The NFL wants to listen to victims of domestic violence. Where were they last year?
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Version 0 of 1. On Sunday, as football fans are drinking beer, enjoying the game and debating which Super Bowl commercials are the funniest, there will be at least one ad that won’t leave anyone laughing. A chilling anti-domestic violence commercial based on a real call that a 911 operator received a decade ago in Oregon is set to air during the game. But a 30-second spot doesn’t undo the years of damage the NFL has wrought on domestic violence issues, nor does it change the culture of violence and coverups that plague the league. The commercial is part of the NFL’s No More campaign, part of an effort to redeem their image after the NFL’s efforts to protect convicted abuser Ray Rice backfired. The ad features a woman calling 911 and ordering a pizza – a coded cry for help from someone trying to get help without cluing in her abuser. At the end, a message flashes across the screen: “When it’s hard to talk, it’s up to us to listen.” It’s not nearly enough. The Super Bowl has huge audience – over 111m people watched last year – and the message of the commercial is just that domestic violence is bad and we should listen to women? Related: NFL addresses domestic violence with Super Bowl ad Everyone is already well aware of the horror of intimate partner violence brings: it wasn’t that long ago that the world saw what it looks like when a woman is knocked out cold by her partner in an elevator, as Janay Rice was by her then-fiancé Ray Rice. Everyone is also aware victims don’t always have their voice heard, since the league worked hard to put words in Janay Rice’s mouth. Because of the NFL’s epic missteps after the videotape of abuse surfaced, their poor excuses for player punishments after domestic abuse – players were sanctioned more for drunk driving and smoking pot than for abusing women – and the social media campaigns that arose in response, public awareness about domestic violence is probably at an all-time high. But little of that has fundamentally changed people’s perceptions about victims, the way sports culture promotes and rewards a violent image of masculinity or how institutions like the NFL support abusers. One in four women will experience domestic violence in her lifetime, one third of female homicide victims are killed by their partners or ex-partners and, in 2012, 21 of 32 NFL teams had a player with a domestic violence or sexual assault record. We need to do more than listen, we need more than a commercial or campaign – we need accountability for abusers and the systems and institutions that shelter them. Mychal Denzel Smith wrote at Feministing that “The NFL could be fostering a dialogue with men about how and why this definition of [a violent and controlling] masculinity is dangerous and oppressive.” Instead, we get a slick Super Bowl advertisement that they’re here to “listen” to victims of abuse – a worthy cause, but one devoid of proactive change. What about a zero tolerance policy for players who abuse their partners? Or transparency on what kind of trainings executives and managers will receive around violence against women? And as for commercials – how about one that is designed not to scare us, but inspires us to do something? Or at least make abusers reconsider their actions. Don’t the victims the NFL claims to care about deserve as much? |