The unrelenting optimism of the Puppy Bowl is exactly what the world needs right now

The 14th Annual Puppy Bowl took place on Sunday, February 4th, 2018 and was the only good thing to happen in many, many months.

On Sunday, while the masses concerned themselves with the doings of Tom Brady (that is his name, correct?), a select 14 million opted, instead, for Animal Planet’s yearly parallel affair: The Puppy Bowl.

The Puppy Bowl, now in its 14th incarnation, is mostly what you might expect: canines of various shapes and sizes frolicking up and down a bone-shaped field. Also making their way onto the scene are pig, duckling and bunny cheerleaders, a kitten halftime show, a blimp filled with hamsters, an African Gray Parrot on social media, and a national anthem performed by a piano-playing chicken.

The multi-hour broadcast is interwoven with extended focuses on the struggles and triumphs of animal shelters from around the world. Among the organizations featured in 2018’s broadcast were Compassion Without Borders, an organization that aids animals in underserved areas of the US/Mexico border, and The Sato Project, who is working to find homes for animals displaced by Hurricane Maria. One cannot help but see the ties to the current flourishing of racism and imperialism evident here, as tenuous as they may be. Because of the power dynamics humans maintain in relation to animals, animals themselves serve as an inextricable metaphor for the power relations within human communities.