While we're only writing on Atlanta-relevant Super Bowl XLV commercials (you can head to HQ for videos and writeups on all the other Super Bowl commercials), we at SB Nation Atlanta do claim jurisdiction over anything that involves both sports and rap music, because we're SB Nation Atlanta.
Eminem made a surprising appearance in two different Super Bowl ads last night, and his Chrysler 200 spot is getting rave reviews Monday morning:
Soulful, serious in a good way, and boldly using a soon-to-be Grammy hoarder. It would've been good without Eminem, but including Detroit's most pop culturally noteworthy son as an irony-free pitchman really did achieve a rebellious note. How weird is it that not even a decade after Janet Jackson's boob, Eminem, who has rapped about raping his mother so many times that he actually raps about how he's tired of rapping about it, is the perfect voice for a dying great American city?
But that motivational speaker character has always been a part of Eminem's persona, though it's become more prominent in recent years. Sometimes it hits, often it misses, but here it's exactly what the film needed. The rest of Eminem's public presentation -- jokes and battle raps -- informed his Brisk iced tea commercial, which also worked pretty well in its own way: