Football and the Super Bowl
Knowing I had this assignment to complete, I was planning on watching the Super Bowl ... alone. Then I got invited to a Super Bowl party and I could not refuse the opportunity to go out and socialize with my friends. I was sick the past week and was starved for some human contact. I am not really a football fan, but this was Super Bowl Sunday, one of the biggest parties of the year. So I went to my friend's house, armed with my notebook, and was ready to analyze the game. Soon, more and more people showed up. They were all male, all college students, and all athletes. I do not think I need to explain much of what happened, but I will say this; I did not hear what the sportscasters had to say and we were all more entertained by the commercials, snowball fights, and the new puppy than we were by the football game. To quote Linda Fuller, "The game itself is oftentimes hardly the point; rather, it is the parties, the people, and ... the products surrounding it." (Fuller 165) So I lived the Super Bowl experience, and for the rhetoric analysis I went to see the film Any Given Sunday. Shailer Mathews, dean of the Chicago Divinity School once said, "Football today is a social obsession.
The beer advertisements, as well as the other commercials, are targeting men as their audience. Studies say that women's shelters are their busiest on Super Bowl Sunday. As the instant replay is showing the star quarterback getting injured over and over again, the sportscasters say, "let's see that again," "that gives you a sickening feeling in the pit of your stomach," and, "the dynasty is in trouble". In addition to the violence of football, there is a lot of sexist oppression going on as well. In Any Given Sunday mostly all of the women are portrayed as sluts or drunks. The sportscasters in the film crack derogatory jokes about their ex-wives. The players who got hurt had been playing for years and their bodies have taken serious beatings. I am sure that real sportscasters do the same thing. The whole production is geared towards men, showing glimpses of half-naked cheerleaders with the camera angle aiming directly at the breasts. There are no women who are in the middle, meaning average, nice, intelligent women. (Fuller 167) The football field is much like a battlefield, without as many casualties but just as many injuries. When I say violent, I mean verbal and physical abuse.
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Acceptance Essays
