Superbowl Halftime Show - M.I.A. Flips the Bird

[kelley]

speaking of the ads, i was flummoxed by the chrysler spot. the voiceover and imagery led me to think i was seeing a ptich for . . . ron paul? how could this guy have wrangled the money and influence for such a moment . . . but of course! it was clint, reprising the gnarly xenophobia of 'gran torino'. the gist of this 'halftime' message was the only truly resonant moment of the night. chilling. it all but announces a wider war in the middle east under the guise of a 'morning in america' lend-lease retooling fantasy.

this morning i read a piece on pitchfork that absolutely lambasted MIA for flipping off america. the article is completely shocking in its vitriol. the editors at dangerous minds take it down here:

http://www.dangerousminds.net/comments/ ... _pitchfork

if this was truly a spontaneous gesture on MIA's part, then good going, but it's a little too tempest in a teapot to make much of a difference, imo.

[pathological curve]

About her possibly flipping off the western world? That may be the closest thing we have to dissent on national TV, Simulist.
Unless, you know, you count Ron Paul.

Nope, just another example of totally neutered pseudo-dissent, like a Ramones song selling a cell phone. She's the wife of one of the Bronfmanns. A lot of fudging in her bio is the word on the street (I'm forgetting the cite right now, but no, her dad did not fight as a Tamil Tiger, among other things) - she's just another manufactured opportunist trying to draw as much publicity as possible to her dead career. Looks like it worked.

[eyeno]

And I hate to say it but this whole spectacle underlines Hugh's premise that media projects prediction. Ten years from now someone like Hugh will be asserting that these 2012 commercials were a glimpse and other people will be screaming "wrong you idiot." Hugh's delivery just lacks coherent delivery and more on target associations.

[Simulist]

"Ten years from now"?!?

But Eyeno: this is 2012!

j/k

[Saurian Tail]

So I didn't watch the game (cancelled my TV service a couple years ago) ... but the reason I'm interested in what went down is that it is still far and away the biggest TV event in the United States. In other words, a terrific "programming" opportunity.

Super Bowl draws record 111.3M viewers on NBC

By DAVID BAUDER
AP Television Writer

NEW YORK (AP) -- For the third consecutive year, the Super Bowl set a record as the most-watched television show in U.S. history.

The Nielsen Co. said Monday that an estimated 111.3 million people watched the New York Giants beat the New England Patriots on Sunday night. That narrowly beat the 111 million who watched Green Bay's win over Pittsburgh last year.

continued ...

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/F/ ... 6-15-59-03

[Saurian Tail]

Creepy.

[pathological curve]

Also, the reason why the "indie" Pitchfork crowd is taking offense at this gesture is not because they don't believe America and football spectacle need a fuck-you or because they're total anti-feminists. It's because someone who is insider enough to be on stage has no credibility and is feeding off of the beast they're supposedly so against. She has enough cash to walk the walk and all she's doing is talking. Totally in it for self-aggrandizement and notoriety at this point - I'd respect her more if it were for money.

[Nordic]

Makes me really glad I cut off my TV a couple of weeks ago.

[Project Willow]

By Lindy West, msnbc.com contributor

I can't believe you posted that.


Seatown's aflutter over Lindy as usual. Edited to add Penn is the cunt.

All I can say is: I'm glad I didn't let the Superbowl interrupt our Downton Abbey marathon yesterday.

But there's one we should analyze, what with its portrayal of the aristocracy as compassionate and likable.

the iconography is utter kitsch and devoid reference to or involvement with elite magick, in the sense that it's nothing but illegible pastiche. there's no message here; it's just the cladding of an empty spectacular edifice.

Thank you.

I'm was born in Detroit, close in age to Madonna, was occasionally surrounded by Egyptian iconography during cult horrors, and am sometimes inclined to think Madonna is cult too, but all I thought was she wanted to be Liz Taylor entering Rome. Nevertheless, vigilant citizen types are having a field day today.

