"O'er the ramparts we watch'd, were so gallantly streaming?"
After watching the news, SportsCenter, or YouTube, you must already know that Christina Aguilera botched our national anthem on our country's biggest stage, Super Bowl XLV.
But how many of you actually heard her screw up when she did?
My Super Bowl "party" knew something was wrong, but we still had to rewind the anthem – God bless DVR – twice and pull up the lyrics to see exactly how badly she butchered it. Safe to say, Christina Aguilera invented a remix that even P. Diddy couldn't help.
With one brain fart, the pop star – and I use the term "star" loosely – ruined the song, pre-game festivities, and possibly even her career (not that she had much of one left anyway).
When it happened, I immediately called my father – a guy who holds his right hand over his overly-large patriotic heart and sings the words proudly, loudly and, unfortunately, very off-pitch every time he hears the national anthem – who, to my surprise, had no idea what had just occurred.
Did anyone else catch the mistake?
I decided to check the next-most-reliable source, Facebook, for status updates, assuming that everyone would jump at the opportunity to tear Ms. Aguilera a new one. But, again to my disbelief, only one of my friends attacked her with a snide remark.
Initially, my anger was toward Aguilera, but now I was getting frustrated with the American people as a whole.
My party and I kept refreshing Google News and scouring blogs to see if more people noticed the slip-up and to check our sanity. We had to wait over five minutes before we found another source that confirmed we were not crazy.
America's delayed response, however, raised a question in my mind: why did it take only 30 seconds to see the infamous Janet Jackson nipple slip on the Internet back in 2004, but over five minutes to confirm that our country's national anthem was just defaced?
Believe it or not, it gets worse.
From the pre-game affairs to the array of vehicular commercials, this Super Bowl had a greater feel of nationalism than any in years past (minus the debacle of our national anthem).
The pre-game contained a montage that showed our troops overseas; U.S. Army staff sergeant Salvatore Giunta, who was the first living recipient of the Medal of Honor since the Vietnam War, was a special guest of honor and got a massive standing ovation.
(Ironically, the broadcast cut to a video of soldiers overseas right after Aguilera repeated the second line of our anthem in place of the fourth line – "O'er the ramparts we watch'd, were so gallantly streaming?" – that was omitted.)
Even the car commercials boasted American pride.
The two-minute long, $12 million Chrysler 200 commercial featuring Eminem was the most invigorating commercial I have ever seen during the Super Bowl. And who else knew that every BMW X3 ever made came from South Carolina? I sure didn't. Even Toyota claimed to use more American parts than Ford, although I'd go out on a limb and call the company's bluff.
Nationalism aside, I, for one, still have a sour taste left in my mouth after watching the big game, despite my 1,5 box hitting in the fourth quarter, earning me a healthy payout. For a Super Bowl that was filled with nationalism, pinpoint throws, and football catches, Christina Aguilera and we, the American people, really dropped the ball when it came to our National Anthem.
E-mail: kimbarow@buffalo.edu
