Super Bowl XXXVI

Super Bowl XXXVI, nearly unhyped and more anticipated for the patriotic spectacle that surrounded it, ended up being that one thing that no amount of pregame entertainment programming can ensure but that everyone wants desperately: a terrific game. For most of the game, the St. Louis Rams' plethora of offensive superstars, led by quarterback Kurt Warner and running back Marshall Faulk, were stymied by the subtle shifting and fearless, full-speed play of the New England Patriots' defense. The underdog Patriots, in fact, took a commanding lead by forcing Warner and the Rams to turn the ball over and cashing in on the resulting advantageous field positions.

The Rams came storming back after what would have been a fumble return for a Patriots touchdown was nullified by a penalty, and tied the game on Warner's gutty passing, even as the quarterback's thumb bothered him more and more. But without timeouts and a minute and forty-one seconds left to play, Patriot quarterback Tom Brady led an amazing tightrope walk of a drive to set up a field goal by kicker Adam Vinateri as time ran out. Patriots, 20-17. It was the greatest Super Bowl of my lifetime.

It was fitting that the Patriots won, because this year the NFL and Fox Sports decided to transform the bowl a celebration of "Hope, Heroes and Homeland," as the official slogan went. Football draws war metaphors to it with numbing regularity, but our combatants in Kandahar did not appear to be put off by the similarity; Fox's cutaways to them showed heartfelt enjoyment and gratitude at being able to watch this American ritual. Various players recorded spots to express how much they appreciate our armed forces' valor and generosity, and they spoke for all of us. (Even if you don't approve of the war, the men and women on the ground have given much to our country.) These were nice ways to show how America was brought together by what ended up being a terrific struggle and a glorious victory for, uh, New England.

Of course, if you were tired of the tasteful evocations of a people united by war and football, there were plenty of overblown spectacles. These included numerous processions of singers reeling off patriotic songs with phalanxes of dancers in the background, a disjointed clause-by-clause reading of the Declaration of Independence by former football greats, and Aaron Copland's Lincoln Portrait with narration from four former presidents and Nancy Reagan. (Super Bowl XXXVI was designated a National Special Security Event, partially due to the presence of these former presidents. Nothing happened; I guess Bill Belichick really is a defensive genius.) Mariah Carey sang the national anthem in what for her qualifies as a demure dress, delivering unremarkable vocal pyrotechnics.

Halftime brought E*Trade, hemorrhaging money but still contractually obligated to sponsor the entertainment. This was U2, performing what ended up being a memorial concert for the victims of Sept. 11, as their names were projected on a diaphanous screen raised behind the band in a temporary Vietnam Veterans Memorial effect. It was impossible to avoid being stirred, particularly as U2 showed their expertise in filling and rocking a stadium.

Most of these patriotic spectaculars were effective in their own way, especially the halftime show and the Lincoln Portrait, which revels in being inflated beyond all reasonable proportion. But the nearly-uninterrupted flag-waving - you got the impression that the football was a necessary evil, at least until the Pats started surprising people - had a corrosive effect; you wanted to find the programming executives in charge and educate them about America's sketchy last half-century of foreign policy, or about the devious machinations of the capitalist machine - anything to stop the mob from agreeing with itself, ferociously and repeatedly.

As befits a recessionary economy, the commercials cost a bit less than they have in recent years, and for the most part they were unimpressive. Many companies, including Budweiser, Taco Bell, Volkswagen and almost all the movie studios, relied on previously shown material. Of the premierers, the only advertisers that distinguished themselves were Bud Light, with two extremely funny spots, one featuring Bernie Mac helping a friend get his bar pickup on and one featuring a very thirsty owl, and the Office of National Drug Control Policy, which noted that profits from drug sales often go to support terrorist activities in spots that were all the more shocking for their understatement.

On the demerit side, Pepsi debuted much-hyped Britney Spears "Generations" spot, in which the well-constructed teen popster takes a clothes-guided tour through history. No matter how many outfits you dress Britney Spears up in, she can't sing in any of them, and seeing her fully dressed in garb from less-liberated times makes that even more obvious. Quizno's new ads, involving guillotines and tranq darts, were bizarrely mean-spirited and offputting.

The patriotic fervor even extended to the advertisements. Budweiser contributed a unfortunate, maudlin spot in which the Clydesdales took a tour of Ellis Island and bowed to the hole in the skyline where the World Trade Center used to be; Monster.com underwrote Rudolph Giuliani's tribute to America, in which he said nothing that he hasn't already said in non-Super Bowl venues.

For better or worse, Patriots owner Robert Kraft summed up the proceedings after the game: "Spirituality, faith and democracy are the cornerstones of our country. We are all patriots. And tonight the Patriots are the world champions!" The entertainment was lavish, occasionally thrilling, and occasionally embarrassing, but thankfully it couldn't take anything away from a game for the ages.

Most of the time, you can write a lead to something like this before it actually happens, and that is exactly what I did here, since I knew that I would be at Cole Field House watching the Maryland Terrapins men's basketball team crush the North Carolina State Wolfpack for the first half of the Super Bowl, and I would have to review my videotape in order to review the game. But my lead ended up being unusable, since I had predicted that the game would be completely uninteresting. The brackets indicate parts I would have edited had I used the lead.

"Football," George F. Will once wrote, "incorporates the two worst elements of American society: violence punctuated by committee meetings." As true as that is, Will forgot something else: Among the four major sports in this country, football is the only one which is not played and loved around the world. Most of the non-American nations give far more attention and devotion to the game more naturally termed football, the one we call soccer. Though the Super Bowl is watched from Australia to Zaire, one has to wonder why the NFL championship would matter to people who couldn't care less about the nineteen weeks of football that preceded it. Perhaps sending the Super Bowl all over the world is an example of our unilateral athletic policy.

Normally, this would just be another humorous example of American indifference to the rest of humanity. But this year, the NFL and Fox Sports decided to transform Super Bowl XXXVI (hey, at least the numbering is foreign). from a mere commercial orgy into a celebration of "Hope, Heroes and Homeland," as the official slogan goes. In addition to serving as the nation's yearly commercial orgy, the game this year also celebrated [[[slogan]]] [something about this being America's celebration of what is obviously America's war etc.]

The Super Bowl should be about the football first and foremost, in the same sense that presidential campaigns should be decided based on the candidates' stands on the issues and not on which of two rich white men seems more in touch with the common man. And in fact the pregame hype was mainly focused on the football, to the extent that there was any pregame hype at all

But the people who watched the extravaganza to see the St. Louis Rams and New England Patriots duke it out on the artificial turf for the championship were undoubtedly way outnumbered by those who watched for the newly-minted commercials, the [[[surreptitiously]]] patriotic halftime show, or (heaven forfend) Emmitt Smith reading the Declaration of Independence. What did they see?

I guess I, too, owe the New England Patriots an apology.

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