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Oh, the Humanities!

Learned something truly amazing at my day job this morning (lunch break now). In the section of "Advertising Age" devoted to the Super Bowl, which is tremendously entertaining from start to finish, there was a terrific article on possible CBS ad censorship of a Super Bowl commercial created by the video game company Electronic Arts.

It seems that CBS will not let the advertisement use the word "hell" on the air at the Super Bowl. This is a little problem for EA, because the ad is part of a product launch of a new video game "Dante's Inferno," based on, no kidding, "The Divine Comedy" by Dante Aligheri. You, the intrepid video gamer, play the role of the poet, who must rescue the beloved Beatrice (doubtless dressed in something low-cut) from the ninth circle of, well, Hell.

English teachers across the country are praying the game is a big success. Me, too. I look forward to an entire series of epic poetry-based video games: The Aeneid game, "The Waste Land" game, and as software gets more sophisticated, the Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson video game.

The poet as action hero. I can hear countless Ph.D. thesis proposals being ginned up even as I write this. I can also hear EA stockholders wondering about management substance abuse issues.

posted by Michael Gee @ 12:15 PM