On Half-Time Shows

I caught enough of the Orange Bowl last night to give me pre-irritation (yes, that's a real world -- just ask any parent) at the Superbowl half-time show. College bowl game organizers have fallen under the delusion that the Superbowl half-time show is worthy of emulation. Last night's horror featured four pop "music" bands arrayed in a square in the center of the field; each had stretched before it a throng of girls dressed in what appeared to be colored tin foil. While the bands sang Milli-Vanilli style, the girls twirled and generally engaged in dance moves too mature for the daughters of good parents. The musical arrangement was a montage, i.e., each band sang only a few verses from one of its songs.

Because the game featured the University of Iowa against the University of Southern California, the organizers apparently felt compelled to give equal representation to the countries represented by each school, so two of the bands sang in Spanish, and two in English (though one of the "English" speakers was a rapper who was thoroughly incomprehensible, beyond urging the ladies to "shake what ya mama gave ya, yo"). The music was quite bad and therefore nondescript, and the mess ended with a feeble climax of fireworks.

I swear the planning for these things must go something like this:

"Okay, picture this: we get George Michael, Michael Jackson, and Julio Iglesias to do a rap of 'We Are the World,' while a 12-foot peace sign made of 'No Blood for Oil' flyers painted by San Francisco schoolchildren rises up behind them. Five hundred dancers dressed in hippie clothes will do a moondance in the field in front of them."

"What about James Brown? It's not a Superbowl without James Brown."

"Right. We have James parachute in from a stunt plane that flies a banner reading: 'James is da bomb.'"

"No, no, no, that is soooo 1995 MTV. Let's have the music fade away, followed by James Brown reading a Maya Angelou poem . . ."

"Ooh, I like it! Which poem?"

"Who cares? They all sound the same."

"Yeah, 'hello rock, I was a teenage prostitute . . ."

"Right, so we have Brown read the poem, and as it concludes, we have Aerosmith break into 'Dude Looks Like a Lady' . . ."

"Isn't that homophobic?"

"George Michael won't like it."

"No, let me finish. We flip that around by having Lou Reed bust out from behind the stage, in drag, to sing the chorus with Steven Tyler."

"Dude, you are a freaking genius."

"Wait, it gets better. They then break into 'Walk on the Wild Side.'"

"Great -- only we can't have that line about 'all the colored girls say.'"

"Good point. How about 'all the people of color say?'"

"Mmm, too unwieldy."

"All them other girls say?"

"No, it sounds like we are dissing the colored girls."

"All the mother pearls say?"

"What?"

"No, bad. All the southern girls say?"

"Hey, yeah, and we could have a band of Hooter's gals singing back-up."

"No, remember we've got to work Shania Twain in here somewhere, and she gets pissed if there are any southern girls dressed more sluttily than she is."

"Right. Ooh, I've got it. All the cover girls say."

"Yes! We could get some supermodels out there . . ."

"Dressed like a male Lou Reed, with leather and frizzy black wigs . . ."

"And we have the Hell's Angels drive them out onto the field!"

"Brilliant!"

Substitute Christians being eaten by lions for Lou Reed dressed like a chick (and I'm not sure which is worse), and you've pretty much got the planning sessions for the Roman arenas. I wonder, how atrocious would the half-time entertainment have to be before a majority of the crowd would feel compelled to boo? In other words, just how little taste does the American public have?

From the look of things, not very much

Posted by Woodlief on January 03, 2003 at 08:52 AM