Brett Favre Cult Culture: The Decline of America

The saddest sight at the Lambeau Field Favre-apalooza was the slightly chubby chick and her balding male counterpart holding up a sign proclaiming their undying love for Brett Favre.

Apparently the couple believed leaving the community of Packer fans for a declaration of undying love for one NFL football player would somehow connect them with the celebrity of the player.

One imagines the chubby chick would see herself as 10 pounds lighter in the mirror tomorrow if only Favre would acknowledge her love and devotion as displayed by her sign.

Perhaps her undying Favre love will somehow connect her to Favre’s $12 million Viking’s contract and Favre’s expressed wish tonight in a post-game press conference to win a Super Bowl for the Vikings.

We are a warring species. Even as we admire the truth of Plato: “Only the dead have seen the end of the war,” we contend we mount the cannons only because we have seen the future. And aren’t cannons always part of man’s future?
 
Professional and collegiate sports allow us to participate in pretend wars and hone our fierce instincts to protect all of that which we perceive as us. If our warring sports teams fail, few, if any, will die today in our phony war.

We wear certain team colors and chant mantras in support of certain teams as a way to declare war on those who would slap the milk from our thirsty lips.

When we cry “DEE-FENCE”, “DEE-FENCE”, it is in the nature of all hymns: We come to give praise to what we believe, disparage the enemy, and, give up all our prejudices and quirks as long as we can voice our cheers along with other community others in honor of this fake war between us and whoever is them.

In various stadia like Lambeau Field, our collective voices stamp us as us, and us as community, and us as part of whomever us is.

But then come men like Brett Favre, who says my us isn’t you. Favre’s community is a lot smaller than Packer Fan nation: his community is him and his wife and his kids. Favre was never a warrior for Packer Nation. He was a warrior for his nation.

Now he pretends to war for the Viking nation, but, in the end, he wars for the GreenBack nation; nothing less, but maybe something more if he gets a percentage ownership in a new Vikings stadium?

When popular talk show hosts wish failure for U.S. Presidents, when professional athletes remind you again, and again, and again “It’s a Business,” when two U.S. political parties spend more time raising money than debating policy just to stay in power, and when despots are given lifetime rule, we understand the Packer chubby-chick Favre fan is recognizing we can’t even come together as a community in the pretend war of sports.

One can excuse Favre. He has extended family to support financially and he has never pretended to be anything other than a guy who believes the world is about him.

Poor Chubby Chick. She hitches her star to a celebrity by virtue of a sign. The sign proclaims love for a celebrity Chubby Chick's community now abhors.

Chubby Chick believes Favre might actually notice or even care about her sign. She hopes a quarterback who left the Packers after 16 years, played for the Jets another year, then signed with the Packers' arch enemy the Vikings for $12 million annually, would give a crap what Chubby thought.

It's likely Chubby Chick gave money to various Favre charities, defended Favre when he threw interceptions in a few playoff games, and believes Favre would actually care about who she is if he actually knew who she is. 

Of course, there are hundreds of Chubby Chicks wearing purple and hunkering down in the Metrodome for every Viking home game who believe the same thing now that Favre is playing for the Vikings.

The celebrity adulation of one player on a team isn't anything new but has vaulted to extremes in the past decade. Brand it one manifestation of the continued dumbing down of America.

Some folks can't select a favored player without the incessant hype machines of sports media, and others lack the intelligence to understand the games and the reasons the guy who scores the most points might not be the most valuable player on the team.

Favre wants to win a Super Bowl this year but anyone who believes he wants to win it for the Vikings, or the Vikings fans, or Favre fans, is naive. He wants to win it for him.

Favre is the ultimate celebrity for celebrity worshippers: he worships himself. He is of the new American culture, which idolizes self.

Football IS like war: lots of idiots on the sidelines and in the stands.