Super Bowl LII: Touchdowns for Movie Fans

So we’ve survived another Super Bowl Sunday, one that was more exciting than most. No, I’m not much of a football fan, though I like to look in on big national sporting events from time to time. Like most people, I generally find myself rooting for the underdog, and so the victory of the Philadelphia Eagles—following lots of twists and turns on the field—of course appealed to my sense of drama. (I especially liked the sleight of hand that had Eagles replacement quarterback Nick Foles sneaking the pigskin into the possession of a teammate, then moving down the field to catch the pass and run it into the end zone for a touchdown.) 

The Eagles’ victory, the team’s first national championship since 1960, also served to remind me of one of my favorite recent movies, David O. Russell’s 2012 domestic comedy, Silver Linings Playbook. If you’ve seen the film you remember the dynamic within the Philadelphia household of a troubled young man, Pat Solitano (Bradley Cooper), who has managed to extricate himself from a mental institution and come home in search of his estranged wife. His father, Pat Sr. (played by a predictably intense Robert De Niro) rules the roost, and the focus of his energies is the local football team. This means the entire family unit must wear Eagles jerseys, participate in earnest pre-game rituals, and otherwise ensure good luck for the team. Things come to a head during an outing to Lincoln Financial Field for a home game. The famously rabid Eagles fans are out in force, well-lubricated and slathered in green paint, to cheer on their boys. Inevitably, the younger Pat gets into a fracas with some especially obnoxious (and racist) fans, and is hauled off by the cops. Which leads Pat’s father to make a bet (or “parlay”) he cannot afford to lose. Somehow it all ends on a positive note, having proven that sports fanatics and romance fanatics are not so very different after all. (Especially when there’s a cagey but complicated young woman like Jennifer Lawrence’s Tiffany around.)

A surprising number of people tune in to the Super Bowl for its commercials, and as always I was struck by the number of elaborate Hollywood-related ads that popped up on my TV screen. A new twist was the Netflix gimmick of surprising viewers with the news that a new sci fi film, The Cloverfield Paradox, would screen immediately after the game. (I didn’t watch it, but commentators seemed to agree that the industry was trying to hustle out this follow-up to the well-received Cloverfield before word got out that the film was pretty bad.) Some lively ads used familiar actors in unexpected ways – like Peter Dinklage and Morgan Freeman rapping on behalf of a new Doritos flavor, and Rebel Wilson and a Hannibal Lecter-ish Anthony Hopkins (among others) replacing the voice of Alexa. Elsewhere, Jeff Goldblum relived Jurassic Park’s scary T-Rex chase (complete with John Williams music) in a commercial for Jeep. Quite amusing was an apparent movie promo, featuring Danny McBride and Chris Hemsworth introducing what seems to be a Son of Crocodile Dundee flick. McBride’s dressed for the part of Dundee’s offspring, and he covers a lot of terrain before realizing the truth: “It’s not a movie. It’s a commercial.” Yes, this spot promoting Australian tourism makes its point about the charms of the land down under, with tongue firmly in cheek. 

 But I can’t say I feel good about the sonorous voice of the Reverend Martin Luther King essentially shilling for Dodge Ram trucks. Does King’s 50-year legacy deserve this?

Here's a compilation of some of the most memorable 2018 Super Bowl commercials:

  

Pete Seeger -- Musical Superman -- and the Super Bowl

When I think of Pete Seeger, I don’t think of movies. His impact was best felt in person: a guy with a banjo spreading the word about the dignity of work, the value of freedom, the horror of war, the desperate need to make the world a better place. Or, as one of his most famous songs would have it, to contribute to the “love between my brothers and my sisters . . . a-a-a-all over this land.”  

 Pete Seeger roamed the country, singing for whoever would listen, and encouraging folks to join in on the chorus. Some friends of mine once had a big adventure that speaks to Seeger’s creative activism. A New Yorker by birth, he was deploring the sorry state of the Hudson River. So in 1966 he commissioned a replica of a 19^th century sloop, christened it the Clearwater, then gathered a group of young musicians to sail it up and down the river, singing traditional sea chanties along the way. The sloop still exists, as does Seeger’s annual music and environmental festival, the Great Hudson River Revival.

But though Seeger was best savored by live crowds, he couldn’t be everywhere at once (though he sometimes seemed so). Which is why many know him mostly through his media appearances. One such was 1967’s Festival, an Oscar-nominated documentary that chronicles performances at the famous Newport Folk Festival from 1963 through 1965. Seeger was very much in evidence, especially backstage at the notorious 1965 appearance of Bob Dylan, who chose to segue from traditional acoustic music to electric rock. The camera captures Seeger’s disapproval, though he may have been speaking more to the quality of the sound than to Dylan’s musical choices when he told audio technicians, “If I had an axe, I'd chop the microphone cable right now.” Dylan’s apparent betrayal of the folk music ethos adds drama to the documentary, which was soon followed by such major concert films as Monterey Pop (1968) and Woodstock (1970).

