'America' hit a sour note during Super Bowl

Jennifer Hudson, center, sings ‘America the Beautiful’ with the Sandy Hook Elementary School chorus at last week’s Super Bowl.

‘America’ hit a sour note

If Jennifer Hudson’s rendition of “America the Beautiful” was supposed to be touching, I missed it (“Sandy Hook chorus, Hudson stir crowd,” Feb. 4). In fact, there was something wrong with it.

The Super Bowl is the embodiment of our celebrity obsession and our hyperactive consumer culture. It’s the same obsession that leads to an apathetic electorate and an incompetent government, which is not capable of fixing problems that eventually lead to things such as the shootings at Sandy Hook.

Then we parade the Sandy Hook children on one of the biggest stages in the world, and have them sing “America the Beautiful.” They have been tricked into singing a patriotic song about a country that is clearly failing them. They are too young to understand that we only pretend that 15 minutes of fame makes everything awesome.

COLIN de SAINT VICTOR

Harford Road