Thoughts About the Non-Football Parts of the Super Bowl:
- Who the hell picked Celine Dion to sing “God Bless America”? Doesn’t everybody in the world know she’s Canadian? When she sang “God bless America, my home sweet home,” I rolled my eyes and yelled at the TV: “It’s not your home! You live in Montreal with your 90-year-old husband and your crazy frozen sperm baby!”
- That said, the Dixie Chicks were a great choice for the anthem. I really liked the arrangement they used. Simple and beautiful.
- As usual, we international folks didn’t get to see the commercials. That sucks. What’d I miss? Anything good?
- Our commentators were Dick Stockton and Troy Aikman. I never liked Aikman as a player but he was a pretty good commentator. He went out of his way to explain some of the weirder rules (“illegal use of hands”?) to the international viewers. He sounds an awful lot like John McEnroe, though (who I’ve been hearing for two weeks at the Australian Open). I thought Aikman had a stronger “southern” accent?
- Is there some rule that otherwise attractive singers have to dress like psycho slutty circus freaks when they perform at half time? (Remember when Britney had the sock on her arm that one year?) Someone should point out to Shania Twain that middle-class Midwestern America (i.e. 90% of her audience) will only approve of so much bondage-wear.
- Oh, and why did Shania open with that “Man, I Feel Like a Woman” song? Wasn’t that a hit, like, five years ago? I correctly predicted that No Doubt would continue the theme and sing “I’m Just a Girl”, which was even older.
- Gwen Stefani is a super freak who so doesn’t deserve Gavin Rossdale. She also looks a lot like Brittney Murphy, I just realized. That’s not good either.
- Before Sting even came out, I predicted to the Snook that, adhering to the theme of singing progressively older songs, he’d bust out a Police tune. I was not wrong. I forgave him, though, because he looked pretty damn good.
- What happened to Shania at the end there? Sting and Gwen were singing together and I kept expecting her to run in with the next verse. Is Shania such a diva that she won’t do the group-sing thing? Weak.
- The Australian commentators were really going out of their way to try to make this spectacle relevant to the home crowd. At one point, the head guy announced an “Australian connection”: Shania Twain’s husband, Mutt Lang, apparently produced a lot of “really good ACDC records”. I swear I heard the entire viewing audience reply, “You’re really reaching, dude.”
- Wow, there were a lot of players who’d come over from the European league. Did they mention that on the US broadcast? There were, like, 12 per team. I was wondering if that’s an unusually high number, or whether they just don’t mention it as much to the US because no one cares there.
- Was that Bon Jovi playing there at the end? Bleh. How about next year they book somebody that the kids actually, you know, listen to these days? Yeah, I criticized U2 for whoring themselves out to all the sports finals last year, but I’d take them over this crap any day.
Man, that all sounds pretty negative. I really did enjoy the game itself. I always like seeing an underdog win. It was also great to see my man Jerry Rice have a couple nice catches. I think it’s just hard without the commercials to distract you from how silly and stupid the whole thing is. So tell me, which ones are everybody going to be talking about this year? Were there any dotcoms? Any Britney-sightings? Enquiring minds need to know.
martin
January 27, 2003 — 8:44 pm
Erm. What was Shania wearing then?
Kris
January 27, 2003 — 8:59 pm
Didn’t you see it? Like, a rhinestone-encrusted bikini top with a short black skirt, loads of chains all over, and big leather knee-high spike heel boots. And a huge black leather duster over everything. With big scary dominatrix hair. In other words, nothing like the “You’re Still the One” pretty beach-walkin’ Shania.
amy
January 28, 2003 — 12:54 am
yeah, i was totally disappointed with the halftime show, as well. i expect it to be the best of the best – and these folks weren’t necessarily the most popular and/or biggest sellers this year. (it was entirely appropriate that britney did her thing with aerosmith and all that last last year.) this one was just lame – the only reason shania was involved was to interest the hillbilly contingent watching the game (who probably had no idea who ND was or maybe even Sting!) and we thought maybe her outfit indicated she was a raiders fan? she was outrageously dirty looking.
ALSO – you didn’t mention the fact that she was obviously lip-synching, while gwen and sting both kept it real. shania probably collapsed from being unable to breathe in her stupid corset and that’s why she didn’t make it out to sing with the other two!
as far as the european players, i don’t recall anybody mentioning that – but it can’t be a HUGE deal, considering the teams are comprised of something like 80 players apiece anyway. (i think.)
oh, and re: the commercials – i didn’t see anything past halftime, so i’m not sure what followed – but there were some pretty decent ones in the first half. they’d take too long to explain, though, so i’m not going to! (budweiser and fedex stood out.)
amy
January 28, 2003 — 12:56 am
P.S. thank GOD i missed celine singing! SHE SUCKS! she makes me physically ill, and it seems like whenever she performs, she wears something tight and nasty and thrusts her pelvis out a lot – is that just me? did she do it this time? BLECH.
psorr
January 28, 2003 — 4:51 am
Re: commercials, it was one of the weakest showings in the past few years. Bud Light keeps reaching new lows of low-brow crassness, and nothing else really stood out. I miss the sock puppet days of the late ’90s…
Re: halftime, a wise-ass at our party decided that Shania was wearing a standard ‘chain-mail’ bra whereas Gwen had mithril š
Max
January 28, 2003 — 11:46 am
The real tragedy here, of course (other than the diva fashion statements), is that you missed the most kickass episode *ever* of Alias right after the Super Bowl. It was amaaaaaaaazing.
