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Announcer: Welcome back to The David Pakman Show.
David: Welcome back to the show. David Pakman here. Want to remind you, we have a special
membership promotion, we mentioned it last week. Last week was my birthday, so we have
set up www.DavidPakman.com/birthday. And Louis just loves this thing. He has... how many
memberships are you up to at this point?
Louis: I think around 250,000.
David: [Laughs] Great. So-- that many, huh?
Louis: Yup.
David: www.DavidPakman.com/birthday. And the prices are linked to my age as well, which
I know Louis particularly likes.
Louis: Do I?
David: www.DavidPakman.com/birthday. People taking advantage of it left and right. Let's
pick up with my interview with Dave Zirin, we did it just before the start of the show.
Here he is talking to us first about the militarism that was part of the Superbowl, then we'll
go on, talk about the Tibet ad, and much more.
Dave Zirin: There was a flyover. There were Marines who marched out to midfield.
David: I missed the flyover.
Zirin: Sorry. You didn't miss a lot. There was also a reading of the Declaration of Independence,
which I thought was kind of bizarre. There was "America the Beautiful" also sung by that
twit from "Glee", and there was Christina Aguilera doing, you know, her best Judy Garland
impersonation and imploding on national television in what otherwise...
David: This is brilliant, because you know what? I actually have become so desensitized
to the fact that the Marines hold the flags that it completely went over my head. And
you're absolutely right, I just missed it.
Zirin: There was also the celebration of a Medal of Honor winner at one point during
the game. There were several shots of the troops back in Afghanistan and Iraq. And you
know, as far as corporatism, I mean, just the packaging of all of these commercials
that depend very heavily on selling women's bodies, $3 million for 30 seconds.
Now, let me be clear about something here. It's... I watched the Superbowl with people
from Iraq Veterans Against the War, every year, they do a demilitarized Superbowl party.
And I was talking with them a lot about what we were seeing, and the problem is not that
there are troops watching the games, obviously, that's not the problem. The problem is that
it's all put together in the same package, like you can't separate the camera lingering
on Kim Kardashian's body to sell some product or another and then the shots of the troops.
I mean, it's all sort of woven together in one large tapestry that says join the Army,
sex, rock and roll, the Superbowl, flyovers... I mean, it's like it's the same way you can't
separate "Top Gun" from Tom Cruise getting to sleep with Kelly McGillis. I mean, it's
all the same kind of package. And this is what upset the troops who I was watching it
with so much, because they, as they said over and over again to me, this is about exploiting
the soldiers for the purposes of selling a war.
David: We talked a little bit earlier on my show about the Groupon Tibet ad.
Zirin: Yeah.
David: My initial instinct when I saw it was I'm... I think it's not tasteful, but it's
bringing something to light that normally wouldn't even be mentioned in the Superbowl.
I talked to some people after that, and I completely disagree with myself at this point.
David: And I think that it was a huge mistake. I think it was... it's not... the negative
completely outweighs the positive. Give me your take.
Zirin: Yeah, and keep in mind that that was... there was a second one of those Groupon ads
that took place after the Superbowl which I thought gave away the game even more, which
was Elizabeth Berkley, the model who's a little bit past her best days, to be kind, speaking
about the problem, as she put it, of "deforestization", and there are all these shots of the destruction...
do you know the one I'm talking about?
David: I didn't see it, but I heard about it, yeah.
Zirin: Yeah. All these shots of the destruction of the Amazon rainforest, and then she sort
of did her sort of or, you can get involved with Groupon and we could all get Brazilian
waxes. That's another deforestation problem. And I think that more aggressively... I can
understand your confusion about the Tibet thing, to be frank with you, but I feel like
the Elizabeth Berkley one gives away the game a little bit more, is that what it's really
about, it's not in any way, shape, or form opening anybody's eyes to these things, it's
about mocking people who care about these things. It's sort of a big dig at kind of,
they would call, political correctness.
David: And what do we do? I mean, if the consensus is that these are offensive ads, I mean, can
anything be done? Is it just listen, if you want to watch the Superbowl, this is what
it is, there's no one to complain to, the FCC doesn't legislate content, and that's
just it, either you watch it or you don't?
Zirin: Well, and we know from history that the NFL and the networks, they're very politically
selective as far as the ads that they do choose to put on the air, having refused a series
of liberal issue ads over the years but having Tim Tebow on last year as part of an ad for
Focus on the Family. And I think honestly, what you're doing right now, David, is the
most positive thing that we can do, which is talk seriously about what these ads are
and what they represent in the aftermath.
