A Culture War Breaks Out Over Super Bowl Halftime

By Clarence Page, Tribune Content Agency on Feb 10, 2016

Much of that anger plays out in tribal cultural wars, turning even such prosaic gatherings as pro football games into arenas for culture clashes.

Just ask Rosemary Plorin. The Tennessee mom's open letter in the Charlotte Observer chastised Carolina Panthers quarterback Cam Newton for exposing her 9-year-old daughter and the rest of the world to his trademark "dap" dance after the Panthers scored a touchdown against the Tennessee Titans.

"I don't know about your family life Mr. Newton," she wrote, "but I think I'm safe in saying thousands of kids watch you every week. You have amazing talent and an incredible platform to be a role model for them. Unfortunately, what you modeled for them today was egotism, arrogance and poor sportsmanship."

Oh, well, anyone upset by Newton's little dance can gloat that the Denver Broncos gave him his comeuppance. After his team's Super Bowl loss, there was no dance for the sports media from Cam. He did sulk a lot.

Meanwhile, the political correctness wars continued with a game of Spot the Politics in the Halftime Show.

There's nothing new about politics popping up in the show. But no one complained, for example, about the Global Citizen armband worn by Coldplay's Chris Martin to publicize that poverty-fighting organization.

I won't say that's because Beyonce is black and Martin is white. But it did remind me of the year that Justin Timberlake exposed Janet Jackson's breast during halftime -- and put the term "wardrobe malfunction" into everyone's vocabulary.

Almost forgotten was rocker Kid Rock's entrance minutes earlier wearing an American flag as a poncho, which he threw into the crowd. The Veterans of Foreign Wars filed a lawsuit against CBS for letting that desecration happen, but blowback against the Kid paled compared to what Jackson endured.

Beyonce is accustomed to criticism from conservatives. Her reunion performance with Destiny's Child in 2013 was called "tasteless and unedifying" by National Review editor Rich Lowry, whose colleague Kathryn Jean Lopez called on Beyonce to "put a dress on."

But contrary to Stuart Varney's complaint, there's nothing new about race issues in sports. It's just in today's media age -- and with an African-American president -- it's harder for people to pretend that our cultural divide doesn't exist. It does. Maybe someday we'll learn how to talk about it.

========

(E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@tribune.com.)