Superbowl Commercials - not just product, but content: by Nina

I was at the gym yesterday, wondering if I should just listen to music or if there was something decent on television (not an entirely laughable concept, I assure you). Two of the televisions were tuned to a sports network. I’m not a fan of watching sports, but I was fascinated by the program they had on. It wasn’t so much of a program as one long advertisement – a show highlighting the top superbowl commercials. The sports announcers discussed them after, and had some of the scantily-clad women in some of the commercials on their show to talk about what it was like... let me see, what was it that guy said? Something like “what is it like to have more people interested in watching you than in the superbowl itself?” accompanied by that douchebag smile plastered on many a jock that seems to stick with them for life. I don’t want to sound like an annoying angry feminist, but you know the typical women they have to sell sex with the product – fake, brainless, and so on. It’s always fascinated me that men want their women to objectify themselves – not even to be sexy, but to remove any trace of actual personhood so that they are used strictly as a sexual release. There is no desire for connection in these men, and perhaps they are incapable of such a thing. Anyways, that’s a topic for another rant...
There is no longer a difference between content and advertising, between having some substantial storyline/show/whatever have you and the selling of a product. The sports announcers were comparing the commercials, and rating which ones were the best, etcetc in typical competitive fashion. In this sense, advertising can then replace the need for sports entirely. While for a long time sporting events and famous individuals have been sponsored by big corporations, there still remained a more important element in the equation: the game itself. Fans were not cheering for Pepsi or Coke, or Nike or whatever else, but for a team, for a player, for an idea. This idea is very malleable though, and increasingly a famous individual is associated with a brand. It has to happen that sooner or later we won’t be congratulating players on their skills, but on their Nike shoes which helped them to run better, which have been proven to be the top shoe compared to all the other contenders, and etc. It won’t be players vs a different team, but Adidas versus Nike.
Already, we seem to have skipped that step and accepted corporate entities as being on equal or more equal footing than are human beings. The Super Bowl demonstrates that commercials can literally replace players in a different kind of game, but a game that one can easily get excited for. It’s interesting to me that we are able to have an hour-long program in which we do nothing but watch commercials, and we make it something that is a pleasurable experience – it is not simply a company trying to manipulate you into wanting their products, it’s a lifestyle choice urging you that they have the answer to any problems concerning identity (drink Coke and you will be happy and be surrounded by good-looking women, and so on) and that they’re playing a fair, competitive game when they’re reaching out to you.
I think it’s sad, that we’ve reached a state where the only choices we seem to have are between this brand or another, and we are made to believe that this “fair” system allows for real choice and allows for us to obtain purposeful, meaningful lives associated with whatever brand does the best job of psychologically manipulating us. The truth is that, if this is the only way we are able to make choices in our lives, we have absolutely no choice at all – the corporate entity will own our thoughts, desires, and influence whatever it is we want to buy next.
Not really a new line of thinking, but that stupid television “show” had an impact on me.