EUGENE LYONS: Super Bowl or Swift conspiracy? It’s all just hype

For all the media hype about the Taylor Swift-Travis Kelce romance, my cousin Sally got it right. The love of my life back when I was 8, Sally posted on my Facebook page that the whole thing is the ultimate Disney princess story — although the Kansas City tight end is admittedly a bit too large and hairy for the Prince Charming role.

I had posted an item expressing incredulity that even MAGA supporters were so far gone as to accept the bizarre conspiracy theory that the famous couple were part of what the extreme-right One America News Network called a “massive Super Bowl psy-op” to fix the outcome of the NFL championship in order to have Swift and Kelce endorse President Biden on the playing field.

Could anybody possibly be so gullible as to believe that?

Well, Vivek Ramaswamy, the crackpot GOP presidential candidate-turned-Trump booster, told New York Times columnist Jonathan Weisman, “What your kind of people call ‘conspiracy theories,’ I simply call an amalgam of collective incentives hiding in plain sight.”

“I wonder who’s going to win the Super Bowl,” Ramaswamy posted on social media, “and I wonder if there’s a major presidential endorsement coming from an artificially culturally propped-up couple this fall.”

Over on the Fox News Fantasy Channel, it’s been reported (reported, mind you, albeit with none of the standard elements of news reporting, such as names, dates, documents and places) that “around four years ago, the Pentagon psychological operations unit floated turning Taylor Swift into an asset during a NATO meeting.”

Accompanied by stock footage of Swift dancing and singing her way through her recent Eras Tour, the single most successful series of concerts in history — she has earned billions, given away millions in bonuses to her fortunate employees who drive the trucks and set up the stages, and improved the economies of many cities along the way — this preposterous allegation certainly gave the network’s more gullible fans something to obsess over.

But I ask again: Can anybody, anybody, possibly believe such a thing?

Me, I’m with Sally. I think it’s a Disney princess story, celebrity style. No more, no less. Homecoming queen hooks up with football captain/class president on a cosmic scale.

And I do hope it works out better for them than the last time anything quite like this happened in American popular culture. That was in 1954, when Hall of Fame center fielder Joe DiMaggio, the recently retired New York Yankees hero of America’s then-most popular sport, married the reigning queen of Hollywood — Marilyn Monroe.

Famously troubled and seeking validation pretty much everywhere, Monroe was a bad match for the disciplined and reserved ballplayer. After a tumultuous honeymoon in Japan, Monroe agreed to visit U.S. Army troops in Korea.

As reported by Gay Talese in Esquire, Monroe, who’d received a rapturous welcome from 100,000 soldiers, told her new husband, “It was so wonderful, Joe. You never heard such cheering.”

“Yes, I have,” said DiMaggio.

Still gives me chills, and I’m a lifelong Yankees-hater.

The marriage lasted nine months. After her 1962 suicide, DiMaggio had roses delivered to Marilyn’s grave twice weekly for the rest of his life. Whatever else can be said about him, DiMaggio was a class act.

To all outward appearances, Taylor and Travis are a lot better bet to emerge from the media maelstrom provoked by their relationship healthy and intact — whether together or separately.

I really don’t care who wins the Super Bowl and wouldn’t dream of watching it live. As a football game, I kind of lean toward Kansas City, mostly because Patrick Mahomes is one of the most preternaturally gifted athletes I’ve ever seen.

Otherwise, whole years have passed when I couldn’t have told you who was playing in the Super Bowl, much less watched it. I’m a sports fan; spectacles leave me cold. The more unavoidable the publicity, the less I’m interested.

Spare me the bombast, the hype and the choreographed patriotic ritual. The warplane flybys. The U.S. flags as large as Venus. Not to mention, the dreadful halftime shows and fools talking about looking forward to watching the commercials. In brief, the insufferable tsunami of nonsense surrounding what’s otherwise just a damn ballgame.

They’ve long since wrecked it for us sports fans. Even the Pentagon couldn’t do much worse.