Hear Us Out: Super Bowl Commercials But Without Ads
Picture this: It’s Sunday, you’ve got your favorite Bryan Buckley jersey on, and as you settle into the couch, a delightful, mythical creature appears on your television screen.
“Honey,” you hear yourself tell your wife, “get the kids. It’s happening.”
With a satisfying “clink,” beautifully rendered by a genius Foley artist at the top of their game, the creature grabs a refreshing beverage, and wanders over to a man sitting on a plush leather sofa: “Is this angelic, waddling vision a puppy?” You ask yourself, rapt with delight. “Is it a monkey? Is it a baby?”
No, it’s crass consumerism.
We’ve all experienced the crashing disappointment of watching these platonic forms of high cinematic art known as Super Bowl commercials, only to be reminded that, as with all belles-lettres of the postmodern age, the cost of beauty is to be but cheap, coquettish agitprop for the great dark patron known as corporate profit. Yes, Tina Fey is hilarious, but American Express makes for a poor Amy Poehler. Yes, Sam Elliot can stand juxtaposed with Lil Nas X in a masterfully subtle nod to the rapidly changing cultural norms of the modern Country Western genre but imagine our profound dismay when the salvation this Sergio-Leonian pastiche offers us is not in the form of pure artistic enlightenment, but of Doritos.
We here at Sports Riot long for the day when Tom Hanks and Jerry Seinfeld can appear together during a break in the Super Bowl for no other reason than to titillate and enthrall. We demand two minutes’ time spent gazing at LeBron James drinking a generic lemon-lime carbonated beverage. We demand majestic Clydesdales and firehouse dogs frolicking side by side, not out of an obligation to InBev shareholders, but for the sake of joy.
Until such a world exists, the beauty and purity of Super Bowl commercials will forever live picture-in-picture in our hearts, while we weary aesthetes resign ourselves to watching old clips of The Office on YouTube until the game comes back on.
