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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 friends 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. Smaller Mathews, dean of the Chicago Divinity School once said, Football today is a social obsession.
Football is a boy-killing, education-prostituting, gladiatorial sport. It teaches virility and courage, but so does war. (Fuller 163) Young boys are taught in order to become real men they must be tough and they must like sports. From an early age the young men in this country are taught to fight, be strong, and push down anyone who is in the way. Many of the terms used in football are taken from military terminology, such as blitz, bombs, offense, defense, victories, and defeats, to name a few. Phrases such as ground and air attacks, fighting on the frontlines, and battling in the trenches are also used. (Fuller 167) The football field is much like a battlefield, without as many casualties but just as many injuries. In the film Any Given Sunday two of the star players get seriously injured right at the start of the film.
The injuries were not a surprise. The players who got hurt had been playing for years and their bodies have taken serious beatings. They played with existing injuries that never healed properly, because they felt like they had to continue to go out there and fight. It is what they were trained to do. As the instant replay is showing the star quarterback getting injured over and over again, the sportscasters say, lets see that again, that gives you a sickening feeling in the pit of your stomach, and, the dynasty is in trouble.
The sportscasters embellish what happens on the field for the entertainment of the audience. In addition to the violence of football, there is a lot of sexist oppression going on as well. Men dominate the big money making sports, including pro football. The sport is played entirely by men, announced by men, coached by men, and watched primarily by men. The whole production is geared towards men, showing glimpses of half-naked cheerleaders with the camera angle aiming directly at the breasts. The beer advertisements, as well as the other commercials, are targeting men as their audience.
In Any Given Sunday mostly all of the women are portrayed as sluts or drunks. The two women who are portrayed as strong are really over the top. They will stop at nothing to get what they want. There are no women who are in the middle, meaning average, nice, intelligent women.
I believe that is so because in this male dominated world of sports, women are viewed as either objects to use or tough-as-nails bitches. There is no happy medium. The sportscasters in the film crack derogatory jokes about their ex-wives. I am sure that real sportscasters do the same thing. I will bet that the derogatory jokes were much worse before we were all concerned with being politically correct. Studies say that womens shelters are their busiest on Super Bowl Sunday. (Fuller 171) This is not a very big surprise when one actually thinks about it.
Drinking is synonymous with the Super Bowl. From my own observations I have found that men become more violent when they drink. When I say violent, I mean verbal and physical abuse. When you add this drinking to the violence and the anti-women message of football, it is not a big surprise that violence erupts in the home. Bibliography:
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Research essay sample on Football And The Super Bowl
