Freda: I don’t agree with all of Metcalf’s points, but I shared his disappointment with Springsteen’s half-time. (And this from someone who once had a 4 ft. by 4 ft. framed poster of Born in the USA’s album art as her living room decor.)
Bruce has always been best at capturing the angst of working- and middle-class American life. In songs like “The River” and, yes, “Glory Days,” he captures the melancholy most of us at least sometimes feel over the disconnect between what we hoped our lives would be and what they’ve become.
When more than now have we felt that sense of lost opportunity? When more than now have we needed a cathartic moment—a moment when we’re allowed to indulge in that melancholy together, with an excuse to immediately move on to drinking beer, shouting at the TV screen, jumping up and down and cheering in excitement?
Partly, I was embarrassed for Bruce when he did his Eddie Van Halen cockslide into the video camera. But more than that, I felt deprived of a moment that I really wanted. As someone who gives Springsteen (“America’s favorite karaoke act”) more credit than Metcalf, I think Sunday’s performance could have done us all some good had it been less hammy and more sincere.
For those of us who don’t follow football—but find ourselves drawn to the Super Bowl because it, like the Inauguration and the Oscars, is a national event that we feel we shouldn’t miss—Springsteen’s half-time show could have been the catalyst for brief moment of national coming together. This might be a cheap imitation for the real thing. (Does watching the Super Bowl half-time show and feeling something at the same time replace shared values or overcome the culture wars? Probably not). But for someone who came of age during the height of the Red versus Blue State, urban versus small town America culture wars, I’ll take whatever sense of “togetherness” I can get. And I think Springsteen missed a chance to give us that.
Stephen Metcalf may well be the single worst cultural critic currently working for a major publication, and he proves it once again by completely failing to grasp that when times are bad, most people want optimism and escapism, not somber ballads of woe. Did this guy totally miss the fact that we voted in Barack “HOPE” Obama? Either way, can you just imagine how PISSED people would have been if he had played obscure sadsack songs during the Superbowl halftime show? Context counts for so much, and it’s always a celebratory event focused on crowd-pleasing theatrics. The Boss gave people what they wanted — showmanship, aesthetic overkill, nostalgia — and really, that’s the kind of stuff that flies whether the economy is booming or busting. (via perpetua)
