From Super Bowls to Oscars to Politics, a Week Long Celebration of US Imperium

By Michael Meurer

“Rome has grown since its humble beginnings and is now overwhelmed by its own greatness.” – Livy

No other nation does imperial spectacle like the US, and the week of February 2-9, featuring the Super Bowl, Oscars, an elaborately choreographed reality TV version of the State of the Union speech (SOTU) and a Senate impeachment trial, was extraordinary by any standard.

The global scale and reach of this multi-billion dollar self-dramatization would make ancient Romans blush, all the more so because it is set against the backdrop of an ongoing $10 billion national election extravaganza.

The new hyperlinked “bread and circuses” on display last week brilliantly synthesizes the triumph of the imperial ethos in 21st century America, where an orgy of self-indulgence is now a permanent feature of the Imperium.

FEB. 2 – FOOTBALL AS PATRIOTISM, POLITICS AS CONSUMERISM

The 2020 Super Bowl in a nation that spends $1.25 trillion annually on its military, and in which 30 second TV ads cost $5 to $6 million, was awash in military pageantry to match the calibrated martial violence of the game itself. The entire star-spangled fandango, with F-35 and F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jets flying overhead, is fueled by an unquestioning embrace of consumerism packaged in the idiom of pop culture and celebrity fetishism.

Was there a single revered pop icon who did not have their own ad during the four hour production? Think Bill Murray reprising his role in “Ground Hog Day” to sell Jeeps.

The subtext of this raucous media blockbuster lies in its service transforming the consumption of sponsored spectacle into the ultimate expression of imperial patriotism. Watched by over 101 million viewers, the scale and psychic importance of this faux patriotic spectacle from a sport that produces $25 billion in annual revenue are difficult to overstate.

With the devolution of citizenship into the act of voting in vitriolic consumerist election spectacles, the Super Bowl may be a more effective tool for generating a sense of national unity, however fleeting.

FEB. 4 – STATE OF THE UNION REALITY SHOW (SOTU)

Following President Donald Trump’s 2020 State of the Union speech, mainstream media were festooned with headlines such as “The Reality Show Reveals in Trump’s 2020 State of the Union,” and “Trump adds Reality Show Flourishes to Address.” Trump’s SOTU was designed to kick off his 2020 re-election bid by hitting every emotional touchpoint for his base.

From a recovering African-American homeless drug addict turned affordable housing builder to a Hispanic ICE agent honored for arresting Hispanic criminals at the US-México border, and a young mother and her 2 year old daughter serving as symbols of protest against late term abortion, Mr. Trump made the most of his reality TV background, painting a vivid portrait of a diverse and powerful America soaring above every other nation on earth.

Although viewership was down from previous years, the SOTU show, complete with a stagey ripping of the paper speech by supporting actress Nancy Pelosi, nonetheless attracted 34.2 million primetime viewers.

FEB. 5 – IMPEACHMENT DISMISSAL

The day after Trump’s SOTU speech, the US Senate voted in his impeachment trial, dismissing charges of abuse of power and obstruction of justice along party lines. The televised trial drew 14 million TV viewers and spawned banner headlines worldwide.

FEB. 9 – THE OSCAR’S ARTFUL EMBRACE OF GLOBAL IMPERIUM

While the televised Academy Awards ceremony that bookended the week could not match the Superbowl, it is the crowning annual celebration for a US movie industry that generated $41.7 billion in global box office sales in 2018.

With the South Korean film “Parasite” winning four Oscars and becoming the first non-English language film to win Best Picture, Hollywood was sending a message to the world that the Academy’s US-centric community of producers, actors and publicists, frequently criticized for their insularity, is now embracing globalism with a vengeance.

International box office for Hollywood movies has been over 61% of total revenue since 2017, and the US film industry is still the most financially dominant in the world. The advent of movie streaming by US companies who produce their own films, such as Netflix, Amazon and Hulu, makes it clear that US-led globalization will continue in this new online era. Since 2014, Netflix alone has won 12 Golden Globes from 75 nominations and 6 Oscars on 54 nominations.

The 2020 Oscars were a celebration of this dominant global footprint.

IMPERIUM DEFECTUM

If history is a reliable guide, as many as 100 million US citizens eligible to vote will not cast ballots in the 2020 presidential election. Tocqueville observed that in the US, “Democracy depends on many things besides voting,” but these statistics nonetheless indicate that the national orgy of spending on consumer spectacle, including $10 billion in the 2020 election cycle, seems to be in inverse proportion to meaningful citizen engagement.

The real cost of permanent cultural and political spectacle won’t be publicized. As TS Eliot famously opined in “The Hollow Men:”

“This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but with a whimper.”