Because otherwise, I think people sort of do one of two things: either it normalizes
the fact that things like the rainforests or Tibet are things to be mocked and people
accept that, or people who do understand something about the fact of deforestation or what's
happening in Tibet develop calluses about it, and develop calluses about these ads,
and just sort of grit their teeth and cush their way through it. I also think that's
how most people deal with things like the Ronald Reagan tribute before the game, the
flyover, the Marines, the militarism, all these different things. I think most people
when they see these things just sort of grit their teeth and bear it, but I'm for talking
about it.
David: And the callus concept is absolutely right, because I talk about this every day
on the show, and even I thought that, when I just saw that Marines were holding flags,
it didn't even occur to me maybe somebody else would hold the flag. It was just part
of the context, it didn't even become... and you're right, I'm as much of a victim of it
as anybody else.
Zirin: And you know, when the Marines have been in the news the most in recent months
was they were the one branch of the armed forces that objected to the overturning of
Don't Ask, Don't Tell. And so even the fact that they were the branch of the armed forces
that were chosen to hold the flag, I mean, all of these things have a back story. And
we don't get the back story, but I think we do have a responsibility to try to take it
apart and talk about it openly.
David: Can you talk real quick in the last minute or two we have here, the Green Bay
Packers and their system of team ownership is fascinating to me, and the size of the
market that they come from, and if we're actually, if we're going to talk about Barack Obama
being a socialist or a Communist, ideas that we dismiss at face value, can you actually
put in context for our audience, who may not be familiar with what goes on in Green Bay,
what goes on there?
Zirin: Sure, absolutely. I mean, the Green Bay Packers are the only not-for-profit, community-owned
team in the NFL. Actually, they're the only one in all major sports in the United States.
And I'm asked sometimes who's the best owner in sports, I always say the 112,000 owners
of the Green Bay Packers. And Green Bay is a city of only slightly over 100,000 people,
period. And the reason why the team has been able to sustain itself, and now it has more
titles than any other team in the last 50 years and is the 2011 Superbowl Champion,
is not in spite of its ownership structure, but I would argue it's because of its ownership
structure.
And this is very threatening to Roger Goodell. You know, this unique ownership structure,
and remember, like I said, it's the only team that's run as a non-profit in the NFL, it
was not mentioned once during the broadcast. And it was very weird, like if you think of
previous Superbowls, there are constantly shots of the owner in the box sort of fretting
nervously about the game and talk about everything the owner went through to get there, so all
this back story about the owners that's woven through the game. They didn't mention the
Green Bay owners once, and because of that, they then chose, I guess because they thought
it would be awkward, to not mention the Rooney family once. And they're the the most historic
ownership group, ownership family in all of the NFL, the Rooney family is. So it was a
fascinating production choice, whether it was by Fox or whether by the NFL or Joe Buck
and Troy Aikman, although I don't frankly give them any agency in regards to making
this decision.
David: No.
Zirin: It says something that they want to hide this truth from us, particularly this
year when the players are facing this kind of a lockout, and fans are facing the prospect
of not having the NFL in fall 2011. The last thing they want to do is celebrate a team
whose very existence points to the fact that NFL franchises don't exactly need billionaire
monomaniacal owners.
David: Absolutely. And Dave Zirin, we're out of time. We, definitely as we get more information
about the potential lockout, I want to have you back to talk about that.
Zirin: Yes.
David: Thanks so much for joining us on short notice.
Zirin: Oh, my privelege, David.
David: All right, thanks to Dave Zirin. Always fascinating to talk to him, he's got great
insights on this stuff, and he just really digs into it, huh?
Louis: Yeah, yeah. And you know what? I have to agree with you, you're right, I didn't
really notice the whole military thing either. Just part of the package.
David: It's true, yeah.
Louis: It's just like, it's the same every year.
David: I mean, I went in planning to make note of all of the type of militaristic, corporate
stuff that we saw, other than obviously the ads, and some of the ones he mentioned just
went over my head.
Louis: Yeah. But there was one, there was... I think before you got there, there was an
ad, I guess it was an ad, it was incredibly long, and it just showed all these football
players with soldiers and different people in different places, and it was just a...
I think, I guess, an overall American thing in which they recited... what, they were reciting...
I don't remember...
David: Oh, it was the Declaration of Independence.
Louis: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
David: Yeah, right, right. No, I read about that.
Louis: Yeah. That one...
David: It's just becoming part of the background, yeah, you're absolutely right.
Louis: That one was very in-your-face, but everything else was pretty mellow.
Transcript provided by Alex Wickersham and www.Subscriptorium.com. For transcripts, translations,
captions, and subtitles, or for more information, visit www.Subscriptorium.com, or contact Alex
at subscriptorium@gmail.com.