The Super Bowl as a Family Event

According to Evin Daly, founder and CEO of Child AbuseWatch, "The Super Bowl is a family-oriented show." And for the sake of this piece, I'll allow that statement to go uncontested. So, if the Super Bowl is a family event (as we learned when Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake conspired to flash us a little boob), and we want to protect our children from spontaneous nudity, why don't we want to also protect said children from the violence of the game, overt sexuality and beer ads?

Let's first tackle (no pun intended) the violence on the Super Bowl. One could assert that the game itself is violent and I would agree with that, but the violence associated with the Super Bowl extends to its ads. As cleverly shown in this montage, the ads promote violence and oftentimes outside of the context of any kind of sport.



My argument is not that The Super Bowl is bad or evil or too violent, rather it's a matter of consistency. If children are allegedly unharmed by the violence portrayed in Super Bowl ads, then they are not going to be harmed by the violence in ads on a day-to-day basis.

Now, on to the overt displays of sexuality and the moral outcry that ensued after the infamous "wardrobe malfunction." First, as an adult male who watched the Super Bowl and halftime show, I didn't even know what I saw until after all the pandemonium erupted over a bare breast on television. How was glimpsing what we, at the time thought was Janet's breast any different than watching cheerleaders or the ladies from Victoria's Secret ads? And how would that be any different from showing an ad for a gay dating website?

And lastly, we have beer ads. While no one would consider me to be a prude, the ads promote drinking, which of course our children should be protected from.



Or should they? We never hear any brouhaha over beer ads, or Victoria Secret ads, or violence on the Super Bowl. So, remind me again why we raise a stink about a little boob or this morning why even the sleepy halftime show featuring The (Geriatric) Who is getting flack (because of the 2003 admission by lead guitarist Pete Townshend that he had downloaded sex photos of children onto his computer).