Censorship at the Super Bowl

 

There is a company named Sodastream and they make a device called Sodastream Jet Starter Kit that sells for under $100.00. It enables a home user to make soda or sparkling water. Add water and it will put the CO2 into the mix and allow a person to make their own carbonated beverage. The benefits are, of course, that it is cheaper than purchasing soft drinks and it enables people to choose their own flavors. It is also green. Coca Cola and Pepsi account for an incredible amount of the garbage we see in our landfills. It’s a neat idea.

http://www.sodastream.com/

Sodastream decided to make a national sales’ pitch and sought to purchase airtime for the Super Bowl. CBS turned them down and refused to allow them to purchase airtime for a commercial. Ultimately their reasoning was simple. Coca Cola and Pepsi purchase a great deal of airtime from them and they don’t want to offend these two companies.

For a nation that promotes ‘freedom of speech’ and decries ‘censorship’ we sure do tolerate a great deal of censorship or we practice selective censorship.

I am amazed, for example at the lack of censorship during election cycles. There has become an increasing amount of fact checkers and many election ads do poorly in the fact checking department. Very poorly, in fact. Many of the ads do not ‘ring false’ but are blatantly bogus. Yet, they are run in the name of free speech. We cannot deny these ads to run because we believe in freedom of speech, even if it’s a flat out lie.

The reality isn’t that they believe in freedom of speech, they believe in freedom of commerce. If they are paid enough money and it benefits them financially, they will run anything. We have all purchased products that were heavily advertised and those products proved to be awful, and the ads were actually pretty deceiving. They might not have been the outright bogus facts used in political ads, but they were close. Lots of amazingly delicious food we have heard about on television wasn’t nearly as delicious at home when we ate it. Many of those soups that were ‘chock full’ of delicious things weren’t nearly as chock full as we thought. Networks did not turn the ads down because there was a lot of money to be made.

I am not particularly interested in purchasing a Sodastream Jet Starter Kit. I go through stops and starts with soda; sometimes I buy it and drink it, other times, not so much. Frankly, and probably sadly, if I want it I don’t want to go through the effort of making it myself. Sodastream is probably not marketing to me, however. They are marketing to people who would be actually very interested in this. Sodastream can be fun and it is very green and will not pollute the earth with the garbage others do. They do, however, have a right to promote their product.

During the Super Bowl Mercedes Benz has an ad of a young model washing a car. She is dressed in short shorts and the ad is being promoted as too sexy for the Super Bowl. Go-Daddy will have multiple tasteless ads. They are spending lots of money and CBS is hungrily willing to take as much dollars as they can. But Sodastream in an ad that actually makes fun of Coke and Pepsi and is totally harmless is banned.

In 2006 the major networks censored someone else. They censored the United Church of Christ. Our denomination ran an ad campaign with the tagline, “No matter who you are or where you are on life’s journey, you are welcome here.” There was a bouncer outside a church and he was telling people they were welcome, or not. A gay couple was denied admission to the church. There was tumult and outrage. The United Church of Christ was being offensive and this blatantly open welcoming of gay people was so disruptive in society that the commercial was deemed too offensive to show most people.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hx1u1v7hAtY

Some claimed the ad was untrue as no church would deny people admission. They may not have bouncers at the front doors, but I know enough people who have felt unwelcome in churches that they know they do not belong. It is made clear.

And there were those offensive words, repeated every Sunday at my church and, I suspect, many other United Church of Christ congregations, “No matter who you are or where you are on life’s journey, you are welcome here.”

The ad was censored.

When you are watching the Super Bowl and enjoying the commercials, be aware that censorship is alive and well. You are fine unless you have the audacity to provide alternatives to soft drink giants or promote churches that take welcoming serious.