Keep CBS Out of My Uterus

By MZ. MANNERS, WHO DOESN'T MEAN IT LITERALLY

For real. This is craziness. We are living in the post-apocalypse already. I feel like this could have all been avoided. I am officially boycotting the Superbowl. Which is fine, because I wasn't going to watch it anyway. But now that CBS has pulled a clever little stunt, it's official. I'm going to watch PBS Masterpiece Classics instead.

The network refused to air commercials from MoveOn.org, as well as ads for a hilarious gay dating site. But then when they started loading up on actual anti-choice ads, I went through the roof. I threw the conference table over in the A2ethics newsroom and informed the whole staff that I would handle this case personally.

The Anti-Choice ad features Heisman Trophy Winner Tim Tebow and his mother (what a douchebag move, to bring your mother into it!), reversing CBS's policy not to air controversial ads. I guess they have to be the right kind of "controversial" to get aired now. This ain't right!

Furthermore, it's a hilarious juxtaposition. This anti-choice ad featuring a meathead football player and his mom (who clearly is the brains behind the operation) is sandwiched between beer ads featuring a bunch of raunchy beach fun and T & A. That is the fabulous irony of this whole thing. After Tim "T-Bone" Tebow and Mrs. T-Bone have their say and spend their $1 million on the ad time, we will be right back to the boob-and-beer fest that is the Superbowl.

The Superbowl has undergone some moral rebranding. It got really sleazy, and then it got boring again, and now it is creeping over into this new territory, using the world's most expensive air time to focus on stripping me of my rights as a female woman. We have come a long way since Janet Jackson. Remember Springsteen last year, when he slid towards the camera and bonked his genital area into the lens? Thank god I wasn't wearing my 3-D glasses. Ka-pow! That's way more intense than Avatar.

So while you are boozing it up and watching an already morally reprehensible game, I will be catching up on my Jane Austen. Enjoy! And forget all about the commercials! The Big Bowl Game poses other ethical obstacles:

• It's gladiatorial. The game requires young men to risk their bodies for our viewing pleasure. And most of them are black, and most of the fans at the game are white, and it all has a weird racial feel to me. I'm uncomfortable even talking about it, but it's the elephant in the room.
• There are cheerleaders, whose outfits are floozier than ever. Abortion? That's immoral. But a boob-job, I guess that's perfectly okay with God.
• The entire phenomenon of football culture is the kind of drunken, loud hubris/excess that makes other nations mad at us.
• The ads are the only reason I watched it anyway.

So listen up. Start the slow-clap. This Sunday, I want you to come over to my house. We'll watch the pregame show. We'll check out the halftime show. We'll watch the post-game show, so we can find out the score, and have something to talk about with our coworkers on Monday. But most of all, we're gonna watch The Golden Girls.

One great thing about being American is that you always can find Blanche, Dorothy, Sofia and Rose on the TV, any time, day or night. Sometimes two episodes back to back. It's your right as an American to have cocktails on the Linai and laugh it up with Bea Arthur. So while two warlike teams take the field to battle it out, crunching their heads together like nuts, breaking collarbones and ending their entire careers at the age of 23, and while anti-choice commercials blaze across screens all over this land, we'll be making a choice of our own. We're gonna watch The Golden Girls. 

I prefer a battle of wits any day of the week. I look at Bea Arthur as a star quarterback. Rose is the soft-headed defensewoman, sent ahead to ward off Sofia, the toughest adversary you can imagine. And while Blanche is off floozing it up with a man half her age, we'll all be in a better place. In the end, there are no winners, no losers, just cocktails on the Linai.

Football is a game of war. Young men are thrown into battle, into the fray, the deadly throng, in pursuit of a piece of pigskin. Like any war, there is a valuable object at the center. Whoever controls the ball controls the planet, and as the marauders cross the field, picking up yards, advancing on the other's territory, a war is faught between all of us too. We all want to be on the side that's winning.

Then we go to commercial. A beer war is faught. In between plays, a cellphone war is fought. A credit card war, a war between competing banks. And let's not forget the newcomer to this year's game: The Culture War.

I say let the market sort itself out. If you're going to run competing ads for Budweiser and Colt .45, then you should let everyone play. Run the gay dating ad right up against the anti-choice ad. Run the MoveOn.org ad right up against it on the other side. Then come back with celebrity endorsements of political issues. Let's watch Justin Timberlake speak up for Health Care Reform. Let's let Kanye West come out on the other side, saying "I'ma let you finish", but nonetheless, he will give you an earful about blocking the Public Option.

Let's have Lady GaGa speak up for Veteran's Affairs. Let's join Woody Harrelson in the fight to legalize dope-smoking, and then on the other side, let's re-animate old footage of Louie Armstrong and use CGI to make his mouth move around and talk about offshore drilling. Corporations are now legal to create tax-free campaign messages, so let's send Mitt Romney out there with a pack of Juicyfruit and throw in a little 20-second tidbit about small government while he plays beach volleyball.

If the network is willing to politicize the big game, then we're all invited. Here's to you, America. Let's win one for the Gipper. Keep CBS out of my Uterus. Not literally, of course. Spiritually.

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.