Superbowl Commercializes Violence

There's a disturbing trend among advertisers for this years Superbowl. Traditionally, companies who pay the outrageous fees for advertising during the Superbowl bring out their best commercials because this is probably the most widely watched "regularly scheduled" show in the world. Estimates from last year say that almost 100 million people— that's about one out of every three people in the US— watched at least part of the game last year. But this year, and I'm gonna check to see about the last few years, the ads have gotten particularly violent.

EA Sports has an ad for their game "Dante's Inferno" and at the end of the ad (which was rejected by CBS), they have the words "Go to Hell" written across the screen. (They've changed the ad to one that is supposed to say "Hell Awaits".)

HomeAway is using the "Griswolds", the family from National Lampoon's "Vacation" movies. You know, the ones who dragged a dog to death behind the car for miles and tied a dead Aunt Edna to a rocking chair on the roof. I know, they're spoofs. They're supposed to be outrageous. That's fine if you're on at 11 p.m. at night when young kids are sleeping. But when you put that kind of "humor" in front of young kids, your blur the line between reality and fantasy— a line that's already blurry for most children anyway. (See an article I wrote called "Prescription of Poison" or my earlier Hubpage called "Blurring the Lines".)

Coke has decided to use the Simpsons in their ad. There's absolutely nothing I like about the Simpsons except for perhaps Lisa. But the preview of the ad shows everyone taking Mr. Burn's possessions from him, making fun of him for going broke and losing his home, which is picked up by three large helicopters and carted off. Perhaps this underlines the feeling of frustration among many Americans who have lost or are in danger of losing their homes while the multi-millionaire execs who caused the financial crisis are sitting in their mansions and flying off to exotic vacations. But with Mr. Burns, why not kick 'em while he's down. That's the American way!

kgb (the text messaging answers people, not the former Soviet Union secret police) submitted an ad that was rejected (but you can still watch it) that shows two golfers literally walking around with their head up their asses. But don't worry! kgb came back with another ad featuring two of the Baldwin brothers up in an airplane with one parachute. The one who has to search the web for an answer steals the chute and jumps out of the plane, ostensibly leaving his brother to die when it crashed at the end (which we don't get to see).

GoDaddy also had an ad rejected. In the ad, an effeminate football player designs lingerie after retiring. "Lola" portrays all the negative stereotypes of a gay man, although they also make him black and obese as well. One has to wonder if there are underlyng racist tones. The ad that CBS approved for GoDaddy features spokesperson Danica Patrick's and falls back to the old standard "sex sells". This time the "buyers" are two "nerdy" young adult males who have nothing better to do than to look up domain names that begin with "smoking hot" and end in them apparently having a premature ejaculation.

Volkswagen's commercial will apparently introduce an entire new generation to the "punch buggy" game. Except they're going to extend it to all their vehicles, not just the VW Bug. Punch buggy is one of those mindless games where, for no reason, one just hauls off and hits the person next to you. Kids play them all the time. Mine did. They'd come home with bloody knuckles or brush burns or bruises from one of these games that teaches kids it's okay to hit "just for fun."

There's a bit of hypocrisy going around the CBS offices. While they're more than willing to show a soaking wet Danica Patrick fulfilling the fantasies of two straight males, when Man Crunch, a dating service for gay men, tried to get an ad on that features a tender moment between two gay men that turns into a passionate kiss, the ad was rejected. CBS's reasons were vague but there's no denying it was, in part, discriminatory against gays given the level of heterosexual kissing (and more) that's on CBS at all hours of the day.

Five years ago, CBS rejected an ad by the United Church of Christ that suggested that churches should be free of discrimination. (UCC was one of the first mainstream Christian churches to allow gay marriage.) CBS claimed it has a long standing policy against advocacy commercials. (I'm sorry, but the irony is just too much. What is a commercial but an advocacy for the product that's being advertised?) However, this year, CBS accepted an ad that was put out by Focus on the Family, perhaps their largest religious organization in the world and definitely anti-gay. The ad, insists an FOF spokesperson, is nothing more than a story about a mother's love for her son who grew up to be an outstanding football player. However, the ad tells the story of how doctor's advised the mother to terminate her pregnancy and how she refused. The implication is very clear: if she'd chosen an abortion, Tim Tebow would not have been a 2009 Heisman trophy finalist. But FOF apparently got around the "advocacy" policy by not mentioning the words "pro-life" or "abortion" in the ad. This deception and sneaking through loopholes from an organization that is supposed to represent "morality" is rather disturbing. Not unexpected, but disturbing none the less, because CBS is allowing it o happen.

But to me, the most troublesome ads are the ones for Doritos— commercials that were made and voted on by average Joes and Janes. Five of the six ads make fun of violence. One makes light of domestic violence by having a black child smack his mothers date across the face for touching his Doritos, one has a senior citizen tasing someone and then ignoring his victims helpless throes, one shows two guys trying to make the other "flinch" by hitting each other, one shows a deranged "dorito man" using the triangular shaped snack as a sort of throwing star and one has a human putting an anti-barking collar on a dog and then telling the dog to speak, after which the dog turns the tables and puts the collar on the man and proceeds to shock him just for the hell of it. What's disturbing about these ads is that a.) they demonstrate the mentality of the general public and b.) 83% of the ads make light of some form of abuse or violent crime, which simply goes to show how popular violence is in our society.

I stopped buying Dr. Pepper many years ago when one of their commercials sent the message that stealing and manipulation were perfectly okay things to do and I haven't bought a Dr. Pepper since. I stopped shopping at Wal-Mart five years ago because of their business practices and their discriminatory hiring/pay scales. And now I'm gonna stop buying Doritos as well, which sucks because I really like them. I may even decide to stop buying Pepsi, Dorito's parent company. I know it's only a drop in the bucket, but if there's enough drops, the bucket will fill. Drop with me, why don't you?