YOU might have heard there was a ball game on television Sunday evening. A football game. The NFL puts on such a spectacle every year about this time. This year the game featured a Hall of Fame quarterback on one side of the field-and the player widely known as the game’s premier trash-talker on the other.
As for the game itself, it was . . . .
Not much of one. It wasn’t long before more attention was paid to the commercials than the game.
Yes, the Super Bowl commercials. When the game is awful, and the spinach dip even worse, folks at any Super Bowl party can still talk about those oh-so-expensive ads between playing time.
Blame it all on a former footballer known as Mean Joe Greene, who appeared in a Super Bowl commercial back in 1980, and made those spots popular. (“Hey kid, catch!”) That one was a commercial for Coca-Cola. Largely forgotten now, the commercial got a lot of press back then. Such is fame. Fleeting. Like the fizz of a soda pop.
You might have caught the Super Bowl bit Coca-Cola put out this year, too-“America the Beautiful” sung in different languages. By children. Sweet. Coca-Cola has been doing this kind of thing since those kids wanted to (a) teach the world to sing in perfect harmony, and (b) buy the world a Coke.
Coca-Cola’s newest all-American, red-white-and-blue commercial/confection had the obligatory cowboy riding his horse. And families on vacation. And kids dancing in the street. Everything for everybody. Will the ad sell soft drinks? It doesn’t matter. The folks in advertising call it Branding. You see there? People of all creeds, colors, and national origins use our product. Aren’t we nice?
So who could complain? You might as well complain about apple pie and mom, another couple of American standbys. But this being America, you could be sure somebody, maybe lots of somebodies, would gripe. It comes with the territory-the territory called free speech.
ALLEN WEST, a former congressman, was so put out about a commercial featuring a patriotic song sung in a furrin’ language-Arabic, Spanish, you name it-that he blogged his displeasure: “If we cannot be proud enough as a country to sing ‘American the Beautiful’ in English in a commercial during the Super Bowl, by a company as American as they come-doggone we are on the road to perdition.”
What, not to the end of Western Civilization, too?
Actually, Mr. West, the song is called “America the Beautiful.” But we’ve committed enough typos ourselves not to hold that against you. It’s your grouchiness that’s the problem.
Ditto, Glenn Beck. Remember him? We wondered where he’d gone to since he was rousing the rabble to great acclaim. Now we know. For he, too, was heard from. And as usual these days, he was widely and wisely ignored. Who says Americans’ taste isn’t improving?
Somebody named Todd Starnes, who was described as a commentator on television (who isn’t?), tweeted that he couldn’t understand the song because, “I only speak English.” It’s a common enough American handicap. It’s called being monolingual. But maybe one of these days our schools, colleges and universities will correct it. By giving foreign languages their due in a sound curriculum. We suggest beginning with a couple of really subversive languages-Greek and Latin. Just as the best educated of the Founding Fathers did. Such exposure turned them into such dangerous subversives that they staged a revolution. And founded a republic. And adopted a Constitution that remains the wonder of the ages. Talk about radical.
Wouldn’t it be lovely to hear “America the Beautiful” sung in . . . Italian? Talk about a musical language. Que bella! Oh, to have Santo Formica of Sicily and North Little Rock, Ark., still around these days. Just to hear him tell stories. And to cook all those Italian delicacies. He is still sorely missed. We’ve seldom met a more American character. For who knows America who only America knows?
Our own Earlene Prince has moved away from the paper and back to her beloved Alabama, or we’d ask her to sing “America the Beautiful” in her beautiful singing voice-and in French to boot, for she spoke it well. We always got her to check our fancified French phrases when we wanted to throw one into an editorial-just for the ooh-la-la of it-or translate a menu from fabled Galatoire’s in New Orleans.
Maybe we could find one of the millions of people who speak Spanish in this country and ask them to give “America the Beautiful” a go. A version in any of the Romance languages would do. Definitely including Romanian, whose sound inevitably conjures up gypsy music.
Yes, let’s sing “America the Beautiful” in a latinate tongue. Make sure to roll the Rs where appropriate, and use your hands for emphasis at the important parts. Why stick with the lingo of hand-mute peoples? Then let’s all laugh and have a good old, all-American drink. Chianti sounds good.
WHY WOULD anybody be upset over a feelgood commercial? Maybe because they’re the type who aren’t happy unless they’re unhappy. You know the type. They’re the same people who lose their minds if they have to press 1 for English. You can spot them giving the evil eye when anybody dares habla that Español in Wal-Mart. Maybe it’s just fear of the Other-or general orneriness, to indulge in a little Texican. Which is a whole language group of its own-from Tex-Mex down in the Valley to familiar Suthuhn up in the piney woods of East Texas, aka the Big Thicket.
Didn’t the more excitable types get upset a few years back when somebody dared sing the national anthem in Spanish? But “America the Beautiful” isn’t the national anthem, not yet. Though it’s always one of the nominees when folks are looking for a successor to the unsingable “Star-Spangled Banner.”
“God Bless America” is usually proposed as a popular alternative to the national anthem, too, but you know it would drive the atheists bats. And some of us would prefer to stick with One Nation Indivisible when it comes to picking a national song.
Rather than dive into that linguistic beehive, why not just sit back, relax, and enjoy the latest Coke commercial? It’s not exactly George Gershwin or Cole Porter, but it’s sweet. And goes down easy. Even unnoticeably.
But Americans. We’ll gripe about anything. And that’s kind of attractive, too, in its own feisty way. It’s a sign of a still free country.
Editorial, Pages 12 on 02/06/2014