The Politics of This Year’s Super Bowl

FEATURING STEPHANIE ABRAHAM – Sunday’s Super Bowl game was watched by millions of Americans but overall, the game had an 8-year record low viewership. The National Football League has been a political flashpoint for a while and Sunday’s game was seen as almost a proxy for the political mood of the nation. The Philadelphia Eagles won the game and some of their players are refusing to visit Donald Trump in the White House. The losing team’s quarterback, Tom Brady, is a prominent Trump supporter.

During the much-watched halftime show, pop star Pink sang a sugary version of the national anthem while some Eagles players stood raising their fists. Justin Timberlake also sang – his last Super Bowl performance was marked by his role in the so-called “wardrobe malfunction” of Janet Jackson. Super Bowl ads were significantly less political than last year’s, but a commercial that used an MLK speech to sell trucks has been roundly condemned.

Stephanie Abraham is a writer and media critic, she helped found the feminist magazine make/shift and was the founding editor of the feminist magazine LOUDmouth. Her works have been published in McSweeney’s, Al Jazeera, Mizna and Bitch Magazine. She is the Pop Culture Correspondent and Film Critic for Rising Up With Sonali.