Super Bowl commercials are a highlight of every year's game, providing extra entertainment and, occasionally, controversy. This year was no different, with a string of entertaining ads displaying advertising genius at its best. However, Coca-Cola's commercial, "America Is Beautiful" has become the center of a firestorm that has unearthed a darker side to America that many witness but few admit. The commercial featured "America the Brave" sung in multiple languages (Spanish, Chinese, Hebrew etc.) and has provoked a social media outcry.
The rage on twitter has been so offensive that it's difficult to reproduce it here without perpetuating that offense. But in order to prove a point it is necessary to reveal some of the most hateful. "That coke commercial sucked. mexicans, jews and n**gers are not "american" tweeted one user. "@CocaCola must have missed the memo that this is America and we speak English!!" posted another. And so the rage continues as users across social media rail against what was an expression of American diversity.
Indeed, Coca Cola's Super Bowl commercial was deeply demonstrative of the American situation. Coca Cola's commercial is first and foremost an expression of American commercialism. Sensitive issues can be utilized by large corporations to sell a product: and it is a sensitive issue - the outrage itself is proof of that. Patriotism, sports and culture are all at the service of the market. Anyone who denies this as a clever marketing ploy is simply naïve.
Yet corporate greed aside, the commercial makes a true statement of the changing Amercian landscape. With the Latino population taking over as the largest ethnic minority in the United States, multiculturalism has become an undeniable state of affairs. So much so that immigration is set to be the key issue in American politics this year. The United States is a country that prides itself as a nation built on the shoulders of immigrants and constructed out of the ideals of equality.
Yet the outrage the commercial has engendered, apart from ensuring @CocaCola is constantly retweeted, is demonstrative of a very different ideology. In post-9/11 America, society is clearly xenophobic to the extreme. When the American President cannot convince congress to pass legislation that would help 11.5 million Americans (and I use the term deliberately) achieve citizenship, there is clearly something endemically wrong with the socio-political atmosphere of the nation.
There is no doubt that "America the Brave" is an important, perhaps even sacred, expression of that oh-so-holy and powerful force known as American patriotism. Yet the line between patriotism and nationalism is thin. When society refuses to acknowledge the blinding truth of diversity and accept the multiplicity of culture, then it becomes frightening.
Super Bowl Sunday is one of the biggest days in the American calendar. It goes hand in hand with Budweiser and apple pie as quintessentially American. Yet included in the Broncos line-up were players like Knowshon Moreno, Manuel Ramirez and Louis Velazquez. The players on both teams are predominantly African-American. The game is watched by 100 million people, from all races and in multiple countries. So before screaming outrage, I hope that football fans reassess what it truly means to be American.
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