WHAT FANS WANT
In terms of bloated spectacle, the Super Bowl has long been of gargantuan scale. It has evolved from a three and a half hour game into a 12-hour festival that embraces every form of diversion short of setting wolves upon small orphans. The fare usually has been slick, glitzy, a little overdone and conventional -- sort of like a Vegas show at the 50-yard line.
But for about 10 minutes during the pregame for Super Bowl XLI, things took a detour straight into Bizarroland. Cirque du Soleil, the circus group based in Montreal, took its act onto the turf and proceeded to give a show that was supposed to somehow interpret the soul of host city Miami. After about two minutes, I began to wonder whether members of the Miami Chamber of Commerce were committing ritual suicide in their luxury suites. The performance featured acrobats in costumes that appeared to be based on Underoos. The acrobats used a swinging device to vault themselves high into the air for the crowd-pleasing flips and contortions. On the ground, there were clowns (at least, that's what I think they were) mugging and gibbering furiously for the camera. I guess they were supposed to capture the passion of football fans, but instead they looked like homeless people off their meds and in football attire. So in short, Miami is a city where people bounce around in their skivvies, much like my 7-year-old nephews on a sugar rush, or wander about sports jerseys looking for Haldol.
If we were living in the era of city-states, that performance would have led to war between Miami and Montreal and hideous carnage. Or maybe the two sides would have just catapulted acrobats at each other and pantomimed violence. I don't know.
The point is that for those 10 minutes on Sunday, the creative types had been allowed to snap their tether and run amok. They offered a show that might have been breathtaking under the Big Top but was weird in a football stadium. In short, it was not what football fans want to see before a game.
And what do football fans want before a game? This question came up several years ago on a Florida Gator message board where I lurk, and here is a paraphrase of one answer: "An alligator driving an Abrams tank onto the field with nekkid cheerleaders dancing on the outside of it!!!"
You might think this was said in jest, but given its enthusiastic reception, I'm going to start trying to teach an alligator to drive a tank. There might be some money in that.
In terms of bloated spectacle, the Super Bowl has long been of gargantuan scale. It has evolved from a three and a half hour game into a 12-hour festival that embraces every form of diversion short of setting wolves upon small orphans. The fare usually has been slick, glitzy, a little overdone and conventional -- sort of like a Vegas show at the 50-yard line.
But for about 10 minutes during the pregame for Super Bowl XLI, things took a detour straight into Bizarroland. Cirque du Soleil, the circus group based in Montreal, took its act onto the turf and proceeded to give a show that was supposed to somehow interpret the soul of host city Miami. After about two minutes, I began to wonder whether members of the Miami Chamber of Commerce were committing ritual suicide in their luxury suites. The performance featured acrobats in costumes that appeared to be based on Underoos. The acrobats used a swinging device to vault themselves high into the air for the crowd-pleasing flips and contortions. On the ground, there were clowns (at least, that's what I think they were) mugging and gibbering furiously for the camera. I guess they were supposed to capture the passion of football fans, but instead they looked like homeless people off their meds and in football attire. So in short, Miami is a city where people bounce around in their skivvies, much like my 7-year-old nephews on a sugar rush, or wander about sports jerseys looking for Haldol.
If we were living in the era of city-states, that performance would have led to war between Miami and Montreal and hideous carnage. Or maybe the two sides would have just catapulted acrobats at each other and pantomimed violence. I don't know.
The point is that for those 10 minutes on Sunday, the creative types had been allowed to snap their tether and run amok. They offered a show that might have been breathtaking under the Big Top but was weird in a football stadium. In short, it was not what football fans want to see before a game.
And what do football fans want before a game? This question came up several years ago on a Florida Gator message board where I lurk, and here is a paraphrase of one answer: "An alligator driving an Abrams tank onto the field with nekkid cheerleaders dancing on the outside of it!!!"
You might think this was said in jest, but given its enthusiastic reception, I'm going to start trying to teach an alligator to drive a tank. There might be some money in that.
posted by John Parnell at 11:27 AM
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