So, apprently a Super Bowl 48 commercial is pissing people off...

[Lunar Templar]

Yes, a Super Bowl Commercial, featuring 'America the Beautiful' sung in multiple languages, I assume by Americans

The uproar is how 'that song shouldn't be sung in anything other then English and singing it like this is unAmerican'

I ...

Have no words for the stupidity of that sentiment. None that I can say in front of small children and the elderly anyway ....

To me its a very pretty rendition of the song and ya know, acknowledges, as much as others seem to want to forget, that this country is made up of many different cultures, that have come together to make one nation. (to varying degrees of success but that's for another thread)

So dear Escapist, what say you on this matter?

Do you care? do you agree with the haters?

or do you think the haters need to shut up?

 

[DudeistBelieve]

Ya know in a way? I get it.

It be like trying to take all the french out of Quebec.

 

[Queen Michael]

All I'm saying is that the only really American language are the ones spoken by native Americans.

 

[Zontar]

Ya know in a way? I get it.

It be like trying to take all the french out of Quebec.

I'm from Quebec and I find that's a terrible example.

 

[DuctTapeJedi]

America has always been a country of immigrants.

I thought that was our thing...

 

[Wraith]

Man, the idiots in this country are always making the rest of us look bad.

 

[Ryotknife]

Meh, I can kinda understand. It can be considered disrespectful to change it unless it was for the express purpose of communication.

It was beautiful, but yea I can see how it would rub people the wrong way. I think the overall message was what was important, but people have different priorities. They could have gotten the same message across without changing languages though....

EDIT: I should point how that Americans get pissed when people sing it in English in a different way as well (and I don't mean accents). or even if it was lip-synched. ANY deviation is met with scorn (if it was intentional). ANY.

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/music-arts/outrage-beyonce-star-spangled-banner-lip-synch-article-1.1245448

 

[Queen Michael]

So people are complaining that this is un-American? Nothign wrong with liking your country, or even loving it, but they're going way too far when they act as if "un-American" equals "bad."

 

[Ratty]

Sadly there's not really anything surprising about this controversy. Remember this nonsense [http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=1898460]? You know where a slightly imprecise Spanish translation of the Star Spangled Banner was so important, so paramount that President Bush had to take time out of his day to say he thinks the national anthem should be sung in English [http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/28/us/28cnd-anthem.html?hp&ex=1146283200&en=2247ec7d92f885d7&ei=5094&partner=homepage&_r=0]?

And let's not forget that recent ugliness over a Cheerios commercial that dared, in the year 2013, to acknowledge that bi-racial couples and children exist. Because I guess "diversity has gone too far" as another recent thread put it.

 

[Ryotknife]

Sadly there's not really anything surprising about this controversy. Remember this nonsense [http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=1898460]? You know where a slightly imprecise Spanish translation of the Star Spangled Banner was so important, so paramount that President Bush had to take time out of his day to say he thinks the national anthem should be sung in English [http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/28/us/28cnd-anthem.html?hp&ex=1146283200&en=2247ec7d92f885d7&ei=5094&partner=homepage&_r=0]?

And let's not forget that recent ugliness over a Cheerios commercial that dared, in the year 2013, to acknowledge that bi-racial couples and children exist. Because I guess "diversity has gone too far" as another recent thread put it.

The cheerios commericial felt like a manufactured outrage. Mixed race couples are shown all the time on television and commercials.

I think Cheerios (or the media) purposely blew it out of proportion to reap the PR benefit.

 

[mecegirl]

It's really dumb that people freaked out about this version of the song. It's not even the national anthem, and even if it was it would be silly to get upset, but still.

 

[CrimsonBlaze]

In regards to this commercial, I think it's ridiculous that anyone can be offended by this; regardless as to what language they sing it in, they are still on Team America, which unfortunately consists of the racist, rich, self-proclaimed elitists a**holes.

The one commercial that p***ed me off was the Masarati commercial; such an awesome premise and build up completely wasted on car commercial. I thought this was going to be about something patriotic or Titanfall for f*** sake.

 

[Neverhoodian]

Yes, it's un-American not to speak English. English. As in, the language that originated from ENGLAND. You know, the country we fucking waged an armed rebellion against and was our mortal enemy for nearly a century.For the record, I have nothing against England or the rest of the British Isles. In fact, I think the denizens of the UK are a pretty cool lot.

If we really want to split hairs, wouldn't the "proper" language be any number of Native American dialects? Of course, that's assuming you can reason with these morons, which you can't.

Freedom of speech applies to all forms of speech, regardless of the language it's spoken in. To deny that is to reject the Constitution and the very intellectual fabric this country was founded on. That, my friends, is truly un-American.

 

[karma9308]

What I don't get, was the point of the commercial. America the Beautiful sung in several languages across several countries...BUY COKE! I just don't get it. It's like saying, oh hey here's some fish swimming around...BUY PEPSI!

 

[Jux]

Ah yes, outrage at the idea of diversity, inclusion, and a grand old melting pot. Yikes. It was actually one of my favorite commercials during that game.

 

[TheIceQueen]

Oh? So native americans can't sing?

The Spanish, that have been in America just as long as the English have, can't sing?

What about the French, Danish, Portugal, Russia, and all the other countries that had a hand in the colonial era and American history? Ever?

That half of America was taken from Mexico? After Mexico lost a war? And therefore unamerican?

At this rate, the only "american" thing that these people like would be the Northwest US. Not the west, not the south, not even middle America.

Which means only 1/4th of America is American. Everything else has a long historical "unamerican" population that come from other countries.

I really have to wonder if the people offended by this know anything about American history at all. Hell, even the north east would be too "polluted" because of the massive influx of foreign refugees from WWII. So their "America" hasn't existed in 70 years.

And that is what it comes down to. A lot of these people have an idealized version that doesn't exist anymore and really never existed in the first place. It is the downside of patriotism and these most-likely "patriots" get upset when their nationalistic jingoism gets co-opted by anyone who doesn't fit their idealized view.

 

[Maxtro]

Eh, I'm from the camp that the United States should have one official language that everybody speaks.

It's no benefit to me to go to a store like Target and have to run around finding somebody that can actually speak English.

The problem is that people are lazy and are perfectly fine not learning English and it's not socially acceptable to require them to.

I'd also like to point out that a nation where a bunch of different languages is spoken isn't exactly a good thing. There's a reason why the punishment in the story of the Tower of Babel was many languages suddenly coming into existence.