So, will white evangelicals be celebrating when one of their own takes to the world\u2019s biggest stage at half time? Will this be lauded as subcultural vindication the same way that those athletes\u2019 God-thanking comments will be? Not quite.<\/p>\n \u201cKaty Perry will be doing the halftime and it will be complete maximum evil<\/a>,\u201d said Christian-brand radio host Jan Markell. Markell also claims that Perry \u201csaid she sold her soul to the devil,\u201d apparently not picking up on the fact that Perry said that as a way of making fun of sanctimonious frauds<\/em><\/a>\u00a0like Jan Markell.<\/span><\/p>\n \u2022 And speaking of sanctimonious frauds and the big game\u00a0\u2026 The white slavery panic of the early 20th century<\/a> gave us the Mann Act. We don\u2019t need a re-run of that, or, as Tara Burns puts it: \u201cNo, there\u2019s no uptick of sexual slavery around the Super Bowl<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2022 And here\u2019s yet another angle on sanctimony and the Super Bowl, from XKCD<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u2022 Super Bowl Sunday Nice Time: Nearly 400 church groups participated in this year\u2019s Souper Bowl of Caring<\/a> \u2014 a big ol\u2019 canned food drive that piggybacks on the annual hype of the big game. This year they\u2019ve collected more than $400,000 for local hunger charities.<\/p>\n \u2022 And speaking of feel-good charitable hooks that capitalize on Super Bowl hype: Captain America and Star Lord<\/a> have an entertaining side-bet on the big game.<\/p>\n \u2022 Finally, for millions of viewers, today\u2019s big event is just as much about the ads as about the game itself, so here are a couple different takes on some of the traditional (in more than one sense) stock-characters from those ads. First, from Mike Lacher at McSweeney\u2019s, \u201cI\u2019m the Cool Wife in a Snack Dip Commercial<\/a>\u201c:<\/p>\n Hello, husband\u2019s friends! Thanks for coming over to watch The Big Game! I like all of your specifically-colored-yet-purposefully-unbranded jerseys. Let\u2019s go, Our Team! Me, I don\u2019t wear one of those jerseys. One of those jerseys would be too darn big for me! Almost big enough to fit over my fat, stubbly husband! Ha. Ha! Ha. No, the only thing that complements my effortlessly curly hair and shimmering doe-eyes is a little cotton T-shirt matching Our Team\u2019s dominant color with tiny little stripes on the sleeves that match the accent color. It\u2019s cut just tight enough to make clear that I am a Pretty Hot Girl but loose enough to remind you that I am primarily a Cool Wife. \u2026<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n And this bit from Saturday Night Live<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n![\"Katy_Hudson_album\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/52\/2015\/02\/Katy_Hudson_album.jpg\")
<\/a>This year\u2019s Super Bowl might seem of particular interest to the white evangelical tribe, since one of our own is the star of the big half-time show \u2014 CCM star and former Red Hill Records artist Katy Hudson<\/a>. She\u2019s since adopted the stage name of Katy Perry, but the enduring influence of her strict white evangelical upbringing<\/a> is still pretty clear to anyone who has ever belonged to the subculture that helped to shape her.<\/p>\n