I was
drinking when I wrote this, so sue me if it goes astray…
For the
uninitiated, The Superbowl is like The Cup Final for the NFL (National Football
League). That’s American Football to you.
The Superbowl winners are usually considered to be the world champions
of the sport, since (as the name suggests) almost no one anywhere else plays
it.
(I know what
you’re thinking, it’s like The World Series of Baseball – only US teams in
it. To be fair, though (I am usually
fair, it’s my biggest weakness), it’s called The World Series because it was
sponsored by a newspaper called The World.
So, far from American arrogance, it’s your ignorance that causes the
confusion. So there.)
Anyway, here
we go for The Big Show…
Bowl of ‘chips’: Check.
Bowl of ‘candy’: Check.
Small cans of non-US beer: Check.
Replica shirt of an NFL team not involved in this game: Check.
So, I’m ready. Come on,
America, entertain me.
“In celebration of this beautiful country,
let’s welcome grammy award winner John Legend”
America The
Brave is performed with all the understated humility the title suggests.
Then the
woman from Frozen sings the national anthem, while big screens flash images of
US armed forces abroad and fighter jets fly over, to rapturous cheers from the
crowd of 8 million. This might be a long
night…
The US has
no monopoly on nationalism, jingoism or embarrassingly mawkish displays of
these, but the whole thing looks just a wee bit like ancient Rome; will it be
imperial hubris or lead pipes that bring down this great empire?
Anyway, the
game starts with all that unpleasantness behind us.
American
football is a bit like Chess mixed with Rugby.
Except there’s more pieces, and the pieces are big men that wear loads
of padding to batter shit out of each other.
Channel 4’s helpful approach
is to cut back to a studio with one English bloke talking to two American
dudes, who explain the game and tactics and the context of the season to the
English bloke, and thereby to the Briddish audience.
[American] Football teams actually consist of three teams: Offence (for
attack), Defence (for defence) and Special Teams (for kicking). No, I don’t know why it’s called Football
when there’s lots of throwing and less kicking.
The ball is in play for an average of ten minutes of the sixty on the
clock. The game takes three and a half
hours. Go figure.
As with all other US sports, there are millions of statistics, and
technology means the grassroots game bears little resemblance to the
professional version.
As with all other US sports, everything is calculated towards maximum
excitement: play-offs, league finals, no ties.
It’s also a
game so perfectly designed for advertising, snacking and drinking
opportunities, it can only have been calculated that way. All the American sports are like this: the
audience whoop and graze their way through it.
It’s really enjoyable. (And yet,
I can’t stand cricket….)
However,
what is surprising about American sports is the way they are run: sport is the only area of American public
life that embraces Socialism, actively eschewing dominance by one team. All NFL teams have an overall wage cap, so
that if they want to pay one player a huge salary, they have far less to pay
the other players. (So, actually not at
all socialist, but it is a sort of fair play that would look very out of place
in British sport.)
The draft
system also evens the playing field: the teams with the worst record get the
first pick of graduating college players the following season.
Most sportspeople in the US are college graduates, because most get
scholarships to play for their college.
Because college sports are a Big Thing.
So professional athletes are educated, unlike British professional
footballers, who, um…are endearingly inarticulate and speak English less well
than their foreign teammates.
I exchange messages with my brother who is at a Superbowl Party in
NYC. It’s a big event, apparently
everyone in America is watching and eating and drinking, even in The Liberal
(ie, Godless) Metropolis. Our kid’s
explaining some of the finer points to me, but most of his friends seem to be
there for the beer/food/company. Big Up
The BK Crew.
It’s nearly halftime. In the USA, the stress tends to be on the
first syllable of a phrase like halftime,
defence, deflate, Chinese food.
America: one
nation under a groove. Perhaps it’s a funk inflection – the hit is always on
the 1, like on most funk records, as in
ONE-two-three-four-ONE-two-three-four.
Although in “Chinese food“, the stress is on the second syllable, and is
therefore either an exception that proves the rule, or a giant hole in my
argument.
I was
drinking when I wrote this; so shoot me if I go too fast.
