Intellectual Defenestration

Super Bowl, Lame Accoutrements

This comment by Jonah Goldberg at The Corner summed up nicely what I thought about the Super Bowl controversy:

...here's the thing. Shocking the sensibilities of the bourgeoisie is so old. The people who thought Janet's boob-watch moment was a good idea -- beforehand or afterwards -- almost surely didn't actually enjoy the spectacle themselves. What appeals to them is the idea of shocking other people. Clearly, they weren't shocked -- enjoyably or otherwise -- by seeing Janet's tassledness. They're used to such displays. No, what was cool about it was that it would offend the sensibilities of fuddy-duddies. This sort of thing is the source of a vast, vast amount of bad "art," music, fiction etc. The value of a song or a video is measured not by its creativity or excellence, but by its ability to elicit the desired response from the other side. This sort of thing is so unimpressive. It's tired, it's played-out, it's Madonna. So I'm fine with being might peeved with CBS. But let's not forget to mention that part of their mistake was being predictably banal.

Perhaps I should have some greater moral outrage to middle-school humor and taste of both the advertisements and half-time show. But my stronger sense is that I just don't want to watch the Super Bowl next year. It's, well, unappealing.

The Super Bowl is the one football game a year that I am highly likely to see. But that is largely because I enjoy hanging out with friends and family during the game. And last night we had a great time with our neighbors. For next year, though, I can think of plenty of other enjoyable things to do with folks rather than being subjected to ... uhh ... "male performance" ads (I really don't want Google indexing me for that subject) and lame MTV attempts to shock me.

February 2, 2004 12:11 PM