Since my love of football is well known (and occasionally enough to bridge the yawning chasm between myself and antis) I’ve been getting semi-deluged with e-mails and stuff asking me my opinion on CBS’ decision to run a decidedly anti-leaning ad sponsored by our buddies at Focus On The Family during the Super Bowl. As a pro-choice woman AND as a serious football fan, I think I can shed some light on what may have factored into CBS’ call–and why the ad may not have nearly the impact FOTF is hoping for.
First, the background–the ad features University of Florida quarterback Tim Tebow, winner of last year’s Heismann Trophy (given to the top collegiate football player) and due to go high in the NFL draft this spring, and his mother, Pam, who will tell about how her doctors urged her to end her fifth pregnancy due to complications. She didn’t, and her son grew up to be … well, Tim Tebow. Tebow is a god in Gator Country and the media is seemingly mesmerized by him as well, particularly the Christian media, who drools over him like a ten-year-old girl drools over a Jonas Brother. See, Timmy’s their wet dream. The homeschooled son of missionaries who spends his offseasons giving out circumcisions in the Phillipines and witnessing to alumni groups, he is reasonably handsome and quite articulate about his faith. He’s famous for wearing eyeblack patches with abbrevations of bible verses and made headlines last year for saying that he was a virgin. In the NFL, sullied in recent years by millionaire thugs shooting themselves at nightclubs and running dogfighting operations, Christians hope that Timmy will be a bright light of Murkin Hope. In many areas in the south and west–remember FOTF is based in Colorado Springs–God and football go hand in hand swinging down the lane, so someone like Tim Tebow is, well, a godsend.
I understand why so many are upset about this commercial. I don’t like it either. One of my pet peeves with the antis is their insistence that if you hadn’t so meanly aborted that fetus he–and it’s always a he–would have grown up to cure cancer or bring world peace or lead your team to the national championship, and that’s what they’re going for with this commercial. CBS, who has famously rejected Super Bowl ads for organizations like the United Church of Christ and MoveOn.org, is being considered hypocritical for agreeing to air this ad and I tend to agree with that.
But … where are women’s groups’ outrage about other Super Bowl commercials? I cringe at the annual spot by domain seller GoDaddy.com, which regularly features buxom young women about to burst out of tight button-down blouses (and do burst out of them on the website). Then there’s the Wal-Mart commercials with women delegated to be no more than preparers of the Big Game Day Feast, happily toting out reheated frozen crap to their families. Let’s not even talk about the beer and Cialis commercials.
That being said, however, what FOTF didn’t count on was the negative reaction from NFL fans. As Gregg Doyel of CBSSports.com writes:
Still, I don’t want to see. Not during the damn Super Bowl. And I’m not complaining about the ad because it’s anti-abortion and I’m not. I’m complaining about the ad because it’s pro-politics. And I’m not. Not on Super Sunday. If you’re a sports fan, and I am, that’s the holiest day of the year. That’s a day for five hours of football pregame shows and four hours of football game and three hours of postgame football analysis. That’s a day for football addicts to gorge themselves to the gills on football.
It’s not a day to discuss abortion. For it, against it, I don’t care what you are. On Super Sunday, I don’t care what I am. Feb. 7 is simply not the day to have that discussion.
As the kids say, THIS. Super Bowl Sunday has become a certifiable national holiday–if you don’t believe me go into your local supermarket; I can guarantee that there’s a huge junk food/soda/beer display with football balloons tied to it. I plan more for SBS than I do for Xmas these days. Even though more often than not the game’s a lopsided blowout, hence its occasional nickname of the Stupor Bowl, it’s still the NFL’s last hurrah until late summer. I want to eat bad food and drink beer and yell profanities at the TV and enjoy myself. There’s three hundred and sixty-four other days to dwell on the world’s problems.
