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CBS Accepts Dante’s Inferno Super Bowl Ad
February 3, 2010
CBS has finally accepted a Super Bowl commercial for a video game called Dante’s Inferno by Electronic Arts — but it wasn’t easy. EA had to agree to change their ”Go to Hell” tagline to a much more family friendly, “Hell Awaits” — even though CBS still kind of preferred their own version of the tagline: ”Hell Awaits Pro-Choicers.”
CBS has already stirred controversy for rejecting an ad for the pleasantly-named gay site, “Man Crunch” that featured two men kissing and accepting a pro-life ad by conservative group, Focus on the Family. We’re not exactly sure why Dante’s Inferno — a game based on the Italian epic poem by Dante Alghieri — caused such a raucous, but we imagine it’s probably because it, and men kissing, offended CBS and, most likely, Jesus.
Which means, if you’re keeping count, that’s CBS and Jesus – 2, Godless sinners who want us all to be gay and go to hell – 0.
The whole ad controversy is becoming almost allegorical of all the rifts in American society. It’s the Left versus Right, the loud versus loud, the religious versus the secular and, dare we say it without cringing — Red States versus Blue.
Frankly, it gets tiring. How about we all get together and decide on a rule, America. How about we can all do whatever the hell (sorry, CBS) we want as long as we’re not shoving it down each other’s throats, yeah? How about we accept debate but not proselytizing? We know it’s a simplistic solution to a difficult problem, but we’re kind of getting tired of the same old argument.
In fact, what we need is a common enemy…
Sorry, Iran.
Now, without further ado, the completely chaste trailer for a game about a guy violently killing things in Hell:
Re: EA’s Dante ad… Whatever happened to Oliver Wendell Holmes’ marketplace of ideas? Look, CBS can accept or reject ads for any reason or for no reason, and viewers are free to accept or reject the network’s decision. The reviewer lumps Jesus, Dante, gay rights, red states vs. blue states, right vs. left, and the religious vs. the secular into his or her criticism of the CBS decision. (I’m wondering why the reviewer left out Scott Brown’s pick-up as a primary source of green house gases.) The reviewer writes…CBS and Jesus – 2, Godless sinners…0. It might surprise the reviewer that Jesus would welcome and accept Dante, gay rights activists, lefties and righties, as well as the religious and the secular. The reviewer wants everyone to be able to do whatever they want as long as it is not shoved down someone else’s throat. Yet, that is precisely what the unnamed reviewer is doing. Shoving his or her over-the-top and overly sophomoric perspective down the reader’s throat. However, in the end, I agree with the reviewer’s general comment concerning criticism over the CBS decision…”Frankly, it gets tiring.”
Total waste of 3 million dollars.on this commercial. The game is not going to sell. They are not even going to break even!