It could have been the result of Betty White’s Snickers endorsement. Perhaps the return of The Who, or the potential for an additional bejeweled Peyton Manning knuckle did the trick.
But whatever it was, by the time the last strips of cannon-blasted confetti had fallen to the feet of a victorious Drew Brees, who clutched his son and choked back tears, more American viewers had witnessed the previously written-off New Orleans Saints take down Manning and the superpower Colts from Indianapolis than they had any other show or program in American history. A consummate underdog story courtesy of Super Bowl 44 had defied the stuff of digital video recorders and day-after Hulu-viewing and garnered more attention than MAS*H’s 1983 series finale. As CBS CEO Leslie Moonves noted in the game’s aftermath, “For anyone who wants to write that broadcasting is dead, 106 million people watched this program. You can’t find that anywhere else.”
To say that the American society’s attention is unfocused is not a revelation. Twitter streams clog cognitive function and viral YouTube hits are more the stuff of water cooler conversation than the state of politics. Even the ease of sitting down for an 8 p.m. weeknight sitcom has been implicitly deemed too burdensome and relegated to an iTunes $1.99 download and delayed, schedule-specific viewing for Saturday afternoon.
While deciding to sit in front of a TV, relax and tear through microbrew six-packs hardly seems something valuable or noteworthy, we got back a fleeting part of our old selves Sunday when we were able to collectively stop and watch an act of cultural restoration and redemption.
From Peyton-hating New Englanders to still-waterlogged New Orleans blocks, the winnings of a city that was once underwater reminded us of what it was like to agree. The game wasn’t partisan. It wasn’t buried in jargon. It was something human and inspiring, and the fact that a cast of non-household names was responsible for the team’s first-ever championship title was something out of a storybook.
The breakup and decimation of standard, traditional American media has met its match, which was lost in translation but not forgotten: a traditional American sentimentalism. The days of Rudy and Rocky rushed back when a team that was destined for obscurity breached its predicted ceiling and gave us something to root for. Moreover, it gave us the means to determine that the digital age and the stuff of human spirit are not mutually exclusive. At least not yet.
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