Reflecting on the game

This week I feel I have to take a break from my usual rants about campus politics to address a more important, national issue: what the hell was with the Super Bowl!?

It was the strangest thing: I went to watch “the game,” fully expecting to be more bored than usual with the actual game. It’s hard to choose the lesser of two evils between the Steelers’ Ben “sexual assault” Roethlisberger and the Packers, who, although they have done a great job this year, are still supported by Packers fans (and thus I’ll never stop hearing about their win from friends who love them). Yet the game was great to watch once the Steelers decided to start playing in the second quarter. It was all that was good about the Super Bowl, in fact, because all the extra stuff was an abomination.

It goes without saying that Christina Aguilera skipping two lines of the “National Anthem” is a faux pas she will likely never live down. She definitely messed up, but I sympathize with her. Who hasn’t missed a bullet point on a presentation before? Given the pressure and honor it is to be able to sing our country’s song before the Super Bowl, I won’t mock her for it. The rest of the country is doing an ample job already.

The true musical disappointment, worse than I could have imagined, was the Black Eyed Peas. I’m not alone in wanting a more modern artist (Tom Petty? Really?) to come back to the halftime show since the infamous wardrobe disaster. However, the BEPs failed in the most spectacular, overpaid and over-lighted show I have ever seen. It’s a bad sign when, after four minutes of awful auto-tuned crap being thrown at me under the guise of “music,” I’m begging for someone to turn the auto-tune back on for Fergie. Add to the show that Slash is now dead to me after watching Fergie have her way with him on stage, and there is one halftime show I will never forget. Hopefully nobody else will either, so we have to hear them less often.

The commercials, though, were truly terrible. After being trained for years to talk during the game and go completely silent during the commercials, an onslaught of bad Bud Light, Doritos and Chevy commercials assaulted my senses (sidenote: how could Chevy afford all of those commercials?

Didn’t we just have to prop up America’s car industry?) There were a few highlights, including Roseanne being hit by a log and “Hit ‘em with the Kenny G!” But overall, the commercials this year were a real let-down. Not to say that they were awful—most are better than what we have been used to seeing on television—but they weren’t up to the caliber that I, and the friends I watched this year’s Super Bowl with, have come to expect as an interlude from the game.

While I rant and poke fun at the Super Bowl, I can’t say I didn’t enjoy it. It might not have lived up to the expectations, but the game was enjoyable. Above all, it was a great reason to get together with a bunch of friends, eat a bunch of junk food and have a good time, all of which are more important than commercials letting me down or the Black Eyed Peas continued existence. So, congratulations Packers fans; your team definitely earned it this year.