Fumble
Radbam February 8th, 2010
So, was the Tim Tebow Superbowl ad as bad as you thought? Other than the bizarre image of him seemingly tackling his mother (all he can do not to act?), the purported pro-life message was diminished to saccharine appreciation for her son’s birth despite difficulties. And while a blessedly narrow escape for that family, the wielding of this Heisman Trophy winner’s success story as a post-birth fetus to hawk the reactionary Focus on the Family troubles for what it portends.
CBS, and the desperately-seeking-revenue broadcast media more generally, have opened the floodgates of issue advocacy advertising, poisoning one of the last bastions of civic no-man’s land. Concerns go beyond the monied, and thus limited access to the airwaves, a process initiated with Reagan’s drive-by of the Fairness Doctrine through last month’s Supreme Court concession to corporate brainwashing. The network of Murrow, Cronkite and now Dobson defied logic and consistency, permitting FoTF’s blatant propaganda while denying a gay dating site’s purely entrepreneurial effort–unless the very existence of gays who want to date and forge monogamous relationships is deemed advocacy.
In our increasingly and seemingly irretrievably polarized culture, the Big Game was perhaps the only place left to come together in ways transcending politics and punditry. Who couldn’t resist the Saints’ Cinderella story, a redemptive moment for a city bloodied but not beaten, facing a hometown quarterback torn between loyalties and clearly distracted from his game? And since Apple’s legendary paean to 1984 in 1984, the ads often surpass the game in water-cooler provocation.
In essence, CBS has ruined a good thing, releasing the Kraken of interminable rhetoric in the only place insulated from the echo-chamber of commentary and opinion resounding all reason from public discourse. What do you think?
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- Comments(6)
Yes, but….
You seem to miss the fact that network television, while policed for indecency by the government, is not a government entity. CBS is a private corporation, which has the ability to show and not to show anything it chooses, as long as it doesn’t violate federal laws and provides equal time in political campaigns. It acts on the motives of its executives, who are elected by its stockholders.
All the polarization was accomplished by one overly-hysterical side which seemingly drew a lot of attention to a commercial that otherwise might not have garnered nearly as much. Without knowing all the hyperbole behind the ad, it’s fairly innocuous. Who is against family?
And don’t forget the great equalizer, the remote control.
Didn’t miss the point….lamenting a moral/taste line that was crossed…it’s bad enough we are assaulted during elections…now year ’round? And what am I going to use the remote for….Puppy Bowl on Animal Planet? I am held hostage by my addiction to sports-as-military-metaphor!
The puppy bowl, was, admittedly, cute.
I think I’d rather have Tim Tebow as my kid’s role model than Kobe Bryant, Charles Barkley or those geriatric paeans to clean living formerly known as The Who.
I think I’d rather have my children see the FoTF ad than a commercial with flatulent horses, erectile dysfunction, violent video games or goDaddy.com.
I think that CBS should have shown the ManCrunch ad because it’s pretty funny.
I think that the Audi “Green Police” commercial was by far the best Super Bowl ad.
I think that interviewing the President during the Super Bowl pre-game show doesn’t ‘transcend politics’.
I think that if we want entertainment insulated from commentary and opinion, some better tell Barbra Streisand and the Academy Award presenters.
I think its worrisome that as a corporation that opines about things political, the New York Times requires under an exemption from the Federal government.
I think that when the Solicitor General argues that McCain-Feingold gives Federal government the right to bank books with political content (?”Good God For Us”?), we have more fear from government power than corporate influence.
I think that money inevitably flows to where power and influence reside. Therefore, the only sure way to decrease the influence of money in politics is to decrease the size of government.
I think that I trust in the great wisdom of the American people and they are intelligent enough to to be “brainwashed” by politicians or corporations.
I think that Sally Jenkins of the Washington Post got it right. “Trouble is, you can’t focus on the game without focusing on the individuals who play it – - The Super Bowl is not some reality-free escape zone. Tebow himself is an inescapable fact: Abortion doesn’t just involve serious issues of life, but of potential lives who would never come to be if their birth mothers had not wrested with the stakes and chosen to carry those lives to term. And their stories are every bit as real and valid as the stories preferred by NOW.
I couldn’t disagree with Tebow more. But I don’t care that we differ. Some people will care that the ad is paid for by FoTF. Some will care that CBS has rejected a gay dating service ad. None of this is the point. CBS owns its broadcast and can run whatever advertising it wants, and Tebow has a right to express his beliefs publicly. Just as I have the right to reject or accept them after listening — or think a little more deeply about the issues. If the pro choice stance is so precarious that a story about someone who chose to carry a risky pregnancy to term undermines it, then CBS is not the problem.”
Sorry for the typos which should read:
…argues that McCain-Feingold gives the Federal government the right to ban books with political content…
and
…the American people are intelligent enough not to be “brainwashed”…
All valid points….but the Superbowl still “feels” like one of the last places we can all come together around something passionately distracting in ways that divide us in trivial, not life-or-death manner (as all policy debates seem to do these days)…CBS certainly has the right to put on whomever it wants…and I would not encourage athletes, celebrities or politicians as viable role models…it just seemed a crossing of the cultural Rubicon that will forever transform the experience…prefer watching Abe Vigoda taking a hit for Snickers than Mrs. Tebow taking a hit for Jim Dobson!