Monday, February 3, 2020

Super Sundry

-- My preferred National Football League team, the Kansas City Chiefs, won in their first Super Bowl appearance in 50 years. This win fit their post-season pattern in that they came from behind with a blizzard of scoring in just a few minutes of play, led by uber-QB Patrick Mahomes. The lesson for opposing teams seems to be not to let Mahomes get behind by more than 10 points unless there is under, say, 12 seconds to play in the game.

-- Demi Lovato sang a fine rendition of the national anthem a little bit more than a year after being hospitalized for a near-fatal opioid overdose. It was only her second public live performance since she took a break following the overdose for treatment.

-- Megastar couple Jay-Z and Beyoncé stayed seated for Lovato's performance, which is understandable given that Jay-Z is partnering with former San Francisco 49ers QB Colin Kaepernick in his activism trying to call attention to the injustices faced by minority populations in the United States. Many people objected, which is understandable given that the anthem and flag are widely considered to represent not simply our nation but also those who have sacrificed greatly for it, and that a show of disrespect to the flag is often seen as a show of disrespect to those people. Many news outlets covered the protest gesture, which is not understandable at all.

-- Kansas City defensive tackle Derrick Nnadi has been sponsoring one free adoption at the KC Pet Project after every Chiefs win. So after the Super Bowl victory, Nnadi said that the adoption fees for every animal at the project's shelter which became eligible for adoption on or before Feb. 2 would be covered.

-- The halftime show by Shakira and Jennifer Lopez drew criticism from people who believed it to have been inappropriately suggestive. Many women argued back, saying that women who had no real problem with Adam Levine's shirtless performance in Super Bowl LIII did not have much room to criticize the ladies' saucy work in SB LIV, and they criticized the women for tearing other women down instead of supporting them. From what I could tell, many of them emphasized their criticism by calling the critics "Karen," which has become a word expressing derision towards a certain kind of middle-class, usually white woman who leans a little bit towards self-righteousness. I wasn't able to find any actual Karen who criticized the show, although I suppose there were some.

-- Most of the commercials were stupid and boring. The lone exception was the Bill Murray ad for Jeep, which reprised his Groundhog Day movie about a man who keeps repeating the same day in his life. The Doritos ad had the brief moment of Sam Elliot's mustache helping him in his dance contest against Lil Nas X but was otherwise silly.

-- Super Bowl LIV was followed by Fox's The Masked Singer. In 1970, the last time Kansas City won the Super Bowl, the game was followed by Lassie. Super Bowl IV is the clear winner here.

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