The Superbowl Half-time show is The Biggest
Show On Earth™, and the Announcers trumpet this line as if it mitigates the gaudy
horror of the spectacle itself. There’s
been some degree of controversy over these performances in past years. Controversy is a technical term, which means
Things Professional Pundits Are Professionally Outraged About. It’s about the same as a Daily Mail controversy,
where somebody who meant no harm does something innocuous and someone
completely unaffected in any material way pretends to have hurt feelings about
it – and then presents all this as the natural reaction of sane people, with
loaded phrases like “Pop star faces outrage” and “Many were upset by…”. Given the prominence of Christian
conservatives in the US, there is no shortage of amateur outrage to back up the
professionals.
So, for example, one year, there was a woman’s breast
accidentally on display, which was obviously an outrage, as it wasn’t even
being used to sell beer. AND the woman
in question wasn’t white and 19 years old.
So, that was the worst thing that could possibly happen (it happened during
a war). Another year, somebody didn’t play
live but acted like they did. And
another year, the Black Eyed Peas played, which was an affront to humans
everywhere and would never be tolerated by a civilised society. So that was the most offensive.
This year’s halftime show features Katy Perry rocking up on
a 40-foot metal tiger. So, you know, in
keeping with the modest subtlety of the occasion. Suddenly the kitsch explosion angle is
flaunted, again, as if it were on purpose. The thought that somebody – lots of people,
in fact – has/have planned all this makes it seem all the more demented.
Then she’s on stage with Lenny Kravitz, because, um…well,
maybe they’ve got the same agent or something.
Then she’s dancing with people in dolphin costumes, and I think: The
Flaming Lips could do this well, skipping joyously around the line between camp
spectacle and endearingly unpretentious entertainment.
But I’m missing the point: this is the Superbowl, so KP has
bounded over that line. On a fucking big
tiger.
Then Missy Elliot rocks up.
It’s all very big and bright and spectacular. I’ve never been to Vegas, but I imagine it
looks like this (but with more money spent on gambling and less on production
values).
Throughout this extravaganza, there’s a Pepsi logo on the
screen. If they’ve paid for all this, I
think it might be a joke at their expense.
Of which I would, personally, wholeheartedly approve. Top satire.
Well done, Katy Perry.
Then KP’s on a big hang-gliding thing. It’s a lot of effort to mask the fact that
she’s not a good singer and doesn’t have any good songs, bless her pasty
Midwestern looks. Apparently both she
and Kravitz kissed girl, and liked it.
Well, woop-de-fucking-do.
“ThankyouGodBlessAaammmerrriiiicaaaaaaa!”
Well, quite.
The halftime adverts are also a Big Event. They cost the GDP of a mid-sized European
country, and this year’s feature Kim Kardashian doing whatever it is Kim
Kardashian does. I sincerely hope the US
is the only country where TV advertising can be this big an event. The same goes for Kim Kardashian.
Throughout the night, there’s an ad break every 90 seconds. This is an American amount of ‘commercials’,
but we don’t suffer the same as the ones as the US audience, of course. I’ve seen US TV ads. They’re calculated to attack the
psychology of the target audience, to induce panic and inadequacy, whilst masquerading
as meaningless nonsense. It’s either
very clever or very stupid, or maybe even both.
Either way, it’s impossible to watch without feeling nauseous. In other words, just like our adverts, but even worse.
Announcer 1: “Just when I think I’ve seen it all in the NFL”
Announcer 2: -“You haven’t.”
This thing has everything: excessive
consumption, athletes, patriotism, violence, cheerleaders, fanfare, fireworks, pop
stars, religiosity…top sporting entertainment. Stay classy, America.
Oh, by the way, the New England Patriots won it 28-24. The other team was called Hawks, or
something.
Glossary of US terms
US UK
Chips Crisps
Candy Sweets
Check Tick
Announcers Commentators
Go figure ?
Briddish British
Sports [collective] Sport
[collective]
College University
Tie Draw
Commercials Adverts
Halftime Half
Time
Grammy Award-Winning Singing Sensation Minor Irritant
Bowl Cup
Controversy Bullshit
Franchise Club
Regular Normal
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