Super bowl sexy

Women are constantly comparing themselves to other women. Are we tall enough? Skinny enough? Curvy enough? Ladies I am sorry to disappoint, but before you buy another gym membership or contemplate your future in plastic surgery, think about the real goal that you are trying to achieve. Are you beautiful enough to be flaunted in Super Bowl Sunday? Does your size two, double D, perfectly olive toned body glisten in the light? Is your sexy “smize” just right? Are you Super Bowl Sexy?

Since 1967, the Super Bowl has been an annual icon of American culture. Families and friends gather together to watch two football teams battle for the championship title. But let’s be honest, there are a significant amount of people who tune in on Sunday for some other type of entertainment than watching grown men run into each other. The Super Bowl ads and half-time show are nearly just as iconic—maybe even more so—as the game itself.

You would think that a time when millions of people are cemented to the television like it’s an extension of their soul would be the perfect opportunity to broadcast some type of world changing public service announcement. Instead, an unfathomable amount of time and money is spent ensuring that the heart and very essence of our one-sided society is evident that night. Really, it should be called “National Testosterone Day”.

The advertisements shown during the Super Bowl are notorious for their sexist display of women. It is practically the embodiment of John Berger’s concept of the “male gaze” which theorizes that women’s prime purpose is to be an object for male pleasure when in any form of visual setting. From fantasized Dorito ads to sexy car washes and everything in between, women are continuously used during the Super Bowl as displays of “ideal” beauty and male fantasy. Let’s all just sit back with our polyester jerseys, wings and pizza and watch as the male hormones are fully fed. On average, about $4 million dollars are spent to claim the 30 seconds of prime advertising time, and the half-time show is an even more grandiose concoction.

Congratulations, Katy Perry, you are this year’s target. I hope you are ready for the performance of your life because everyone knows that you are forgotten unless you make a scene. Feel free to let loose. Let’s be real, we are all only waiting to see another Janet Jackson episode.

It is just one more way that society continues to remind us women what really matters. That beauty only comes in one photo-shopped package. We are only worth swaying the viewers’ attention from the game if we are nude in a pile of Doritos, or flaunting all our assets in a car commercial or some other brand whose product is completely irrelevant to their sexist display. This message was sealed and delivered when television stations thought the best way to remedy backlash to their blatant sexism was to throw in a Calvin Klein ad here and there to lessen the damage. The solution they have chosen to provide is in response to the wrong question.

My question is simply, who calls the shots? Who gets to decide what women are beautiful enough to be advertised? How does this patriarchal power structure devalue the core of female existence—belittles the the intelligence, power, and resilience that is womanhood into the shell of a hyper-sexualized object? It is all a reminder that women must constantly fight for ownership over their bodies, which has been left in the hands of male-driven media for too long. Although women’s rights have come a long way, the American society is not as progressive as we would like to believe.

Kalifa Wright is a Trinity junior. Her column runs every other Wednesday.