With $8.7 billion in total spending associated with the Super Bowl, you might think advertising executives would have wanted to come up with something more entertaining than the pitiful collection of television ads that we saw this past Sunday. Two of the more highly regarded commercials were actually produced by amateurs, which means they cost less, but still set each company back the $2,500,000 it cost to air the commercial just once.

Turner Broadcast System and Interference, Inc. recently executed a guerilla ad campaign that consisted of placing Lite-Brite boxes around a few select cities. It was nothing if not effective. By generating fear and panic, they managed to create an enormous publicity campaign with nothing more than a few kid’s toys. I don’t believe for a moment that they didn’t wish for all the attention. With news coverage and police involvement, they were obviously out to prove that any publicity is good publicity. They were fined $2,000,000, less than an ad on the Super Bowl, proving that if you can stretch the boundaries, maybe break a few rules, people will pay attention to you, and it won’t cost you too much. Ad execs must be like mischievous little children, vying for notice from seemingly overworked and inattentive parents, who apparently are too tired or afraid or just plain dumb-headed to punish them appropriately.

And so it is with the Super Bowl ads. Some people tune in to the Super Bowl just to watch the commercials. I certainly used to. But now, our commercials have gone the way of Janet Jackson’s half-time show, and I am changing the channel on that, believe me. With the smarmy Doritos’ “love at the cash register” and the topless (albeit guys) impromptu carwash, I’m siding with the girl in the car who closes her eyes and says, “Tell me when it’s over!” Snickers has two guys kissing, then being totally homophobic and ripping out chest hair. I suppose 30 or even 20 years ago, that might have earned a chuckle, but in the day of the homosexual educational video being played for our eight-year-olds in their public school, I am more along the lines of incensed. The Go Daddy commercial that garnered enormous reaction (much negative) last year, with the buxom babe wearing a skimpy T-shirt with the logo across her chest, was tame in comparison to the raunchy, “Girls-Gone-Wild” style of this year’s advertisement. The fact that the ad caused such a stir last year probably helped determine the content of this one.

Along similar lines, many advertisers used violence to promote their products. E-trade has banks (where employees and managers wear eerie character masks) violently robbing their own customers. King Pharmaceuticals shows an old guy in a heart costume being beaten up by toughies such as “high cholesterol” and “diabetes.” They throw him into a van, take him into a deserted alley, and pummel him before throwing him against the wall so forcefully that he dislodges the concrete. The ads for CareerBuilder.com took it one step further, with office workers out in the jungle, à la Survivor, having copiers and huge water bottles thrown at them and pens launched at them like darts. The tone was less cartoon, more reality, and it ended with the employees committing suicide like lemmings. Even Bud Lite, with one particularly funny ad (the buddies get an auctioneer to perform the wedding ceremony so they can hit the Bud Lite sooner), couldn’t resist a little violence: two guys go for one beer and, to settle the winner, they shoot rock, paper, scissors. One guy throws paper, the other guy throws an actual rock at the first guy’s head and knocks him out. Once again, not a cartoon.

Mandy Patinkin said, in a promotion for Criminal Minds, “Murder is entertainment.” That’s funny (not), because the last time I checked, murder was a capital offence. How sad that it has come to this, during a football game.

Some people may argue that football is also violent, but sports are meant to be played within parameters known as “rules.” When my son watches a game, he understands the role that the officials play. When they air an ad that shows a robot so sad he dreams of committing suicide, well, it leaves me with a lot of explaining to do, and I resent being put in that position. More than that, I fear for the children who watch unsupervised and don’t ask for any explanation.

Sex and violence seem to have become the new mainstays of advertising, and I doubt there is any way to curb the trend. As long as there is no punishment, or even public admonishment, the phenomenon will increase. If our kids can’t watch a football game on Sunday, because the commercials are too raunchy for them, how can they ever learn to cuss at the referees properly?

— Anna Nimouse is a nom de cyber for an actress and mother living in Hollywood.