CBS just can't seem to get the Super Bowl right.
In 2007, the last time CBS broadcasted the game, the station ran into controversy when it showed the now infamous "Snickers kiss commercial," which told the story of two male mechanics who accidentally kiss after trying to eat the same Snickers bar.
In a rare show of ideological concordance, the commercial managed to draw ire from both the right, who predictably disliked the commercial's "homosexual undertones," and the left, who took offense to the ad's stereotypical displays of masculinity.
Three years later, CBS managed to stub its toe once again, with an even more controversial crop of Super Bowl commercials.
Over the past few weeks, women's advocacy groups have been telling anyone who will listen that CBS has shown its socially regressive hand this year by allowing a Focus on the Family sponsored pro-life ad to run during the big game. And the failure by CBS to include a commercial created by the gay dating site ManCrunch.com, which shows two male football fanatics locked in a tender—albeit extremely un-genuine—embrace, seems to support their point.
However, I contend that CBS is not simply morally conservative, but actually decades behind the morality debate entirely.
CBS spokeswomen Shannon Jacobs, while addressing the ManCrunch controversy, stated that, "after reviewing the ad, which is entirely commercial in nature, our standards and practices department decided not to accept this particular spot." ManCrunch's representatives have gone on record as saying that the rejection letter they received from CBS explained that their commercial was "not within the Network's broadcast standards for Super Bowl Sunday."
Really, CBS? I can understand if the higher-ups at the Columbia Broadcasting System decided to reshape the station's image into one of moral rightness—that's right as in not left, and has nothing to do with not being wrong—but, perplexingly, CBS managed to fall short on even building up this mode.
Over the past few years, most of the controversy involving Super Bowl ads has come from the puerile advertising department at GoDaddy.com .
If you haven't had the pleasure of stumbling upon a GoDaddy commercial, let me present the basic structure to you: Spokeswomen Danica Patrick is barely clothed or surrounded by barely clothed models and, after a series of events that resembles a lead-up to a bad porn flick, Patrick tells the audience to go to GoDaddy.com to set up their very own domain name—because nothing screams hot action like a new URL for your online custom T-shirt company.
Anyway, this year CBS was given a golden opportunity to prove the "straightness of their moral compass" when GoDaddy submitted three 30-second commercials for the Super Bowl. Two of GoDaddy's ads were leaked onto the Internet before game time, so eager GoDaddy fans could see what was in store for them come Super Bowl Sunday.
The first leaked commercial, entitled "Lola," features the fictional tale of a former pro football player who, after football, decided to follow his dream of becoming a truly fabulous fashion designer and is able to get started by setting up his very own design Web site with GoDaddy.com .
The other ad depicts two geeky men creating multiple domain names with GoDaddy.com because every time they set up a new url Danica Patrick dances provocatively in a skimpy outfit on their laptop.
Let's see: A story of a fabulous fashion designer, highlighting plenty of gay stereotypes, and an ad featuring near nudity. Seems like an open-and-shut case for the "moral" CBS, right? Ban them both, right, CBS?
Well, the station got halfway there and decided the ex-football player with a dream was not CBS-worthy, while the skimpily dressed online sex show was green lighted as "meeting Network's standards for Super Bowl Sunday."
So what does this all mean? To me it shows that CBS is not just heterosexist and anti-feminine, but is stuck so far behind the times that homophobic chauvinists from the 1980s might be hard-pressed to defend the station's logic.
I can't wait to see if CBS' standards will have progressed to a point that they represent anything close to modern ideas about respect and tolerance by the station's next Super Bowl broadcast in 2013. They probably won't, but one can certainly hope.
Chasse Rehwinkel is a blogger who is also a contributing reporter for Windy City Times.
