There was much talk about how we as a country really needed the Super Bowl this year, what with everything that has been going on. It was time for some worship at the altar of the NFL, who apparently deserved reverence for its perseverance amid such a tumultuous, challenging season. And got all its games in. For the benefit of us all.
But did we really need this year’s version of what has long been a glitzy, ostentatious, gluttonous commercial venture that highlights everything about America that’s outsized and mythologized and over the top and excessive? Is this who we really are—just a nation in a trance, mesmerized by spectacle and shallowness, living vicariously through someone else’s dreams?
Balm for our weary souls, I guess.