[eyeno]

..Then there was the grotesque half-time extravaganza featuring Madonna, which was a weird parallel commentary on the state of American womanhood. Pretending to be ageless and indomitable, the old trooper performed a variety of standing crotch-locks on her Praetorian guard of hoofers and then stumbled more than once on the ridiculous bleacher stage-set that looked as if was designed to trip the performers up.

Message to American women: be sluts as long as you possibly can because there is nothing else for you in this culture. ..

http://kunstler.com/blog/2012/02/all-sc ... honor.html

wintler2 you eternally trip me out but I love you just the same. How could you produce such a good link and then have the sig line you used to have that pertains to paraphrase "an overarching group of elites do not control this place and those who think they do simply refuse to face reality." I mean come on bro. Or has your perspective grown a bit?

And be nice, cause ya know...I ain't all here. I"m just a swamp critter.

[Simulist]

All I can say is: I'm glad I didn't let the Superbowl interrupt our Downton Abbey marathon yesterday.

But there's one we should analyze, what with its portrayal of the aristocracy as compassionate and likable.

Oh, sure! Just go ahead, and make these intelligent observations of yours, and spoil my fantasy about Matthew and Mary getting together...

But, yeah.

[Project Willow]

Series ends with him walking erect, ehem, and the two getting hitched. I'll bet you $50.

[Simulist]

Series ends with him walking erect, ehem, and the two getting hitched. I'll bet you $50.

You think PBS would really show that? Oh! -- you mean STANDING.

[eyeno]

I think this is fitting enough to post here. You have to watch the videos though.

http://entertainment.msnbc.msn.com/_new ... bottomline

[eyeno]

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here's what was enclosed in old wonky embed tags:
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This video doesn't seem to have embedded correctly. Its at the link below.

http://bottomline.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2 ... l-football

By Rob Neill

“Times when we didn’t understand each other … discord and blame …”

Clint Eastwood was reading from a script during this ad for Chrysler on Super Bowl Sunday, but the words also can describe the fallout over the ad. Which has, as pretty much everything does these days, taken on a life of its own as a political football.

Oh, and msnbc.com users said it was the best of the bunch during the Super Bowl.

The two-minute spot, which ran during halftime, has Eastwood discussing challenges faced by the country cut with images of an America seemingly fresh from a John Cougar Mellencamp video. He compared the country’s struggles with that of Chrysler’s hometown of Detroit – which he said had fought back.

And here’s where party affiliation seems to have to always come in.

Chrysler declared bankruptcy, was bailed out by American and Canadian taxpayers, and sold off to Italy’s Fiat before, early this year, being able to declare it had made its first profit since 1997. So the automaker is an American comeback story, government run amok, or something in between depending on where you are on the political spectrum.

“I was, frankly, offended by it,” Karl Rove, strategist behind President George W. Bush’s two presidential campaigns, told Fox News this morning. “I'm a huge fan of Clint Eastwood, I thought it was an extremely well-done ad, but it is a sign of what happens when you have Chicago-style politics, and the president of the United States and his political minions are, in essence, using our tax dollars to buy corporate advertising.”

The opposing team, of course, had an opposing view.

“Powerful spot. Did Clint shoot that, or just narrate it?” David Axelrod, a former senior adviser to President Barack Obama, wrote on Twitter.

Eastwood, for his part, told Fox News producer Ron Mitchell, "There is no spin in that ad. On this I am certain. l am certainly not politically affiliated with Mr. Obama. It was meant to be a message about just job growth and the spirit of America. I think all politicians will agree with it. I thought the spirit was OK."

Eastwood opposed the bailouts of Chrysler and General Motors.

“It has zero political content,” Chrysler and Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne told Detroit talk radio Monday morning. “The message is sufficiently universal and neutral that it should be appealing to everybody in this country and I sincerely hope that it doesn’t get utilized as political fodder in a debate.”

Too late. But that’s what happens when you put something on TV in 2012.

Your take on the ad? And do you think Coke’s polar bears pose a threat to our northern borders? And is GoDaddy.com not the paragons of feminism they may have been previously thought to be? Tell us on our Facebook page.
Clint Eastwood’s Super Bowl ad is …