Anyone who watches the NFL for more than an hour realizes that football is presented as the national sport, and that the language of war is often employed (grotesquely so) to describe what happens on the field. I'm a fan of sports and athletic prowess as much as any American male, but the Super Bowl raises the usual level of masculinity to an extreme and laughably ridiculous degree--then adds HGH, a big swig of American self-regard and patriotism, objectification of women, and worship of military might.
9/11 has frequently been part of the commemorative aspect of the Super Bowl. Last year, U2 did this:
Budweiser ran this commercial:
Now, before you get all weepy about it, remember, they are selling beer. With the death of 3,000 people.
When the Patriots won the Super Bowl, owner Robert Kraft said, "we are all Patriots."
Nicholas Archer recently wrote his whole dissertation on the topic of NFL films and the "counter subversive" politics they trumpet and circumscribe. Archer writes:
In his work on the use of the male body in Monday Night Football broadcasts during the 1994 season, Trujillo notes that the discourse used to describe the players and their actions on the field often referred to the players as weapons and their actions as military maneuvers.
During the season, players were described as "weapons," "missiles," "shields," ''rockets," "hitting machines," and other instruments of violence. And these "weapons" engaged in an impressive array of offensive and defensive maneuvers. For example, among the terms used by MNF commentators to describe what these offensive and defensive weapons (bodies) did on the football field were attack, blow away, break through, burst, catapult, club, crash, cripple, crunch, decapitate, decimate, destroy, dislodge, dislocate, dismantle, drill, explode, fire, fly, hammer, hit, hurdle, jackhammer, kill, launch, mortar, mug, penetrate, plug, pop, pound, push, ram, rifle, rip, shoot, shred, slam, slash, smash, smoke, snap, shred, spin, stearnroll, tattoo, tomahawk, toss, twist, unload, upend, whack, whip, wound, and wreck.
...Moreover, their analysis reinforces the frame of warfare or pageant of violence that Powers argues made the League the success it is, noting that the “Monday Night Football” broadcasts were introduced with exploding graphics and a theme song that included lyrics “Like a rocket burning through time and space, The NFL’s best star will rock this place...the battle lines are drawn.”
While such findings are important in showing the specific ways NFL broadcasts use militaristic imagery, they do little to tell us what precise political utility these symbols have relative to the larger puzzle of countersubversive elements in the American political tradition. While Trujillo does argue in part that the valuation of militarism the NFL promotes may relate to changes of gender relations and female boundary invasion into male occupations in the 1990s63, such analyses seem insufficient, especially in light of aforementioned demographic findings that females constitute 50 percent of the NFL broadcast audience. What then, does the purpose of pushing militaristic symbolism in NFL broadcasts serve?
The use of militaristic condensation symbols in NFL videography serves the countersubversive agenda by normalizing militarism as a constitutive part of the American experience. In doing so, it prepares the audience for mobilization in times of actual military conflict to more readily accept the binary divisions and fears of alien invasion created by the countersubversive and the appropriateness of military action against them. It may also, in times of actual alien penetration, serve to recharge the legitimacy of the National Security State when its capacity to protect people is brought into question. In essence, the NFL’s use of militaristic symbols helps to personalize military conflicts by allowing viewers to experience the nationalistic fervor of real warfare vicariously by linking it to the viewing of the fictional warfare of pro football.
What if the best way to be patriotic this Sunday is to turn off the television?
I,personally, do find this comparison very interesting.I think that today in our country there are many other ways to be patriotic.I have noticed from my own experiences that many Americans do not value the characteristics that makes them American,makes them who they are.I also think that it is rather sad for many of us to search for events such as a nationwide football game or even 9/11 to acknowledge our patriorchy and Americanism.I believe our pride and American unity should be based upon what we feel inside and how we choose to live our lives as true Americans, rather than relying on television and football players to remind or literally demonstrate what it is to be patriotic.
ReplyDeleteAlthough,I was not born here,I still consider myself to be an American and I do so by staying true to the numerous values that American society has taught me,and no, it was not through watching the Super Bowl.
Thanks for checking in, Sona. I'd be curious to hear what American values you hold to be most important.
ReplyDeleteWatching the Super Bowl this year, I found very little in the way of militarism, except for a commercial for a film; apparently the halftime show was peace-themed, and even a beer commercial heralded that "the war is over" (though it was WWII, the only "real war"). So perhaps the zeitgeist has changed. Americans, according to the marketers, may be tired of war, after ten years of it.
Well, it's not just football that is framed in military terms. I remember when my son was young and much enamored of guns and depictions of violence. It was hard to listen to the radio, much less watch any TV without being "bombarded" by military metaphors. It is a useful exercise to catalog the military metaphors one encounters in an average week.
ReplyDeleteI watched all the videos and even followed one to this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&feature=endscreen&v=sUgf9HG8EyA
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, I'd like to say Lea Michele is amazing and also my hero. Second, I think it's important to recognize the difference between militarizing an event and simply showing pride in our country and armed forces. As a cadet, I see nothing wrong with having a flyover at the Superbowl or singing a patriotic song. I don't necessarily see anything particularly patriotic about football, but I can see how it is distinctly American, and how there is unity in teamwork. However, I am adamantly against the idea of playing on peoples emotions from 9/11 to sell beer. I find that ridiculous and kind of disgusting. It's funny, I'd rather see the objectification of women in slutty t-shirts drinking Budweiser than watch a company try to manipulate the memory of the twin towers. But that's just me, I guess. Lesser of evils. For some reason, U2 scrolling the names of KIAs bothers me, too. Those people are Heroes, and pop culture simply doesn't do them justice. I don't feel it's the appropriate way to honor them.
i believe that football is a game and is largely unrelated to warfare even though they mention the latter during the former for the nature of both entities are the same. football is just a violent sport and always has been. just as nations have use propaganda to destabilize their opposition. but the fact that they are combined during the superbowl is not all that surprising. so in conclusion the the size of the audience that views the superbowl is too large for the government to not try and use it for propaganda.
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