It’s not too late for Ammo Grrrll to explore the deep meaning of the Super Bowl ads ads and half-time entertainment for the benefit of us NOBODIES. She writes:
When we lived in San Francisco in the early ’70s, an episode of The Streets of San Francisco was filmed right outside the front door of our flat. The show featured Karl Malden and a young, hot Michael Douglas. In those halcyon days, the streets of San Francisco were not yet covered in poop, even in our poor working-class and ethnic neighborhood. I rushed outside with my little baby in my arms, hoping to get him into a crowd scene just so I could tell his grandparents to look for it.
Michael Douglas actually spoke to me and told me that it would not work out because the baby was “too fat” for television where the camera adds 10 pounds! He was joking and we both had a good laugh. In point of fact, at three months, my son weighed a hefty 18 pounds and I had dressed him in a little outfit with a blue velvet bow tie which, sadly, could not even be seen under his several chins. Talk about a “wardrobe malfunction”!
Later, when he developed into an extremely beautiful toddler with a mop of blonde curls (I can brag freely because he is a clone of his father), I briefly explored signing him up with a modeling agency for print and advertising work. But I was told that “he really is TOO cute. We are looking for average looking children, so everyone can relate.” Honest to God.
Which brings us to Super Bowl LIV – although somewhat belatedly, as happens with a once a week column — and the gazillion dollar 30 second ads and the half-time spectacle and what I believe it all means.
When I think back on any ads that ever made an impact on me, they are few and far between. Memorable candidates would be the gorgeous Clydesdales in the snow with the jingle bell bridles; “Mikey” the little cereal eater who “doesn’t like anything” yet scarfed down Life Cereal; the great little old lady bellowing “Where’s the beef?”; many of the clever Geico gecko ads, especially Mrs. Lincoln asking poor Honest Abe if her dress made her look fat; and the greatest ad campaign of all time, the E-Trade Babies Series. There was wit, style, cleverness to all of those. Heck, as a kid I even liked the dancing Hamm’s bear. “From the land of sky blue waaaaters…Hamm’s the beer refreshing!” Very catchy tune.
This Super Bowl crop of ads was the most boring, the most obnoxious, the least clever bunch of sad offerings in my lifetime. And what was the unifying theme of every last one of them? Celebrities! Celebrities! Celebrities! And more celebrities! Takeaway lesson: “If you ain’t a celebrity, you ain’t squat.”
We have now come full circle from ad agencies wanting an “everyman” look, an “average” baby, to Only The Beautiful People Need Apply. We will train you to wear what they wear, drive what they drive, but most importantly of all, to think the same political drivel they spew.
In case we didn’t “get” it right out of the chute, the Mostly Naked Ladies high up on stage were being virtually worshipped by the crowd below. Oh yes, as the cherry on top of this frothy Schiff sundae, the kids with their little arms in the air “reaching for the Stars” were in bizarre cages. Get it? It’s just like the (Obama-era) cages of children separated for their own safety from detained illegal invaders who may or may not be related in any way to the children. All I could think of as I kept watching the Chyron of Super Bowl LIV, was that “LIV” is 54 in Roman Numerals, but it is also the abbreviation for Low Information Voters. At whom this Super Bowl halftime waste of money was aimed.
I confess that I am also “Low Information” when it comes to RECOGNIZING celebrities. Since I do not go to movies or watch television, celebrity worship is wasted on me. My knowledge level consists of saying, “I think that is one of the unfunny late-night Jimmies, no idea which one.” I did enjoy the Bill Murray Groundhog Day homage which is a perfect metaphor for everything the Democrat Party has done for the last 3 years, except without the uplifting moral of the movie in which the cynical Murray finally learns to be a better person.
A fair amount has been written about the skanky half-time show. I think Jennifer Lopez is a beautiful woman and we were left with no doubt that she must work out for many hours a day to maintain that level of fitness at 50. But, whatever that was, it was not dancing. Yeah, yeah, okay, Boomer. I love actual dance of all kinds – ballet, tap, modern, ballroom – and regularly play the fabulous YouTube compilation of real dancing set to Uptown Funk. Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, the insanely-talented Nicholas Brothers, and many others perform world-class dance moves without a single hypersexualized aerobic pole dancer among them.
And yes, this first-levy Boomer knows that the waltz was once considered skanky. But there was nothing uplifting, creative, or lovely in all the silly twerking, jerking and grabbing on that stage. Not even to mention trying to shoehorn some tedious political points into it.
I do not think women belong in chadors. Nor do I care what women are willing to flaunt for money and fame, from icky sex tapes to “adult” films to entire outfits that could be carried in a Sandwich Baggie. Not my bidness; not my problem. But fall for it at your own risk, fellas.
What does terrify me is the stunning hypocrisy of the femi-ninnies in calling objections to such behavior “slut shaming” (a bad thing) while simultaneously retaining the power to fire, expel, or sue any male who actually RESPONDS to it! The campuses and “woke” corporate workplaces are basically little more than honey traps. “Look at me in this skimpy outfit!” screams the half-time show. “Don’t you DARE look or you will lose your scholarship and your job and maybe even go to jail!” shriek the power-mad Professional Grievance Grubbers. You may say that is “sending a mixed message.” I don’t think there is anything “mixed” about it – it is deliberate, it is dishonest, and it is as deadly to men as a Black Widow is to her mate.
The whole celebrity ad tsunami made me think of the Emily Dickinson poem: “I’m nobody! Who are you? Are you nobody too? Then there’s a pair of us — don’t tell; They’d banish us, you know. How dreary to be somebody! How public like a frog. To tell your name the livelong day. To an admiring bog.” Dreary, maybe, but very very lucrative and entitled.
The bottom line the celebrity overload was meant to convey: “You are really a nobody. These are the only people who count. Your only hope is to revere them and conform to them.” Naturally, the silly, unwatched Oscars continued that theme. Come November, let’s show them who counts. Again.
And Happy Valentine’s Day to All! Tell somebody you love him or her or them.
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