I’ve said it before: My interest in football is minimal, though my attention perks up a bit when my hometown New England Patriots play the Super Bowl. My focus usually turns to how people behave in the heat of the moment. Whether their team wins or loses, people latch on to the supremely stupid after the big game.
Mood music:
Sometimes Patriots fans are the worst. After the team lost the Super Bowl a couple years ago, people started picking on quarterback Tom Brady’s wife, supermodel Gisele Bündchen. It happened again last year, after the Pats lost in the playoffs. The suggestion is always that she’s somehow turned Brady into a sissy. Fortunately, from what I can tell, the Pats fans who do this are a small minority.
This time, the most glaring acts of stupidity are in the media. Case in point: the reaction to Patriots coach Bill Belichick getting a smooch from his daughter. News sites went wild about the “unusual” kiss.
TotalProSports.com expressed its horror this way:
After winning Super Bowl 49, passions were running high, and the Patriots coach kissed like no one was watching. Only there were a ton of people watching because it was the Super Bowl. And the person he kissed was his daughter, Amanda. But there was SO MUCH passion in that kiss.
The Stir even brought in a family physician to asses the situation. The reaction of Dr. Deborah Gilboa:
I think this is a reach for scandal … Being able to show affection between adult parents and their adult kids is lovely, and it’s great if Bill Belichick has such a positive relationship with his daughter.
Nothing to see here, right? But Stir writer Jenny Erikson couldn’t let it go:
OK … in theory maybe it’s a good idea that parents and their adult children are so close that they kiss on the mouth … but I just can’t see it. I have a very close relationship with my own dad, and kiss him on the cheek almost every time we greet and say goodbye, but on the lips? Never. Not even a little bit. It kind of makes me uncomfortable even writing this paragraph.
She’s entitled to that opinion, of course. I even share her preference for planting parental kisses on the cheek. But she’s making something out of nothing like the others who were scandalized by this.
This father-daughter kiss was no big deal. Parents and adult kids kiss each other on the lips all the time. I don’t see any tongue jamming in that photo. Do you? That would have been a different story altogether.
Tom Brady and his mom also kissed on the lips after the win, but no one is making a big deal out of that. Nor should they.
Give it a rest, folks.