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The only time I look forward to watching commercials is during the Super Bowl. This year wasn’t any different, and the commercials didn’t disappoint.
The Doritos commercials – especially those with the little boy defending his mom, the ninja and the revenge-seeking dog had me doubled over on the couch.
The Super Bowl ad spots are usually the most expensive to fill. Last year, NBC charged a whopping $3 million for a 30-second commercial.
CBS Chief Executive Leslie Moonves told CNN they were selling ad slots this year ranging from $2.5 million to $3 million. The Super Bowl has one of the largest audiences, according to The Nielsen Company, with 98.7 million people watching the Steelers beat the Cardinals last year.
Every year they seem to get a little raunchier, which is ironic considering the NFL flipped its lid over Janet Jackson’s exposure in 2004, arguing that the Super Bowl is family-oriented programming.
Not so much that the network refused to air commercials featuring men and women in their underwear, however, like the Dockers and CareerBuilder commercial.
All hilarity aside, I thought they were a little disturbing.
Some of the other commercials had me taken aback as well. What was with all the female bashing this year?
Ads like the Dodge Charger commercial that emphasized women who suck the life out of men’s dreams so much that their last chance at happiness is getting to drive a Dodge Charger? Or the FLOTV commercial that featured a woman rendering a guy "spineless" as he accompanies her shopping?
While the Super Bowl has a target audience made up primarily of men, women enjoy sports, too. It was disappointing to see how advertisers think men feel about women.
I was waiting to see the commercial featuring Tim Tebow, sponsored by Focus on the Family, which created a lot of controversy a few weeks prior to the game.
CBS agreed to air the commercial that focuses on the issue of abortion. What I did not see was anything referring to the advocating of anti-abortion that everyone was so distraught over.
The only way people knew that it hinted at denouncing abortion was because of the controversy surrounding it.
I don’t see where the arguments about denying the commercial can hold any validity. The First Amendment pretty much throws them out the window.
What I do have a problem with is that guy who sits behind a desk at CBS and makes the decision as to what gets aired and what doesn’t.
There were several commercials this year that didn’t make the cut. One of them was an advertisement for a gay male dating site called ManCrunch.
According to ABC World News, this isn’t the first time CBS has denied air time to those supporting the right to free love.
In 2004, an ad by the United Church of Christ promoting the inclusion of gays and lesbians in their congregation who felt cast away by other conservative churches was rejected by the network.
How can one man or one committee decide what we can and cannot see? I think this is different from the Federal Communications Commission determining whether or not something is inappropriate for viewers.
If a commercial with a chorus of men climbing a hill singing about not wearing pants isn’t considered inappropriate, I am pretty sure an intimate moment between two men wouldn’t be over the line.
The only thing that governs the decisions made by mass media conglomerates are business ethics and, of course, the Federal FCC.
This doesn’t fair well for those of us who expect those corporations to give us balanced views so we have the information to make our own judgment calls; not giving them the room to make those calls for us.
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