Superbowl

I don't have to poke around much online to see and hear about the pro-life messages during the Superbowl. I especially enjoyed two commentaries: my friend Liz's blog about the commercials and Catholic Femina's post about Drew Brees.

The Cliffs Notes version of their ideas and my own musings :

Kudos to CBS and to Pam and Tim Tebow.

While some feminists got offended by the very idea of the Focus on the Family ad, a good number wrote editorials condemning their compatriots and supporting the "choice" that Pam made. I applaud Focus on the Family for creating an ad that made it onto TV on Superbowl Sunday, but I have to admit I agree with what Em told me that night : it had no teeth. The "aha!" moment, where you realize what an ad is really talking about is a powerful moment, and there wasn't one there. However, the controversy surrounding the ad may be nearly as important as the ad itself. I learned about the Tebows and their values not from the 30 second commercial, but from all the hype leading up to it. Hopefully, that message made it further than the ears of only those people who already have their minds made up.

Catholic Femina pointed out another player, Drew Brees, as giving pro-life witness.

His immediate victory celebration was with his baby, and he chose to celebrate with wife and child over partying with the team. I only have the word of this blog that this happened and no insight into Brees's mind, but this action does say something about the primacy of family.

Still, I have to agree with Liz that two commercials take the cake for the strongest yet subtlest pro-life messages of the night. The Dove commercial that showed a man's life started by showing sperm fertilizing an egg. Wait -- when does life begin?

Some activists might find it hard to figure out, but Dove knows. (Side note : Major kudos to Dove, for this ad and their Real Beauty Campaign. Secretly pro-life perhaps?) Not only that, but the commercial celebrates life's little and big moments.

And the Google commercial.

Besides being utterly adorable, it shows life events happening in a specific order : meeting, falling in love, getting married, having a child. But more than that, it defines a happy ending. So much of the media depicts a "happy ending" as the two protagonists finally realizing they are in love with each other. The happy ending comes in the form of some sort of physical consummation of this love. Maybe there's a marriage at the end of that. However, Google takes it one step further. The happy ending includes starting a family, completing romantic love by sharing in creation. Whether they realize it or not, Google has some Gospel values.