College football star Tim Tebow has made it big in the past week, not for his stardom, but for his upcoming appearance in a Super Bowl ad paid for by Focus on the Family in which he will appear with his mother, Pam Tebow, who will say something to the effect of, "I could've had an abortion; my doctor recommended I did. But I didn't, and look at the vigorous son I bore, whose strength and masculinity would never have graced our football fields if I'd had an abortion. I urge you to choose life, too!"
Besides its controversial content, the ad has generated significant debate regarding CBS's policy against airing advocacy ads. Feminists have responded loudly, garnering over 100,000 petition signatures asking CBS to pull the ad. Here's a good introduction on The Daily Beast; Feministe brought us a smart bit of analysis on the controversy. From Feministing, "raging grannies" singing against the ad; and a round-up of major coverage from Jezebel is here.
There's been disagreement a'plenty, though. Frances Kissling and Kate Michelman wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post about the shortcomings of the pro-choice movement, and celebrating the activism tactics on the pro-life side. More importantly, though, they helped shift the debate away from an issue of finding a particular ad distasteful and offensive (do we expect to see any that aren't?) to a question of censorship and agenda-pushing.
Jaclyn Friedman got to the heart of some bigger issues on The Nation today. This is a must-read that addresses the problem with generating a culture of sexual violence in football and the nagging feeling that women are "second sex" when it comes to football, even its advertising, since "now we have a CBS-sanctioned ad telling us that if we get knocked up as a result of all that (relentlessly heterosexual) sex, we have only two choices: have the baby, or become an enemy of Football Nation." -TLF
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
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