People love laughing at professional athletes. And sometimes the best things to laugh at them about are things they do off the court. Many athletes have been mocked for terrible press conferences, bad dancing caught on tape, scandals and the likewise. YouTube has become a hot spot for embarrassing or ridiculing videos of pro athletes. Brett Favre: Rise - "What should I do?" is one that is absolutely hilarious. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POyFvDgV2cU]
For all you Brett Favre haters out there, this is the video for you. Everything (well almost everything—they failed to incorporate his past drug addictions) you could possibly laugh at Brett Favre about is woven into this video. The video is a parody of an original Nike commercial entitled "Rise." [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdtejCR413c&feature=player_embedded] The original stars Lebron James asking, “What should I do?” after ditching his hometown of Cleveland for the Miami Heat.
The parody stars an actor who looks shockingly similar to Brett himself, even has his voice and facial expressions down quite well.
The extremely clever spoof follows the structure of the original commercial very closely. Just as Lebron said, “I am not a role model,” so did Favre. But he follows this by saying, “I am a jeans model.” This mocks Favre for his absurd Wrangler Jeans commercials, which are also portrayed in the video. The overriding theme of this video however is the ongoing joke that Brett Favre will not make a concrete decisions about whether to retire or not. And, that in constantly changing his mind he is ultimately trying to keep himself in the “spotlight” for as long as possible. In the original Lebron says maybe he should just disappear. Favre say the same thing but then contemplates reappearing and then disappearing and then reappearing and so on, clearly making fun of his false retirement announcements that have been going on the past few years.
The most obscene aspect of the video is the topic of nude pictures (sorry for the vulgarity but the video as a whole was just too funny). Brett Favre’s most recent scandal involved a sexual harassment claim made by Jenn Sterger, a sideline reporter for the Jets at the time when Favre played for New York. He was accused of sending Sterger suggestive voicemails and pictures of himself more than once. The video mocks him by making him look as though he could not even make up his mind in rewards to what pictures to send or what to say on the phone. The numerous play on words at the end of the video play into this theme as well.
Being able to laugh at a rich, interception-throwing, sexting, jean-modeling, celebrity quarterback—and this video sure does that—makes the Average Joe feel good about himself. The superiority theory of laughter works for most cases in which people laugh at athletes. For once they feel as though they are not so far away from the pedestal that professional athletes are placed on.
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