 Also in 1967, Seeger validated his anti-war credentials on the popular Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour by singing “Waist Deep in the Big Muddy,” a song obviously referring to the dangerous escalation of the Vietnam War. His performance was snipped by the CBS brass, not the first time Seeger was treated as a serious social threat. But years later he received a Kennedy Center honor, and led Woody Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Land” at the inaugural concert of Barack Obama. I don’t recall him being mentioned in Inside Llewyn Davis, but every folk musician portrayed in that film would surely consider Pete Seeger a mentor and an inspiration.

Like Pete Seeger, the Super Bowl has owed much to mass media. It debuted in 1967, by which time most American households owned color TV sets. As we’ll surely see this Sunday, when Super Bowl XLVIII kicks off in New Jersey, the merger of sports and showbiz is part of the whole point. Among the elaborate commercials planned for this year, at least one will promote an upcoming movie, Muppets Most Wanted. (Presumably Pete Seeger was never asked to do a halftime show.)

 Personally, I prefer folk music to football, and so I have not seen many movies with gridiron settings. I do remember Alan Alda playing George Plimpton, the journalist who made an unlikely neophyte quarterback in Paper Lion, but I never watched Burt Reynolds’ Semi-Tough, nor the Friday Night Lights film and spinoff TV series. I’ve survived, though, the corniest football movie of them all, Knute Rockne All American, with a dying Ronald Reagan heroically urging his teammates to win one for the Gipper.   

Super Bowl XLVII: Bowled Over by the Red, White, and Blue

I’m not what you’d call a pro football fan. Still, I felt obliged to watch last weekend’s Super Bowl XLVII. After all, the Super Bowl is a huge part of our national media life, far more important to many Americans than the inauguration of a President.

You could even say that the Super Bowl encapsulates an All-American religion, one based on a blend of piety, capitalism, patriotism, and star power. (All, of course, providing a backdrop for the most brutal sort of athletic competition, in which hugely muscled men try to crush one another.) Since the USA is alone among nations in preferring football to soccer, a championship game is a fundamentally American celebration.

Perhaps that’s why such emphasis is placed on the singing of the Star Spangled Banner at the start of the game. This year’s soloist, Alicia Keys, was seated behind her white piano on a dais painted to mirror the National Football League’s star-spangled logo. Keys’ rendition of the National Anthem was both respectful and soulful, ending in a heartfelt reminder that we’re “livin’ in the home of the brave.” She was followed by a real lump-in-the-throat moment: Jennifer Hudson fronting a choir of grade school youngsters from Sandy Hook Elementary School, all of them crooning “America the Beautiful.” Each sported a green ribbon to memorialize classmates slain by a shooter last December. Camera cutaways to the players and coaches during these songs solidified the impression that the combatants were patriotic men, deeply moved by all the flag-waving. (Commentators chose not to dwell on the fact that Ray Lewis, a leader of the victorious Baltimore Ravens, was in 2000 indicted on charges of murder and aggravated assault, following a brawl that came out of a Super Bowl party. A plea bargain let him off with a misdemeanor.)

Television has made the Super Bowl possible, and it’s the home audience -- much more than the folks filling the stands in New Orleans -– at whom much of the hoopla seems to be aimed. The Super Bowl’s famous commercials are a dramatic, not to mention costly, way in which advertisers hawk their products to those of us sitting at home, munching chicken wings in front of our big-screen TVs.

I saw the intermingling of patriotism and commerce most clearly in the evening’s various car ads. Some promised adventure and opportunities for personal bravery (e.g. Audi’s focus on a kid who borrows his father’s car to go dateless to the prom, as well as the Mercedes Benz ad in which the devil tempts a young man with the promise of a very cool ride). But –- perhaps because of the U.S. government’s bailout of the domestic auto industry -- several commercials for American-made vehicles doubled as testimonials for the American way of life. One beautifully crafted black-and-white spot, which opened with a quote from Oprah Winfrey, was a montage showing soldiers returning home to their loving families. Only at the very end did we recognize this as an ad selling Jeeps (while also paying tribute to the USO). An equally artful ad for the Dodge Ram truck solemnly elevated farmers into saints, intoning “So God made a farmer,” before signing off with a salute “to the farmer in all of us.”

Then there was the game’s halftime show, featuring a stunning Hollywood diva, Beyoncé, clad in a few shreds of black leather. Some of the special effects in her act, including kaleidoscopic overhead shots à la Busby Berkeley, were obviously aimed at TV viewers. Beyoncé’s performance hardly inspired pious thoughts, but sex appeal seems part of the American religion too.