Like many people, my family held a Superbowl party with friends (and my signature Chili dish) to watch both the game and the commercials. The group is about evenly divided between which is the greater draw, though with a relatively dull game the commercials took on a heightened level of scrutiny. The commercials were not a bumper crop this year but there were a few particularly funny spots. I liked the Doritos baby commercial, the Christopher Walkin commercial, the Willem Dafoe/Snickers commercial and the Prius commercial the most. They are posted below. However, NARAL Pro-Choice America, a leading advocacy group on the issue of abortion, quickly sent out tweets denouncing various commercials in an apparent effort to show critics that the organization is truly incapable of humor or restraint at such moments.
The group first singled out the Hyundai commercial featuring comedian Kevin Hart, which I thought was pretty funny:
Here is NARAL’s response:
“Hey, @Hyundai – taking away your daughter’s autonomy and stalking her on a date isn’t funny. #NotBuyingIt #SB50”
NARAL then went after the Doritos commercial:
The problem? “Humanizing fetuses” even though this looked like a fully grown baby.
Then NARAL went after the very funny Snickers commercial below as “transphobic”:
So it appears other people watch the Superbowl for the commercials, though NARAL sits there with a cellphone waiting to tweet the first offense or insult that it can spot:
“NARAL @NARAL
.@SNICKERS, what was up w that commercial? Transphobic & implies women OK w being objectified as long as they have snacks #NotBuyingIt #SB50
6:58 PM – 7 Feb 2016”
They seemed to not let a funny commercial get by without finding something to denounce in it. It was the hilarious “Walken Closet” spot.
Nothing can be that funny without being terribly insulting. I would suggest denouncing the Kia Optima as advancing a beigist stereotype and being beigophobic.
Even the spot showing the throwing of a wedding bouquet prompted an angry NARAL tweet:
“Really, @Buick? Women fighting over a wedding bouquet? That was the best you could come up with? #NotBuyingIt #SB50”
What is fascinating is that the woman tosses away to the bouquet at the end of the commercial.
Just for the record, I also liked the Prius commercial below:
Some tweets seemed to be a parody of itself in seeking any basis to object. For example, the car commercial featuring an astronaut received this furious tweet:
“NARAL @NARAL
.@Audi – you couldn’t find a single female astronaut to feature in your ad? #NotBuyingIt #SB50
7:13 PM – 7 Feb 2016”
There is of course the ability to support pro-choice causes and still have a sense of humor and a modicum of social perspective. What is interesting is that, even if one accepts that NARAL is not where one looks for humor, these attacks would seem to undermine its credibility and connection with the vast majority of people. However, like PETA attacks, these criticisms are clearly meant to resonate with a narrow band of the population. It is possible to see these ads in a different light, but that is clearly not possible if you view everything through a self-fulfilling and hyper-sensitive lens. Franklin Delano Roosevelt once said “[t]he overwhelming majority of Americans are possessed of two great qualities a sense of humor and a sense of proportion.” He of course never saw the comedic critiques of NARAL.
Then, of course, there is this:
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Super Bowl Halftime Anti-Police Rally
Angry raised fists and Beyoncé’s glorification of the Black Panther Party.
February 9, 2016
Dawn Perlmutter
Beyoncé’s glorification of the Black Panther Party during the Pepsi Super Bowl halftime show is the latest example of the war on police. In a tribute to the 50th anniversary of the founding of the militant anti-police group The Black Panther Party (BPP), Beyoncé’s backup dancers wore the groups signature black berets, 60’s Afro hairstyles and raised their fists in the classic Black Power gesture of the group. During the performance on the field the dancers formed an ‘X’ which has been described as an homage to Malcom X, the ideological inspiration for the Black Panther Party. After the performance Beyoncé’s dancers posed with a sign that read “Justice 4 Mario Woods”, a career criminal and gang member who was shot and killed by San Francisco police after slashing a man with a knife and threatening others.
Many media reports of the performance applauded Beyoncé’s use of the Super Bowl halftime show to showcase her political message on racism and police brutality. This is consistent with the liberal medias characterization of the Black Panthers as an important civil rights movement regardless of the fact that they were a violent anti-police organization. The Black Panther Party (BPP) was founded in 1966 by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale in Oakland, California, close to where the Super Bowl 50 was played. They believed that Martin Luther King’s non-violent protests had failed and they advocated the use of force and armed self-defense in order to obtain freedom from white oppression. They protested against police brutality and used violence to achieve their revolutionary goal of igniting a race war in the United States. The Black Panthers coined the phrase off the pigs and openly advocated the killing of police officers as a form of political protest and justice. DiscoverTheNetworks reveals that “while they were radical icons by day, by night the Panthers grew into a criminal organization that engaged widely in drug dealing, pimping, extortion, theft, assault, and homicide. Indeed, BPP members were arrested 348 times for murder, armed robbery, rape, and burglary in 1969 alone.”
