All the media hype, heated arguments, and hot tempers over Tim Tebow’s Super Bowl (advertising) debut culminated in a big ol’ “Wait, what?” within the first ten minutes or so of kickoff.
That commercial, along with a slightly different version (sans maternal tackle) that ran during the pre-game show, feature essentially the same message: Tim’s mom Pam shows a baby picture of Tim, calls him a “miracle baby” that “almost didn’t make it into this world,” and mentions the many times she “almost lost him.” The ad ends with Pam and Tim in a cute embrace and an on-screen invitation to visit Focus on the Family’s Web site for the “full Tebow story.”
On the surface, it seemed like a benign ad: It looked like it was shot on a budget (it’s literally just Pam and Tim against a white background, with amateurish camera angles), with a script that was nothing too remarkable. If you’re a Tebow fan, it probably came across as pretty cute; for everybody else, it probably came across as a little cloying but mostly forgettable.
If you weren’t familiar with the controversy or with Focus on the Family, you likely wouldn’t even know it was an anti-abortion ad. No direct reference to the issue—other than the references to a “miracle baby” that “almost didn’t make it”—were made in either TV commercial.
If you go to Focus on the Family’s Web site, though, the “full Tebow story” is a ten-minute video of Focus on the Family president Jim Daly interviewing Tim’s parents about their decision not to terminate her pregnancy despite her doctors’ recommendations.
Focus on the Family is crowing about getting abortion rights advocates riled up over what appears to be a harmless ad; they even link to a blog entry on the conservative blog Red State that characterizes the ad as a “massive PWNing of the Left” by Focus on the Family that exposed “the real pro-abortion left to a larger audience … as abortion-loving autocrats who despised Choice almost as much as (infant) life itself.”
Uh, okay.
But there are several issues to address with this controversy: Was this an advocacy ad? Should advocacy ads air during the Super Bowl? Should CBS have aired the Tebow ad? Was the Tebow ad irresponsible? Should Tim Tebow be using his position to advocate for causes?
We’ll take these issues in order.
Was this an advocacy ad?
Focus on the Family is trying to say that this is wasn’t an advocacy ad. Focus on the Family’s vice president of ministry communications Gary Schneeberger said:
"This wasn't political. This wasn't advocacy. This wasn't controversial. It's an inspirational story about a mother and son who love each other."
Which, of course, is patently false and entirely insincere. This was completely and utterly an advocacy ad. While the Super Bowl spot itself didn’t contain any overt advocacy on its face, it specifically directed viewers to Focus on the Family’s Web site to a video in which Jim Daly says that “30 seconds isn’t much time in that ad to explain what happened.” The online video is clearly an extension of the ad—and since, in the video, Bob Tebow, Tim’s father, tells a hypothetical pregnant woman considering abortion, “Don’t kill your baby,” it’s fair to say there’s some advocacy going on.
And even still, by the very virtue that the ad came from Focus on the Family—an advocacy group—makes it an advocacy ad. Focus on the Family is well-known for its political positions (they even have an official “political action center” called CitizenLink), and this ad deals directly with an issue—abortion—with which they’re deeply involved. It doesn’t matter if the ad itself didn’t use the word “abortion” or if the TV spot didn’t say “Be pro-life!”—they knew what they’re doing, and viewers, by and large, knew it as well.
So yes, this was an advocacy ad. To say otherwise is transparent posturing.
Should advocacy ads air during the Super Bowl?
Some say that advocacy ads have no place during the Super Bowl; that it’s supposed to be an entirely apolitical event that brings all Americans together, regardless of their beliefs.
And yes, that’s BS.
The truth is, all advertising advocates for something. Explicitly, it’s usually for a product or service. Implicitly, advertisers perpetuate and exploit certain feelings or beliefs—which is a form of “advocacy,” albeit not earnest advocacy—that they believe will give them credibility with their target audience and help them sell the product.
For instance, take this commercial for Dodge:
Implied in the ad is that women exert excessive power over men, and that men should stand up to them (preferably by buying a Dodge). It may seem harmless, and it’s easy to dismiss it as “just advertising,” but if there was a men’s advocacy group—Association of Men Against Being Whipped, or whatever—that wanted to buy time to encourage men taking command of their relationships, it would clearly be an advocacy ad. But because it’s in the service of selling cars that help men compensate, it’s not considered advocating as such.
Even if you can’t follow me there, consider this: Super Bowl advertisers usually have no qualms about objectifying women in advertisements—having them bounce around in their underwear and shoving their breasts in front of the camera, all in the name of selling beer (or domain name registrations, for some dumbassed reason). And yes, this does have a corrosive effect on our attitudes toward women: It perpetuates the idea that women are as valuable and worthwhile as their cup size, and that women primarily function as a means to entertain and arouse men. You can’t be okay with this ad running during the Super Bowl:
And then wax philosophical about how the Super Bowl is pure and sacred and wonderful.
So yeah, I’m all for advocacy ads on the Super Bowl, mostly because they’re already there.
Should CBS have aired the Tebow ad?
Back in 2004, the liberal advocacy group MoveOn.org wanted to run this ad that made reference to the $1 trillion deficit then-President George W. Bush was running up because of the Iraq War during the Super Bowl:
CBS, who had the Super Bowl in 2004, rejected that ad, along with another ad from animal advocacy group PETA, saying that they don’t run ads on “controversial issues of public importance.” CBS spokesman Dana McClintock went to say that CBS has “a policy against advocacy advertising.”
This is complete and inexcusable hypocrisy on CBS’s part. I get it—if not agree with it—if CBS wants to eschew all overt advocacy ads, but they need to be consistent and not cherry-pick which advocacy ads they like or think is more palatable or with which they agree.
