Respect Authority

So I may or may not have been watching an NFL game on mute this Sunday afternoon - while simultaneously plowing through the first book in the Sookie Stackhouse vampire series that inspired True Blood (I’m undecided as to which of these realities is more embarrassing) - when I noticed some artistic camera work on the part of whatever sap was out filming football games in 20 degrees. If you’ve seen American Beauty, this’ll look familiar:

The most beautiful thing.

Not one to pass immediate judgment (I like to give a 7-minute window), I only chuckled to myself. But in the course of the game, cameramen felt compelled to show how windy it was three more times. And these are just the ones I noticed in between lurid vampire/human romance scenes.

2:57 p.m.

3:25 p.m.

3:41 p.m.

Not even overly dramatic camera work can get me to un-mute football for very long, but the one time I did tune in to the audio, it was clear the sportscasters were equally baffled by the prevalence of wind-related B roll and resorted more than once to filling the gaps with comments like “As you can see …very windy.” It was awkward to witness.

I guess the idea was, and often is, to give the at-home viewer a sense of the environment in which these games are being played. If it’s raining you show people huddled under rain ponchos, if it’s cold wearing scarves, and so on. But though I would never call myself anything like an avid football fan, I still find it hard to believe anyone needs hourly visual updates on the game’s wind conditions as evidenced through the velocity of lightweight papers and plastics. Just show me the drunk people.