Posts Tagged america

On February 7th, over 100 million viewers in the US will sit down to watch the biggest event in the US sporting calendar – the Super Bowl. While we all might think it’s just rugby with more protective clothing and less fake blood scandals, the Americans take it pretty seriously. So seriously, in fact, that they orchestrate elaborate shows for half time, with cheerleaders and singers and accidental strip-shows from members of the Jackson family. As you can imagine, with all of those lovely viewers, advertising space is at a real premium, with 30second adverts costing as much as £3million.

However, this year, one advert in particular is causing a real storm – the ad (or ‘commercial’ as those other-side of the road, elevators and sidewalkers like to call them) is a short ad from the evangelical Christian organisation ‘Focus on the Family’, showing one of the teams’ star quarterback Tim Tebow and his mother Pam. The ad in particular focuses on Pam’s decision to ignore medical advice to have an abortion – stressing the anti-abortion message of the religious far right in America. Read the rest of this entry »