February 3, 2010

Superbowl Sunday: I'm skipping the whole damn thing


This coming Sunday, February 7th, is the Super Bowl... and I will not be among the billion people watching. I always work on Super Bowl Sunday. At the store, we take turns, each working about one Sunday per month, and this is the one everyone else, aka all the straight guys and some sports-interested women, requests off. So I work it, which is not a big deal -- it's not like it's Oscar Sunday or the season premiere of Desperate Housewives or some other major must-see event.

People luuuuv the Super Bowl game, and the half-time show, and the commercials. According to Nielsen, 51 percent of viewers prefer the Super Bowl commercials to the game itself.

The Super Bowl is a network and advertiser's wet dream, as it has a gigantic audience and they charge millions of dollars per minute to run a commercial. The big game is on CBS, and in this economy where multi-million dollar advertisers like GM are dropping this expense faster than John Edwards fleeing a paternity test, there is opportunity for newer advertisers to step in.

Who are the new wannabe advertisers? Not just your usual beer and bimbos football crowd. CBS has accepted an anti-abortion ad from Focus on the Family, and refused a gay dating ad from website Mancrunch.com; both are advocacy ads, one on the right and one on the left, so what is going on with CBS?

CBS looks bad here, the worst press a TV network has gotten since, uh, NBC two weeks ago with the whole Conan vs Jay thing. This is being written about everywhere from The Huffington Post to Larry King to Tuesday's episode of The View to the evening news, pretty much everywhere except Glenn Beck's daily dose of insanity.

Hmmm... I wonder what Anderson Cooper thinks of Mancrunch...

The anti-abortion ad is being kept under wraps until the big day; the mancrunch ad is viral everywhere, and it has two guys in football gear watching the game, accidentally touching hands in the potato chip bowl, and then reaching/lunging for each other, and cuts away before they even kiss. The ad is not at all explicit, though is certainly clear they are gay gay gay, in case you didn't get that from the name "mancrunch" .

So what the hell is going on with CBS here?? Homophobia, hypocrisy, and a hateful right wing agenda? You either take advocacy ads or you don't, whether they be conservative or liberal. I don't think either of these ads should be in the Super Bowl, it is a family show and should avoid anything that may be considered inflammatory or polarizing, and that being said, if you are going to represent the right, you gotta give face time to the left also.

So let's stop these incendiary ads and go back to the Super Bowl's traditional family-friendly commercials for beer, gas-guzzling SUV's, Viagra, horror films and feminine pads!

13 comments:

Bob said...

I'm with you, I won't be watching either. Not out of political protest over the Tebow ad and the lack of Mancrunch, but out of simple, "I don't care."
Still, I am quite mazed that a TV network would air a politcal ad--especially one from as vile a group as the AFA--during a sporting event.
What's next?
Powertool ads during The Tonys!
I won't have it!

Debra She Who Seeks said...

I notice that Anderson Cooper didn't make your Freebie Five list. Was he number 6? Silver hair is sexy!

Totally agree with you about the ads. CBS must be even-handed if it's not going to allow any advocacy ads.

Michael Rivers said...

The advertising is fascinating. I won't be watching either. I don't care about any of it. Some years I've watched the half-time show. Remember Diana Ross flying away in the helicopter?! I almost had a heart attack! I don't even know who's performing this year.

Stan said...

I'm not interested in football at all either and couldn't care less. The ads don't surprise me as football seems to be a mirror of homophobic American culture.

injaynesworld said...

I totally agree with you. It's complete homophobic bullshit. I think they should pull the anti-choice ad or at least be an equal opportunity offender. In other words, if they're going to piss off the left then then should piss off the right, as well.

P.S. I only watch for the Clydesdales.

West End Bob said...

CBS has accepted an anti-abortion ad from Focus on the Family, and refused a gay dating ad from website Mancrunch.com; both are advocacy ads, one on the right and one on the left, so what is going on with CBS?

Must be that "liberal media bias," Brahm - Ha!

Yeah, refuse the gay-dating ad when the main action is guys in tight pants slapping each other's asses. Makes perfect sense to me . . . .

Trooper Thorn said...

I have a pretty good hunch that the CTV broadcast in Canada will not show Tim Tebow's anti-abortion ad but will hit us over the head AGAIN about the Olympics. "Donald Sutherland says the Olympics are coming to Vancouver! Really? I had no idea! Why didn't anybody tell me this?!"

Matthew said...

From what I've heard about the prices necessary to get an ad placed during the Superbowl, I'm amazed that there's even the merest whiff of equal opportunity or even-handedness.

But I'd be the first to admit that the Superbowl is just a big deal somewhere else, as far as my life is concerned - so if I'm talking crap, just say the word. :)

Aunt Juicebox said...

I haven't seen a Superbowl game since I was a kid, and my dad watched them, and even then I didn't really "watch". But this is just like everything these days, the media has to be SO over the top to get people's attention, and they don't care if it's positive or negative attention.

Brahm said...

Interesting how many people arent watching, like me, and are aware of this stuff going on -- maybe is clever controversy PR generation rather than CBS just being inept and homophobic? This Super Bowl seems to be more newsworthy than past years, and as Michael says above I don't even know who is playing the half-time show this year, when in past years have known when was Diana Ross, Rolling Stones, or whoever...

Clare and Gary said...

I will be watching, but I'll be drinking cocktails during the ads and stuffing my face.. apparently the host of the SB party is tryng new cocktail recipes out on us, so I might be too blurry eyed to even see the game ;-)

Dean Grey said...

Brahm!

I didn't watch the Superbowl myself but mainly because I'm not into sports!

I figure if the commercials were really spectacular that they'd be rebroadcast on the next morning's news.

-Dean

Middle Aged Woman said...

Oscar Sunday. Now THAT'S something I can get excited about. Especially, since my hero, Randy Newman has been nominated for TWO songs this year.

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