I watch NFL games occasionally, but I’m no ardent fan. I’m familiar with some of the players, but I don’t know, nor do I really care to know, most of them. Furthermore, I’ve never cared for the whole corporate NFL image – a carefully crafted but very incongruent mix of conservative martial values and ultra-liberal Political Correctness. And when it comes to the grandiose spectacles that are Super Bowls, I have no interest whatsoever in watching commercials advertising the latest-and-greatest techno-gadgets and other superfluous products of corporate America, and I sure-as-hell am not going to subject myself to the glitzy, cheesy, trashy pop culture extravaganza that is the half-time show. I didn’t even watch Paul McCartney when he performed several years ago.
All that aside, I did want to watch the game this year because of its connection (at least in my mind) to the culture war that is raging in America today. Not that I cared one bit which gang (excuse me: team) won the game. But I did care about how the quarterbacks performed. In football the quarterback is not only the “field general” who directs the fortunes of his team’s offense, but he is often the “face” of the franchise who represents the team’s public image.