There’s also the matter of Tebow still being a college player. Yes, he had a brilliant college career–he won the Heisman as a sophomore, a rarity–but a brilliant college career rarely translates into an equally stellar NFL career, particularly for a quarterback. The Senior Bowl, which serves as a showcase for college players who have declared for the NFL draft, is running this week and there are numerous reports that Tebow has been made of fail, hardly the Superman Florida fans dub him to be. NFL fans, burned one too many times by college phenoms who choke in the pros, are grumbling that the kid needs to prove something before he can inflict his views on us.
A couple of days ago CBS announced that it will consider countering ads. I have also heard rumors that the Tebow commercial will be shown after halftime–just because you cough up $2.5 million for an ad doesn’t mean you get a say in when it plays. The Super Bowl’s ratings historically go WAY down after halftime. That would be kind of karmic, to have spent all that money and had relatively few people see the commercial, but as I said at this point it’s a rumor. In the meantime, my plan is to simply switch to another channel when the ad comes on, and I’ve heard many who are planning to do that as well. If you insist on getting politics into my football I’ll insist on hitting the “last” button on my remote.
So, uh, how’d ya like that Tebow comercial being played in the first half? It was pretty benign with out pro-life undertones. Get off it, lady.
PS-if the Godaddy.com ads bug you so much, then why would you bother following the ad teaser to their website? I’m bothered enough by those smutty comercials to not follow through, but you drank the Koolaid, my feminist friend and for that I am disappointed:-(
I didn’t see the Tebow commercial–as I wrote in the entry the moment I saw it start I went to another channel. It’s been described on enough websites that I got the gist of what it was about, but “benign” as it may have been it was still an ad paid for by a Christian organization known to have strong anti-abortion views. Imagine the screams if Planned Parenthood had done an equally “benign” commercial. It didn’t go unnoticed, either, that the commercial was in the first group played during the game–almost as if an embarrassed CBS just wanted to get the damn thing over with already.
As for GoDaddy, I’ve never been to the website but since it’s blared as being “unrated” I assume there’s some boobage to be seen. I should have made myself more clear on that one, sorry. The point I was trying to make there was that if you flag one ad as being offensive to women you’d better flag them all.
Hi, Patricia
Have not been here for a long while.
Tell me who Tebow is in a year or two when he fades fron the limelight. His fifteen minutes of fame are just about over since he will fail in the pros. No more ads then.
Yes,as a male, I followed GoDaddy to it’s website. GoDaddy and don’t let the door hit you in your ass.Just commercial media promoting nothing.
That’s about the gist of it nowadays. I take nothing seriously from that source. Radio is even worse. It reminds me of the Clinton years and proves a point to me. There was NOTHING clinton could do that the nut jobs would give credit to. Obama has taken that lofty position today. There is NOTHING they will agree to whether it betters our society or not,that Obama proposes. You are either a supporter of wing nut proposals or you are a {pick one} socialist, communist, traitor,or god forbid, a FEMINIST! ZEIG DAMMEN!!!
Long time no see! Welcome back!
It’ll be interesting to see where Tebow goes–it seems that Sam Bradford and Jimmy Clausen are the talk of the draft. I see Tebow going second round at best.
Obama to the wingnuts = Fear of a Brown President.
Thanks! Patricia
I see Tebow going to right wing talk shows. He can’t throw worth a damn in pro football, though I am shure someone will draft him in the second round for P.R. purposes. Clausen will go first, then Bradford
“fear of a Brown President” I recall Clinton as being lilly white and he received the same hatred and vitriol, though I am shure Obama’s color adds to the agenda. I see this as a repeat of what we went through when Clinton President. The opposition have no answer to honest reform and as such, resort to the vulgar vitriol as a reply. I went to Barnes and Noble bookstore today and was amazed at the amount of book titles offered by the mental retards that permeate the radio waves today. Beck, Hannity, Oxy Limbaugh all seem to feel they have something of intelligense to write. Scratch thst! They see $$$$ going into their accounts. Trouble is that people actually pay money to read pure garbage. I would rather invest in Nancy Drew novels.
well I was wrong with clausen vs. bradford.
Lets see what happens in the future.
By the way,did tebow get picked? Missed the later picks in the draft
Dude, he went in the first round. Mel Kiper’s perfectly coiffed head nearly exploded.