Links to help you think about (or avoid thinking about) Super Bowl 50

Many believe that Super Bowl 50 will come down to which team scores points while stopping the opposing team from scoring points.

Whether you want to understand football sociologically or want to ignore it altogether here are some links to help:

• Sociology Toolbox on the Super Bowl as a sociological phenomenon.
• The Daily Show examines the issue of race in discussions of quarterbacks Cam Newton and Peyton Manning.
• A guide to hating Peyton Manning (for some valid reasons!).
• My own links from a few years ago, including Superb Owl Sunday.
• Last year’s post on avoiding the Super Bowl and watching We Are the Best! instead.

Enjoy the game (or don’t)!

Image from VectorBelly.

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Hate the sport? Watch We Are the Best! instead of the Super Bowl

If you find yourself reacting to the upcoming kickoff of Super Bowl [insert roman numerals here] with trepidation, and especially if you find yourself reacting to the Super Bowl by marveling at how much money is being spent to televise a bunch of millionaires playing a kids game when that money could be better spent fighting nuclear proliferation, let me suggest an alternative. We Are the Best! is a Swedish movie set in the early 1980s and featuring three girls in their early teens who start a punk band. Their first (and basically only) song is called “Hate the Sport,” and includes lyrics about people dying while others focus on high-jump basketball soccer teams. The movie also includes a brazen attempt to save a Christian with the wonders of punk (though I guess that, as the girls point out, you can’t hang God without accepting that he exists…).

We are the Best! is available for streaming on Netflix and you can see the trailer here:

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