By Neil Genzlinger The New York Times
It’s too bad Bob Hope isn’t part of the “Fox NFL Sunday” crew. He might have been able to do something with the odd incongruity of Sunday’s program, broadcast from Bagram Air Field in Afghanistan: a show glorifying fake warriors and their game, playing to a crowd of real warriors locked in an eight-year-old conflict.
You can imagine Hope — always so good at telegraphing that he knew the absurd discordance of bringing Hollywood glamour into a war zone — having a fine time.
“You grunts think you’re the only ones worried about dodging bullets?” he’d say. “Heck, Plaxico Burress gets nervous every time he sticks his hand in his pocket. You flyboys and gals think you’re taking risks? Michael Vick got shot down in a dogfight, and he never even left the ground.”
But Sunday’s show, a nice gesture by Fox in advance of Veterans Day, ignored the incongruity in favor of the opposite: by the end of the two-hour broadcast a visitor from another planet might easily have concluded that football and warfare were the same thing.
The broadcast was full of mutual back scratching, both during the show and in promotional spots during the commercial breaks: Fox and the National Football League trying to establish themselves as the country’s most fervid supporters and thankers of the troops, the military steering the Fox crew to feature segments without an ounce of blood or moral ambiguity.
Read more at The New York Times
ATTENTION READERS
We See The World From All Sides and Want YOU To Be Fully InformedIn fact, intentional disinformation is a disgraceful scourge in media today. So to assuage any possible errant incorrect information posted herein, we strongly encourage you to seek corroboration from other non-VT sources before forming an educated opinion.
About VT - Policies & Disclosures - Comment Policy