Was the Tebow ad irresponsible?
Pam Tebow’s doctors advised her to end her pregnancy out of her own safety. After falling into a coma caused by contracting amoebic dysentery, she went on medications that, even though she stopped taking them once she was pregnant, damaged her fetus. Doctors expected a stillbirth and urged her to consider an abortion to save her own life.
Obviously, what transpired was a very happy turn of events: Both Pam and Tim ultimately wound up okay. But it was also an incredibly lucky turn of events. Tragedy could easily have struck: Tim’s birth could have been a stillbirth, or Pam could have died during labor, or both.
Focus on the Family is free to advocate against abortion rights; it’s free to urge pregnant women considering abortion not to do so. But there’s a gray line when it comes close to the advocacy of disregarding doctor’s advice, which is what Focus on the Family is doing by holding up Pam’s story in the context of an abortion debate.
And yes, I think there is some level of irresponsibility here: Would Focus on the Family be okay with a pregnant woman in the middle of a dangerous pregnancy whose takeaway from the ad is “Trust God, no abortions under any circumstances”—not an unreasonable takeaway from watching the ad and the accompanying online video—and who dies during labor despite her doctor’s warnings of the extreme risks of not terminating the pregnancy?
I would hope not: If such a scenario played out, Focus on the Family and the Tebows would, in my mind, bear some level of moral culpability (though, to be clear, not legal) for such a scenario. You’re on very shaky ground when you’re endorsing, even tacitly, ignoring potentially life-saving advice from doctors, and it takes a lot of presumptuousness to say that doing so is a part of God’s will.
Should Tim Tebow be using his position to advocate for causes?
Yeah, sure, why not?
It’s understandable to consider Tebow using his position as a well-regarded football player—and his near-deification on campus—to advocate for his causes an abuse of his celebrity. But it’s understandable for people to feel compelled not to squander their moment in the spotlight if they feel strongly about a cause.
Besides, if Tebow didn’t have anything he feels strongly about, he’d catch some flak for being another blockheaded jock who doesn’t care about anything off the gridiron.
More to the point, I feel like I can’t buzz him for the mere act of advocacy because I know if he advocated for a cause with which I agreed, I’d be the first with laurels.
Here’s an example: Travis Pillow at The Fine Print, a progressive alternatively monthly at UF, wrote a pretty compelling open letter to Tebow, urging him to speak out against sweatshop labor. If he had responded to the letter and took up the cause, I would’ve considered it an act of unequivocal awesomeness. So I can hardly buzz him for advocacy alone just because I disagree with what he’s advocating.
However, what he’s advocating, how he’s advocating it, and with whom he’s doing the advocating—that’s all fair game.
This exchange
In closing, I want to draw attention to this exchange from the video that appears in the Focus on the Family video on their Web site. It takes place about eight minutes, fifteen seconds in; Jim Daly asks Pam and Bob Tebow what advice they’d give a pregnant woman considering abortion:
JIM DALY: There’s got to be a young lady out there who may be pregnant with a child that she doesn’t know what to do—keep the baby, not keep the baby. What would you say to her?
PAM TEBOW: I would say that baby is not a mistake, even though it might seem that way to her, and that God will enable her to do the right thing, and to give her the encouragement that she needs, but that there’s also help for her, and there’s help that she doesn’t even know about yet. There are so many people, so many pregnancy crisis centers across the country, just waiting to encourage someone in her position. And girls have those options; they have a choice. And God really has his hand on the situation. There’s so many people out there willing to help if they give them a chance.
BOB TEBOW: The first thing I would say to you if you have a surprise pregnancy is, God loves you. God loves you. And he loves your baby. There are lots of people that’ll help you. (pauses) Don’t kill your baby.
Even setting aside the use of the word “baby” to describe what is properly called a “fetus,” the language used by the Tebows is very telling: Pam’s referring to the hypothetical woman as a “girl” makes it sound like only young, immature women are the ones who would consider an abortion; Bob referring to a “surprise pregnancy” implies that abortions only happen as a result of accidents. And Pam referring to “encouragement” implies that abortions are the route that only those who are discouraged or don’t have an adequate support system take.
What undoubtedly stuck out to many was this line in Pam’s response, reproduced again with my emphasis:
"There are so many people, so many pregnancy crisis centers across the country, just waiting to encourage someone in her position. And girls have those options; they have a choice."
Yes, they do have a choice. The way many are interpreting the ad is not an anti-abortion rights ad, but rather, an ad that advocates for women to choose not to have an abortion. In that sense, some might say, it’s a pro-choice ad, with a bias towards the other direction.
The trouble is, Focus on the Family’s stated position on the issue is to eliminate the ability to choose. If the intent of the ad was to take a “choose life” stance, it’s intellectually dishonest for Focus on the Family to lead people to believe that that’s their stance when, if they had their way, abortion would be “both illegal and unthinkable.”
For all the controversy and hype about this ad, I’m still not clear what the message is: Never get an abortion? At least consider not getting an abortion? It’s okay that abortion is legal, but don’t do it? Take action to try to make abortion illegal?
Or, as the cynic in me might think, was the point of the whole thing just to get a bunch of attention, preach to the choir and provide Focus on the Family’s supporters some motivation to toss some cash in their direction?
It’s all very muddled, and muddled messaging makes for bad advertising. I don’t disagree that Focus on the Family got a lot of attention for the ad, and that was likely their goal. But they did it with a strangely (and possibly intentionally) ambiguous, almost wishy-washy ad that seemed more about projecting a general sense of “We don’t like abortion” than adding anything substantive to the conversation. I’m not a fan.
