On any given Sunday during football season in America, you’ll find most glued to their TV sets. These are the kinds of people that still have TV sets. Even though, at present, the image of people gathered around the proverbial boob tube seems like something that ought to be relegated to the mid-twentieth century. But in the U.S., that image remains evergreen. Especially on Super Bowl Sunday. The latest edition even made TV-watching history by becoming second only to the moon landing in terms of viewership. That means hundreds of millions of Americans see football as being almost as “celestial” as outer space itself. And that hundreds of millions of Americans would never be deterred from placing all their focus on and energy into it no matter what else was (nay, is) going on in the world. Least of all a very overt genocide being billed more generically as a “war.” 

In truth, it is during times like these—times of unmistakable human cruelty—that people seek to retreat even further into a coma-like bubble that pads them from reality. Football, in America, is that bubble. And never was it more secure than on that Super Bowl Sunday as a certain nation abroad saw an opportunity to invade Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip. The place where Palestinians were told they would be “safe.” But, of course, one should always consider the source that is telling them such things. Unfortunately, Palestinians haven’t had the luxury of much time to consider anything at all, simply fleeing to any other scant part of the country that isn’t currently experiencing an endless rain of bullets and bombs. Clearly, there is nowhere else for anyone to go. Trapped like rats in cages waiting to either run themselves ragged, risk death by being caught in the crossfire or “simply” starve. That latter phenomenon being in stark contrast to how Americans gorged themselves while staring with slack-jawed awe at the football players on their screens who looked just as beefy as the burgers they were biting into with such careless abandon and oblivion. After all, as Childish Gambino once said, “This is America.” “Greatest country in the world” (he didn’t say that second part, but anyway…)—the country where no amount of excess can be frowned upon. 

And there is nothing more excessive than all the grotesque statistics surrounding what goes into a Super Bowl. This year’s being no exception. From the approximately forty tons of CO2 Taylor Swift released into the atmosphere by flying about 5,500 miles in her private jet to see her dumb-ass boyfriend throw the old pigskin around to the nearly ten thousand dollars it might cost just one person to secure a seat at the “show.” And it is that: a spectacle. One of the few remaining surefire ways that the U.S. can still prove its glory—if not to other countries, than at least to itself. For the Super Bowl is one of the last “safe spaces” where Americans can adhere unapologetically to the mantra, “Go big or go home.” A mantra, incidentally, attributed to the ad slogan used by a motorcycle parts company in Southern California during the early 90s. It’s only “natural” that such a phrase would somehow relate to carbon emissions (the company wanted to sell their inventory of oversized Harley Davidson exhaust pipes, the legend goes). 

The stage where our story is set also just so happens to be in Southern California. Specifically, Beverly Hills. Where a leading producer in the film industry, Ben Markiewicz (no connection to the Hollywood dynasty known as the Mankiewiczes), was holding quite a posh Super Bowl party. A party that he wanted to make as much of a mark on the town as he felt that he himself did. Which is why he was constantly mentioning that the meaning of his last name translated to “the act of forming or marking.” It was a reach of a translation, though, because he was going by the Hebrew word “markiba.”

But yeah, it was a pretty “amazing” party, if he did say so himself. Which he did. As often as possible to whoever he happened to be talking to, bringing up the various costs of whatever food or drink item he saw someone consuming. Mostly the screenwriters. None of the actors and actresses touched much of the food (except for a few errant celery sticks on the otherwise calorie-packed snack platter). The alcohol, on the other hand…practically gone by halftime. Luckily, Ben had an assistant to handle such “catastrophes” (because running out of liquor at a bougie Super Bowl party was far more of a catastrophe than, say, an ongoing genocide). Marissa, in fact, was accustomed by now to the crux of her job being to “run out” and “fetch” whatever Ben arbitrarily decided he needed right that second. She didn’t bother to tell him that UberEATS and Uber Direct could handle such matters. That would have put her out of a job. Even though, lately, she kind of wanted to be out of a job with Ben.

It wasn’t just his general misogyny, which she knew she had put up with for too long, but now, it was his cavalier attitude toward what he (and so many others) referred to as “the situation” (a euphemism if ever there was one) in Gaza. Which he only chose to refer to when he was irritated that someone else had brought it up to him as a way to lambast Jews for impinging on what was always Palestinian territory. Even when a part of it was called “British Palestine.” Indeed, “mandated” colonialism is, as usual, why so many were forced to suffer, with Palestinians having no say in their own fate once the portions of Palestinian territory deemed to “belong” to the British (thanks to World War I and the Ottoman Empire’s resulting concession of such territories) were siphoned off to create Israel in 1948. 

