So, yesterday was the Super Bowl. Normally I stay as far away as possible from overhyped sporting events, but I was shopping in Target and they had every TV in their electronics department tuned to The Big Game (and turned up excruciatingly loud), so I couldn’t completely avoid it. Although I wasn’t really paying attention to what was going on, I did hear one of the announcers say that Paul McCartney would be playing during the halftime show. As a Beatles fan from way back (albeit one who, were she to make a Top Five list of her favorite Beatles, would place Paul at number five, right behind Stu Sutcliffe) I thought I’d check it out, if only for nostalgia’s sake.
I got home and turned on the TV just in time to see Sir Paul begin his set. It was kinda weird…everything was so note-perfect that I felt like I was watching a performance of Beatlemania, except it was so perfunctory that it wasn’t even as good as Beatlemania.
What it was, of course, was safe. The hoi polloi love Paul for the same reasons that I dislike him: he’s inoffensive and bland. And we all know that he was chosen for just those qualities, because we all know what happened at last year’s halftime show: blah blah Janet blah blah wardrobe malfunction blah blah the world is going to end because little Billy saw a boob and because female sexuality is EVIL EVIL EVIL.
That’s already a more thorough analysis of Hootergate than I ever wanted to engage in, so let me get to my point. Just after the halftime show, and before I could get away from the dinner I was making to change the channel, there was some sort of football montage that was set to U2’s “Sunday Bloody Sunday”. Okay, I get it: they play football on Sunday and it’s a violent contact sport. Cute. And completely, utterly appalling. For anyone who’s unaware, “Sunday Bloody Sunday” commemorates the murder of 14 unarmed Irish protesters by British soldiers in 1972. More than that, it’s a clarion call for an end to sectarian bloodshed in Ireland, and by extension anywhere that enmity breeds violence. In so many ways it was so very inappropriate to use that song that way, especially given the continued US military presence in Iraq and the fact that we’ll probably never know the number of innocent Iraqi civilians killed by US soldiers. I was, as I said, appalled, appalled and offended, as an Irish-American, as an American, as just a person with any kind of awareness and sensitivity.
If the people who were in an uproar over seeing a female breast on TV for half a second had any true sense of righteousness, as well as even a modicum of political and historical awareness, the phrase “wardrobe malfunction” would never have entered the lexicon, and the hue and cry over this would be deafening.
You’ll note that it’s not.
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3 comments:
Yeah, I noticed that, and I agree with you, but I guess I'm too jaded to be offended. Songs are misused that way so often. Or just not listened to carefully, if you remember how your buddy Springsteen's "Born in the USA" was taken to be a paean to patriotism in the mid-'80s, by those who never listened to the lyrics closly enough to see it was really an embittered song about Viet Nam. (From what I read at the time, that included many who paid to attend the Boss' concerts. Sad.)
-nkl
I watched the same bit for the same reasons!
I think my reaction to the song might be midway between yours and Mr. Lucas's. My jaw slacked in disbelief, my brows were knitted with offense, and I felt vaguely nauseous.
But then, once it was over? I put it out of my mind. Just like the many many other sounds and images that disgust me daily. Then I watched the Home and Garden Network.
I may not have the best coping mechanisms.
Dude, are you kidding? HGTV is an excellent coping mechanism. I like the shows where people shop for houses.
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