Jenny
January 28, 2003 — 2:26 pm
I think if you go to USA Today’s site, I think they have a listing of the commercials. As for the rest: Celine sucked and I laughed out loud when she sang “my home sweet home” too. Puh-lease! The Dixie Chicks were fabulous. And the ‘great SuperBowl’ commercials were few and far between.
As for the half time show, didn’t see it. Saturday Night Live and a live halftime show that was basically just a long and really witty Weekend Update. Jimmy Fallon did his ‘Idiot Boyfriend’ song at the end, but that was really the only blah point. It was pratty cute (and definitely better than the alternative).
Moire
January 29, 2003 — 10:16 am
Gee, I’m glad I decided to sit in the formal living room with the iPod and crochet instead of watch the Super Bowl with the roommates.
I did catch two commercials, however… One had a zebra, Clydesdales, and cowboys. “The ref is an ass.” Heh!
The other commercial featured The Quebec Skeleton Woman herself, Celine Dion, driving that new, Audi-looking Chrysler coup. It made my skin crawl. I, too, dislike her immensely. She’s… indescribeably fugly in a highly disturbing, Night Of The Living Dead kind of way.
Moire
January 29, 2003 — 10:22 am
Wow. I just realized I was really, really unfairly mean towards Celine. Heh. My bad.
BaZerk
February 6, 2003 — 8:12 am
Important Geography Trivia that enlightened Europeans need to know:
Divided into North America, South America and Central America, The Americas stretch from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Therefore, regarding your indignation at Celine Dion referring to America as her home (did you really yell at your TV?), you can relax: Montreal is in fact in America. So is Buenos Aires, and Mexico City, and Panama, and Montevideo and every other spot in The New World.
The sad fact is, citizens of the USA forgot to name their country. “The United States of America” means essentially the same thing as “The European Union”. One could argue that Celine lives in The Canadian Provinces of North America, which qualifies her to refer to America as her home if she feels so inclined. After all, any German or Belgian or Dane can call themselves European if they choose (and they could sing “God Please Bless Europe, My Home, Sweet Home”).
Most citizens of the other countries in The Americas (and I have talked to many) are either amused or insulted by US citizens presuming exclusive title to the name America. This is why the US of A is often referred to as The United States, or simply The States. But even this is somehow odd – not much of a name, really (and yeah, we do call them āAmericansā ā what the heck else can we call āem ā they have no name!).
Hereās something to think about: the country to the South of the USA is formally “Los Estados Unidos Mexicanos”, which in English essentially means “The United States of Mexico”. I say they could appropriately extend this to āThe United States of Mexico of North Americaā, but wisely, they abbreviate their name to Mexico; a wonderful name which they do not have to share with any other nation. I’m thinking the US stole the name shortening idea from the Mexicans (they stripped off “The United States” part, and thus got left with “America”).
Personally, I say it’s high time the US had a “let’s name our country already” contest. With such a proud history ā why not get a real name? How about āSpangled Star Landā? ā thatād tie in nicely with their national anthem. Or āWashingtoniumā? Many nations name themselves after their first president.
The poor dears ā I donāt think they have a clue!
Kris
February 6, 2003 — 5:32 pm
If you were referring to *me* as a European, BaZerk, you’re mistaken. I’m a transplanted Yank. Everything you wrote was true. But come on, everybody knows that that particular song is referring to the United States of America. THAT’s the irony I was talking about. If you really wanna get picky, “The United Kingdom” isn’t much of a country name, and nor is “The People’s Republic of China.” How about “The United Soviet Socialist Republic”? How about “South Africa”, for God’s sake. They use the name of the continent too! Let’s make them rename their country as well!
I don’t mean to tar all Canadians with the same brush… but some of y’all really have a stick up your bum about America (as in the United States, you pedant).
Anonymous
October 11, 2003 — 4:43 am
“The People’s Republic of China” used the name of the continent??Since when? Asia is the name of the continent. You’re right, “The United Kingdom isn’t much of a name either, but at least they didn’t steal somebody else’s name, they just don’t have one. Same thing goes to the USRR. And as for South Africa, yes, they do use the name of the continent, but at least they are a little more specific and add the “South”, after all they occupy all of the soutthern part of that continent. America is anyone from the New World, from Canada to Argentina, and that includes the caribbean. I do not hate the US, I couldn’t be more proud of my country, but our arrogance can be so big it does not even let us see our most obvious mistakes.
Kris
October 11, 2003 — 8:09 am
I didn’t say The People’s Republic used the continent; I said South Africa did. I was using China to point out that you could add “of Asia” to the end just like you did with Mexico, and that lots of other countries made the same “mistake” of naming that we did. Man, remind me never to mention the “United Arab Emirates” around you!
Anonymous
May 14, 2004 — 7:47 am
Gwen stefani kicks ass you suck!
Kris
May 14, 2004 — 8:14 am
Wow. You really shot me down with that witty defense of her, there.
Hilary
June 8, 2004 — 3:13 am
Does anyone know where I can get a hole of the Dixie Chicks arrangement of the National Anthem from last year’s Super Bowl?
Kris
June 8, 2004 — 8:26 am
A hole? Pretty funny typo. No, we’re not, like, Dixie Chicks fans or anything.