The National Football League took ten minutes to create a shoddy video declaring “Football is Gay”. The video was like a Terminator going back to destroy a century of unabashed heterosexual joy. “Football is Gay” is a weird thing to say. This video is weird. It feels like 12-year-old girls on the Yearbook Committee trying to sneak in a catty comment about one of their rivals. You can hear the self-satisfied coquettish giggling.
Under the unblinking eye of a 21st-century helicopter mom society, the NFL has endured a number of public reputation hits. Former players with CTE laying waste to entire Indonesian villages, baby mamas beaten outside by inside linebackers, and the sundry sporting life assortment of steroids, guns, gang activity, and triple homicides. There was only one way to reverse the spin on this public image toilet. The curative cloak of gay pride.
Plotting began last week when Las Vegas Raiders defensive end Carl Nassib went on Instagram to calmly announce he’s gay. Nobody really seemed to care. Some guy in a bar somewhere outside South Philly made a joke about it, three other dudes grunted halfheartedly, and that was the full extent of American male response. It’s 2021. We ran out of gay jokes a long time ago. Most of us. Also, nobody wants to lose their Twitter account, be fired, and have their kids called Hitler at school.
As we’ve seen with all corporate responses to Pride Month, Nassib’s coming out was an opportunity for the NFL to wrap itself in the thinly veiled AIDS quilt of virtue. Wash your hands afterward just in case. You know where that quilt has been.
The NFL’s amateurish video declares the NFL is gay, lesbian, transgender, queer, accepting, and any other trending alt-lifestyle hashtag they could add without having to purchase extra fonts. All this inclusion stuff makes you wonder why you’re left feeling so excluded upon viewing. Like parents lining up their three sons and telling only one of them that he’s an amazing and special kid. Now, take the trash out, heteronormative kids. We’re going out for tropical-themed cocktails with our gay son. We don’t care that he’s only eleven.
Football isn’t gay. Minus field goal attempts. Those are gayer than dining on six dicks when your Christian name is Gary. Nor is it lesbian or trans or BLM or polyamorous or gender fluid. The absurdness of this LGBTQ ecclesiastical ad copy elucidates the utter idiocy of the underlying premise. If you really want to make gay people happy, why not make the 49ers win the Super Bowl every year? Did gay people collectively rub a magic multinational corporate lamp and wish for a cheaply produced YouTube video? Gay people do love lamps. Still, this feels like a downtown Detroit precinct on election night. I’d like to see the ballots. Just for kicks.