These were the finer points of history leading up to this inevitable moment that people like Ben couldn’t “get into.” Not with Marissa, or anyone else who wanted to speak candidly about the matter. These were people who only cared about “avoiding an argument.” Though it was unclear what the “argument” actually was when it was pretty unquestionable that Palestinians had been fucked by Western powers from the get-go. And yet, in order to assuage “Jewish guilt” about it, so-called neutral gentiles like Marissa had to preface every statement of disgust and lament over the state of what was happening in Gaza with, “It has nothing to do with being antisemitic, but…”

Marissa had been hearing some variation of that phrase at nearly every party Ben had held since early October (there had been a surprising amount of “fêtes,” starting with the big bash he threw to celebrate the end of the writers’ strike). Some Jewish celebrities didn’t even bother to sugarcoat their true feelings about having no empathy for Palestinians, from Sarah Silverman saying it wasn’t inhumane at all for Israel to cut off the water and electricity supplies in Gaza to Noah Schnapp touting, via propaganda-like stickers, “Zionism is Sexy” and “Hamas is ISIS.” Both celebrities later scrambled to come up with “explanations” when they realized it would affect their bottom line. Silverman claimed being “stoned,” while Schnapp insisted his stickers/stance were “misconstrued” (talk about gaslighting). Quentin Tarantino avoided criticism altogether, despite going to Israel to visit with their troops and “boost morale” one week into the “kerfuffle.” As if the IDF needed to be “boosted” in any way when it came to heeding the command to obliterate any and every Arab in their path. 

Marissa had to ignore all of these “Hollywood faux pas” and so much more as she reckoned with the industry’s hypocrisy…and her own for continuing to serve it. Even if only “roundaboutly.” This was something she suddenly couldn’t seem to ignore any longer as she “zipped on over” to Honor Wines and Spirits (a store name that felt like it was endlessly mocking her in that moment) on S Beverly. At first, she proceeded to collect the massive quantities Ben had demanded, but froze mid-task like Rudolf Höss in the the stairwell during one of the final scenes of The Zone of Interest. Except, unlike the fictionalized Höss, who could only retch instead of outright vomiting, Marissa did just that, making foul mess on the floor in front of her. The owner of the store was swift about making her feel even shittier, accusing her of being drunk already and saying they didn’t serve lushes. That was the word used: “lush.” She composed herself long enough to abandon her basket and run out of the place in a state of frantic embarrassment. She needed to replace the derogatory meaning of “lush” with the verdant form of it, so she decided to collect her thoughts in the nearby park. She noticed it was called Reeves Park, which, in this town, could have easily meant it was named after George. Who knew? Whatever the case, she sat on a bench in front of the playground where no children played. In fact, no one was around at all. And then she remembered: Super Bowl Sunday. Everyone was tucked “safely” inside. Nestled in the comforts of their grotesquely lavish living rooms. 

It was right then and there that Marissa burst into tears. Something about staring at this empty playground gave her a flash of all those decimated children. And, perhaps worse still, those children who lived only to witness the decimation of their parents, of any and every adult family member. It was amid her Alice from Alice in Wonderland-like river of tears that a homeless man interrupted her to ask, “Are you okay?” Sketched out by his intruding, unkempt presence, she nodded brusquely, got up from the bench and practically beelined for her car. Empathy for others, after all, was so much easier to feel when they weren’t actually near you. And even when they were a mid-distance away, she told herself as she drove through the desolate streets of Beverly Hills to get back to her only slightly more affordable neighborhood in Glendale. She knew no one in L.A. actually cared. That no one in America actually cared. And not just because it was Super Bowl Sunday, but because the suffering was too far-removed. Yet when it was too close (as it had been with the homeless man), it was too close for comfort. All the suffering ignored at home and abroad every day, without even having the excuse of the Super Bowl as a means to stay hypnotized by everything else except the suffering. Unless it was the niche group that got off on screaming about it from the mountaintops to assure themselves of their own moral superiority. 

Marissa no longer knew what category she fell into. She only knew that she needed a long, hot shower and a major career reassessment. The shower was more attainable, so she did that first. And then she numbed out on what was left of the Super Bowl, figuring, fuck it, might as well. She actually fell asleep before it went into overtime. But that was no matter, she would have a news blast on her phone about the highlights before night’s end, posted right next to the latest “highlights” in Gaza. Both events given the same level of importance. Maybe her career path would take care of itself anyway if Ben fired her for not coming back to the party. Maybe the war would “take care of itself” when there was no one left to kill.