Football and the Super Bowl
Knowing I had this assignment to complete, I was planning on watching the Super Bowl ... alone. Then I got invited to a Super Bowl party and I could not refuse the opportunity to go out and socialize with my friends. I was sick the past week and was starved for some human contact. I am not really a football fan, but this was Super Bowl Sunday, one of the biggest parties of the year. So I went to my friend's house, armed with my notebook, and was ready to analyze the game. Soon, more and more people showed up. They were all male, all college students, and all athletes. I do not think I need to explain much of what happened, but I will say this; I did not hear what the sportscasters had to say and we were all more entertained by the commercials, snowball fights, and the new puppy than we were by the football game. To quote Linda Fuller, "The game itself is oftentimes hardly the point; rather, it is the parties, the people, and ... the products surrounding it." (Fuller 165) So I lived the Super Bowl experience, and for the rhetoric analysis I went to see the film Any Given Sunday. Shailer Mathews, dean of the Chicago Divinity School once said, "Football today is a social obsession.
Studies say that women's shelters are their busiest on Super Bowl Sunday. (Fuller 171) This is not a very big surprise when one actually thinks about it. Drinking is synonymous with the Super Bowl. From my own observations I have found that men become more violent when they drink. When I say violent, I mean verbal and physical abuse. When you add this drinking to the violence and the anti-women message of football, it is not a big surprise that violence erupts in the home. Football is a boy-killing, education-prostituting, gladiatorial sport. It teaches virility and courage, but so does war." (Fuller 163) Young boys are taught in order to become real men they must be tough and they must like sports. From an early age the young men in this country are taught to fight, be strong, and push down anyone who is in the way. Many of the terms used in football are taken from military terminology, such as blitz, bombs, offense, defense, victories, and defeats, to name a few. Phrases such as "ground and air attacks," "fighting on the frontlines," and "battling in the trenches" are also used. (Fuller 167) The football field is much like a battlefield, without as many casualties but just as many
Some common words found in the essay are:
School Football, Super Bowl, Linda Fuller, Bowl Fuller, Rhetoric Knowing, super bowl, , Shailer Mathews, derogatory jokes, women portrayed,
Approximate Word count = 813
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)
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