This article was first published in the State of Faith newsletter. Sign up to receive the newsletter in your inbox each Monday night.
The Foundation to Combat Antisemitism returned to the Super Bowl spotlight on Sunday with its second commercial in two years.
The new ad stars legendary quarterback Tom Brady and musical artist Snoop Dogg and aims to convince viewers to stand up to hate.
Brady and Snoop are shown staring angrily at one another as they list the kinds of beliefs that can fuel discrimination and violence.
“I hate you because we’re from different neighborhoods ... because you look different ... because I don’t understand you ... because people I know hate you ... because I need someone to blame,” they say.
Then, the Super Bowl commercial’s core message pops up on the screen: “The reasons for hate are as stupid as they sound.”
Robert Kraft, the owner of the New England Patriots and founder of the Foundation to Combat Antisemitism, said he hopes the unique pairing of Brady and Snoop catches viewers' attention.
“Their shared commitment to this cause speaks to the strength of and amplifies the foundation’s continued message: no matter where we come from, there is no place for hate in our world,” Kraft said in a statement, per Ad Week.
While that message shouldn’t be controversial, the commercial was. Many viewers took to social media to complain about its stars and its content.
Some felt it was “woke,” while others said it was too tied up in President Donald Trump’s politics.
Some thought it was cringey, and some said Brady, Kraft and Snoop weren’t the right people to call for peace.
Some questioned why the commercial talked about the broad problem of hate instead of focusing on the particular issue of antisemitism.
To be clear, some viewers did like the ad. The New York Times had it at No. 6 on its list of top Super Bowl commercials.
“Snoop Dogg and Tom Brady trade insults for 15 seconds, spitting out generic reasons for hating each other. Their celebrity is a distraction from the message about tolerance, but when Snoop, now himself, says, ‘I hate that things are so bad that we have to do a commercial about it,’ it still hits home,” The New York Times reported.
The mixed reaction was a reminder that no commercial is safe from pushback. I’m curious to see if the Foundation to Combat Antisemitism returns to the big game next year.
Fresh off the press
Athletes often praise God after a big win. Most sports fans like it
The federal government just switched sides in a major Supreme Court case. Here’s what that means
Trump’s mantra at Thursday’s prayer breakfasts? Make America religious again
Political extremists vandalized a church. Now, the church controls their name
Term of the week: Metta
Metta — not to be confused with Meta, Facebook’s parent company — means loving-kindness. It refers to a love without limits and without expectations.
“Metta is a kind of love that is offered without any expectation of return. It is not reciprocal or conditional. It does not discriminate between us and them, or worthy and unworthy,” The Conversation reports.
The article noted that many Buddhists champion the concept of Metta and practice Metta meditations in order to cultivate it in themselves.
“Clinical research shows that loving-kindness meditation has a positive effect on mental health. It could help lessen anxiety and depression, increase life satisfaction and improve self-acceptance; it could also reduce self-criticism,” per The Conversation.
What I’m reading...
Happy Valentine’s week. To prepare for all the flowers and hearts, I read The Conversation’s decidedly unromantic tale of how the holiday as we know it came to be.
I haven’t read Ross Douthat’s new book yet, but I have read several articles about his effort to convince religious “nones” to go to church. As Religion News Service put it, “his target audience isn’t hard-core nonbelievers. Instead, he hopes to give folks who are interested in religion — whether the goal is spiritual or social — a reason to give faith a try."
Odds and ends
Did any of my Utah-based readers catch the reference to Utah’s Salt Flats in Ritz’s Super Bowl commercial? I wrote a short story about the salty ad.
The latest Flashback history quiz from The New York Times kind of blew my mind because it included a few events from more than 1 million years ago.