Super Bowl Stuttering Slight Should Not Go Unnoticed

Super Bowl LIII opened with four and a half minutes of Peyton Manning plugging his creative genius—a scene featuring gladiators—to a room of executives who seem doubtful of his brilliant idea. He proceeds to tell them he’s already rented the Colosseum for the actual shoot. Then John Malkovich, standing in the middle of the Colosseum, enters via video call and begins talking about what a trite concept Manning is proposing. Before Malkovich begins his rant, however, one of the executives exclaims in disbelief that John Malkovich is actually at the Roman Colosseum, Peyton Manning states condescendingly, “Of course he’s at the Roman Colosseum. Was I stuttering earlier?” Innocent verbal nip? Comedic remark? Witty humor? Viewer comments ranged from, “This might be the most well-written commercial I’ve ever seen!” to “This is absolutely hilarious!” to “Brilliant!” It’s always difficult to understand when negative and hurtful words spoken at the expense of others flow so nonchalantly and go essentially overlooked by most people. Did anyone even notice that Peyton Manning slighted the more than 3 million people who stutter in the United States? I once read that if you have a message you want to get across to America, there’s no bigger stage than the NFL Super Bowl, given the more than 100 million people who tune in each year. What was the message that sent across America this February? That being comedic trumps being conscientious. T...
Source: American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) Press Releases - Category: Speech-Language Pathology Authors: Tags: Academia & Research Advocacy Health Care Private Practice Schools Slider Speech-Language Pathology Fluency Disorders Speech Disorders stuttering Source Type: blogs