I just read that during tomorrow’s football game, somewhere during the show, "Jennifer Hudson and the chorus from Sandy Hook Elementary School will sing “America the Beautiful”
OK, maybe I am just a jaded, heartless bastard - but this just strikes me as WAY over the top. Seriously - parading out little school chums of the kids who were slaughtered and ask them to wave their little American flags and sing this song in front of billions of people - well, I don’t even know where to begin with such an obviously ploy to tug those heartstrings. The word “maudlin” comes to mind. Other words that come to mind are: exploitive, stomach-churning, mawkish, insensitive and stupid.
Do you think this is some wonderful, fitting and appropriate tribute in this venue and time?
Is it too late for the NRA to purchase commercial time? Because as it is, the little survivors will be helping to market beer, insurance, and financial products, and that’s just not quite as stomach-churning as it could be.
Well.
[ol]
[li]It’s “exploitative” by about 99% of usage and preference.[/li][li]It’s the fucking Stupor Bowl. Who cares what they do for non-game entertainment as long as it doesn’t get in the way of the commercials?[/li][li]I’m having trouble finding anything “heartless” about it; I doubt any of the kids will be marched out there against their wills.[/li][li]If you have a problem with emotionalism in this context, you may wish to see a therapist.[/li][li]Unless, of course, what you’re *really *objecting to is using the the biggest hypefest of the year to remind people of the reality of gun violence. Gosh, that will ruin the wings, chips, Budweiser *and *make all the other components look a little… tacky, worthless and overblown.[/li][li]How awrful for football and commercial fans.[/li][/ol]
ETA: At least everyone won’t be glued to the screen waiting for a staged “wardrobe malfunction” during this brief interruption of gluttony, greed and stupidity. So you have to admit it’s got its positives.
It’s maudlin, but that’s not so unusual at big events like this, and I think complaining that it’s the wrong venue is nonsense. I’m sure some people will say it’s some kind of terribly inappropriate secret message about guns, and others will say ‘actually everybody is opposed to murder.’ I don’t get exploitative or insensitive, though I assume the kids in the chorus like singing, and since they’re kids, they might just think it’s cool that they were invited to the Super Bowl. I don’t think this going to hurt any kids. And billions of people don’t watch the Super Bowl. It’s a huge TV event, but outside the U.S. not a lot of people care about it.
This one has added gun control glurge on it because most of Jennifer Hudson’s family was killed by a nut on a rampage.
Please note that although I use the term “gun control glurge”, I fully support more gun control laws. I wouldn’t mind seeing the second amendment repealed and the damn things banned.
But glurge is glurge. And this display sounds like it will be positively vomitous.
“Shut up John-John, or I’ll glue your other hand to your forehead.”
(from the National Lampoon; meaning to say I’d be more comfortable with these sort of displays if they were not any combination of the innocence & spontaneity of childhood and the calculations of adulthood)
It makes me uncomfortable not because of any gun-control glurge, but because it seems to send a message of “look at all the fun stuff that happens to you when your school is part of a national tragedy and your little brothers and sisters are horrifically murdered! You get to meet celebrities and go to the Superbowl and sing on TV! Yippee!!”
This reminds me of the 2002 Salt Lake Winter Olympics, or the 2002 Superbowl where they MUST have a tribute to 9/11. FYI, people are against it because they are against the message, just like I’m for it because I’m for the message
I’m pretty anti-gun, but I really think this is tasteless. I don’t approve of using children in order to manipulate people’s emotions, especially when (1) the children are survivors of a recent tragedy, and (2) it is an issue that should be confronted with reason, not more emotion.
Do you want people genuinely on your side, or just jumping on a glurgy bandwagon?
To whom is this message being sent? People who are going to hope they’re the victims of some future tragedy?
Why are you assuming it’s being done to send a message about gun control? I think the NFL is well aware it has plenty of fans who oppose guns control and the league isn’t going to deliberately antagonize its own fans.
I hadn’t heard of this before but I don’t think there is anything wrong with it. It is just a show of patriotism in the face of tragedy and the U.S. is good at that. Just by hearing the description, a pro-gun control message wasn’t the first motive that popped in my mind. I doubt that is the driver for it. Pro-gun people tend to be strongly patriotic as well so people can take whatever message they want from it and consider it a win all around.
Mostly because YogSosoth did. Personally, the message I see is more the one articulated by kittenblue: reinforcing the notion that people are entitled to consolation prizes for surviving horrible tragedy.
Meh. It wouldn’t be a major event without some sort of mawkish display. It doesn’t matter if it’s 9/11, Sandy Hook, or some player’s dead kid brother. We like this sort of thing and eat it up. It’s just part of who we are.
I’d put it this way: when the performance started, all of the 6 or so adults I was watching with wanted to discuss whether the performance was offensive, exploitative, etc, or not.
That felt like the wrong kind of discussion to be having about children so recently affected by tragedy. So I’d’ve preferred it hadn’t been done.
Was I the only one that thought the kids were lip-syncing? I didn’t watch the whole thing, but at the last few words, I was hearing Jennifer Hudson’s vocals quite clearly, and also a second track of “little kid” vocals, but NONE of the kids even had their mouths open.