Bow down to thy lord, the Super Bowl

and watch people get pushed around

all hail football (& internalize the metaphor)

The Super Bowl was the most-watched event since the moon landing in 1969. So, let’s talk about what a bunch of freaks we are.

Actually, I don’t watch football—shocker! I’m not trying to come across as sounding superior, just that my hubs doesn’t watch it and we don’t have cable. So, I spent the Super Bowl painting ceramics with my daughter. When I returned home, my husband had figured out how to stream the last two minutes on Amazon Prime for free, and honestly, I tuned in for the gratuitous T-Swift shots.

Also, because I needed to determine if battle-axe-arms Travis Kelce was fit to date America’s favorite sweetheart-cum-tween-girl-therapist.

So I watched the last two minutes, which felt like ten, and holy crap, KillaTrav just broke some guy's shoulder! But no big deal (?) who cares (?) It’s the end of the inning, and TWO games later, apex predator brewery cliché is kissing Taylor Swift on the cover of the New York Times, and… scene.

I like the Super Bowl. I like it because it’s such a cultural experience of ‘Merica. And in ‘Merica, Sundays are for God and football. Never mind that football also comes on Monday and Thursday and maybe sometimes Saturday… Omg, God, I think football might have you beat!!!

OK, so if football is sacrosanct, then the Super Bowl is the Eucharist.

So, lessons:

1. You win, or you lose. That’s it. No other options, sorry!

2. Winner takes all, losers get hurt, and nobody cares about them. 

3. BE 👏 AGGRESSIVE 👏 BE BE 👏 AGGRESSIVE!

4. Speed, spandex, skinny white girls in spray tans, and commercials for garbage food/landfill-shit/violent video games YES, BUT NO NIPPLES, THIS IS A FAMILY SHOW!!!!

5. One guy cheats, and the whole team pays. It’s basically socialism. Followed by more aggression. Tempers flare. T-Swift’s bf is raging! Swifties need smelling salts!

6. What happened to the guy with the hurt shoulder? Nobody cares!

7. Be like this guy:

Hard launch into real life, and now my daughter is crying. Says she had a hard day. Says she’s having a hard time.

And my husband is replying, “Knock it off, you have not!” Because he’s thinking Did you sit in a loader all day pushing snow without a lunch break? If the answer is no, then you’re fine, yah soft, entitled nine-year-old.

And this gets me thinking:

How does football our country treat people when they are at their most vulnerable?

Ice Bed, winner of People’s Choice Award (Atlantic). A polar bear carves out a bed from a small iceberg before drifting off to sleep in the Far North, off Norway’s Svalbard archipelago.

I’ve seen wonderful fathers, sensitive listeners of Brené Brown podcasts, tell their kids to suck it up, they’re fine, and get back in the game. Buck up, buttercup.

Of course, it’s good to get back up! Resilience is important! But not at the expense of invalidating feelings, which leads to desensitization, which leads to a lack of empathy and compassion for others and self, which leads to numbing and drinking culture and workaholic culture, blah-zee-blah-blah.

It’s not dads’ fault, it’s not their father’s father’s fault, it’s not their father’s father’s forefather’s father’s or football’s fault. It’s the culture where kids, boys especially, are taught you get hurt, you suck it up, or get bullied like Marty McFly:

So:

• vulnerability gets slapped.

• if you get pushed over, it’s your own fault.

• being homeless is a crime in some places, as I witnessed while living in San Clemente, California, where cops write homeless people tickets.

• the U.S. is exploiting its poor.

• U.S. spends the most on healthcare and yet has the worst health outcomes of any economically comparable country.

• 1 in 5 children in this country are food insecure

I like—ok, I tolerate—football. I just don’t like how football has become our metaphor. And if you don’t believe me, follow the money.

The more we put that metaphor on blast, the more we internalize it.

Personally, I like this metaphor better. Check out these lionesses tending to their lion cub. 🥰

Shared Parenting, by Mark Boyd, one of winners of People’s Choice: Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2023 (Atlantic). A pair of lionesses groom one of the pride’s five cubs in Kenya’s Maasai Mara.

Also, if Taylor Swift can bring all the Swifties to the yard, then next time I’d like to request she date Greta Thunberg.

Feel free to respond in the comments, but know I’m in a sort of Covid fog. Testing negative but feeling drained, and my family all has it. Sending much love and health to you!

(Fun fact: when you sneeze in Spanish, the first sneeze gets a “¡Salud!” or bless you/health. The second sneeze, you’re supposed to say “¡Dinero!” or money. The third, you say “¡Amor!” or love. If you get all three sneezes, you win at life.)

~Summer