate, comes dangerously close to complete lunacy. Is Pepsi now unpatriotic? Are there now to be photos of WTC rescue workers drinking Coke as to affirm Coke's status as an "American" beverage? Surely Summerall's comment is off-hand, but it's not to be taken lightly. It shows the tenor of the media to inject patriotism into everything, no matter how inane. That the "patriots" won the game is bound to cause more then a few comments (and guffaws) on the appropriateness.
It must be added that the game itself was an incredible riveting game of football, one of the great Super Bowl games of all time. It was heart-stopping, feet-pounding fun. The game itself would have been enough evidence to show the country's spirit after September 11. Too bad we don't leave anything sacred.