Black Panthers were responsible for at least 15 murders of law enforcement officers and wounded many more in ambush style attacks. They tortured and murdered their own members. In 1969 three New Haven Chapter Black Panther Party members tortured and murdered 19 year old Alex Rackley because they thought he was a police informant. In 1974 Betty Van Patter, the Panthers bookkeeper, went missing after a dispute over financial irregularities. Her brutally beaten body was found on a San Francisco beach a few weeks later. She had been raped and tortured. In 1977 the Black Panther Party’s assistant chief of Staff attempted to assassinate a key prosecution witness in the infamous murder trial of one of the founders Huey Newton. These are just a few of the violent incidents committed by the group that Beyoncé paid tribute to during America’s unofficial national holiday Super Bowl Sunday.
The song that Beyoncé sang during her half time political rally is titled ‘Formation’ and has been described as a celebration of black pride but it is more of a witchy race baiting anti-police anthem. The Formation video is filled with symbolism of black nationalist groups and depicts among other things historical representations of Beyoncé and others as creole women in various era clothing, Beyoncé as a Marie Laveau type voodoo queen, police offers in riot gear, Beyoncé on top of a sinking New Orleans police car, an image of a black child in a hoodie dancing in front of a line of police officers and graffiti that reads ‘Stop Shooting Us’. The video was released one day before the super bowl. Just prior to the release the music streaming service Tidal, run by her rapper husband Jay-Z donated one and half million dollars to Black Lives Matter. The combination of the video, the controversy of her halftime show and the huge donation will inevitbaly make ‘Formation’ the Black Lives Matter theme song.
The Black Lives Matter movement was inspired by the Black Panther Party and another violent anti-police group the Black Liberation Army. The Black Liberation Army (BLA) founded in 1970 was comprised of former Black Panthers and was responsible for the murders of 13 law enforcement officers. On May 21, 1971, five members killed two New York City police officers, Joseph Piagentini and Waverly Jones. On August 29, 1971, three members murdered John Victor Young, a San Francisco police sergeant, while he was working at a desk in his police station. On January 27, 1972 members assassinated police officers Gregory Foster and Rocco Laurie in New York City. On November 3, 1971, Officer James R. Greene of the Atlanta Police Department was shot and killed in his patrol van at a gas station. On May 2, 1973, Joanne Deborah Chesimard aka Assata Shakur, with two other Black Liberation Army accomplices, killed New Jersey State Trooper Werner Foerster execution style at point blank range during a routine traffic stop on the New Jersey Turnpike. Chesimard was convicted and sentenced to life in 1977, but escaped from prison in 1979 and has lived comfortably in Cuba ever since.
The Black Lives Matter movement has glorified Joanne Chesimard aka Assata Shakur as a political prisoner. At many of BLM protests you will see activists wearing shirts that read ‘Assata Taught Me’ a reference to Assata teaching them to fight oppression. Although Chesimard is on the FBI’s most wanted terrorists list there is a Hands Off Assata movement. Chesimard is similar to Wesley Cook aka Mumia Abu-Jamal who murdered Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner on December 9, 1981. Both were convicted cop killers who were transformed into Folk heroes through leftist revisionist history. Cook was a former Black Panther. Chesimard was a member of the Black Liberation Army. The Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army are the ideological inspiration for Black Lives Matter. Beyoncé was celebrating these anti-police cop killing groups at the 50th Super Bowl Halftime show.
The fact that the super bowl, the very symbol of American identity, sanctioned Beyoncé’s performance demonstrates that the mythology of institutional racism and the war on police just reached a new level of incitement. The signs are everywhere. There has been a tremendous increase in anti-police graffiti and desecration of fallen officer memorials. There have been 9 new incidents of police memorials being vandalized since I wrote about this in September 2015. Symbolic violence precedes actual violence. Making martyrs and folk saints out of criminals like Mike Brown and Mario Woods inspires other disaffected youth to confront police. Similar to lone wolf jihadist terrorists they know that they will be glorified by protesters and activists and live forever in murals and social media campaigns. Giving validity to false narratives, creating a hero mythology of convicted cop killers and glorifying domestic terrorist groups that target and assassinate police as civil rights movements has real life consequences. Beyoncé thinks it is hip and fashionable to foment racism and disrespect for police yet she did not turn down a highway clearing police escort to the stadium. Apparently the diva is a BLM pretender. #Beyoncéslifematters.