City of Phoenix’s Super Bowl promo pic goes overboard with Photoshop

I don’t know why anyone is surprised when a city putting on the Super Bowl goes overboard trying to make sure its streets are clean before hosting thousands of fans and hundreds of media members. There are levels to lengths that they go, and it varies from allegedly euthanizing stray dogs (turns out, that was false), to relocating the unhoused, to getting a little aggressive with Photoshop. So far, Phoenix is only guilty of the last one as the city shared this photo portraying itself as an oasis in the desert.

For the record, I’ve never been to Phoenix, but I have been to Santa Fe and lived near the desert that the Valley of the Sun resides in, and at no point have I seen a city that resembled Wakanda.

My only other reference point for Arizona’s capital is the opening scene of Sicario where they raid a drug house and find bodies in the walls. While I didn’t see that deep fake on Twitter (golden opportunity missed), the internet predictably had fun with the photo, including Maricopa County.

That’s nice. It’s good to see those folks have a sense of humor considering the county, in my mind at least, is synonymous with never-ending battles over election results.

Sorry, back to the regularly scheduled aggregation. I’m not going to get mad at somebody getting overzealous and dotting their cityscape with happy trees like a modern-day Bob Ross. It’s basically akin to straightening up the house prior to having company over. As long as there’s not a hitchhiker chained up in the basement, superfluous stuff doesn’t bother me.

And, hey, what do you want? Some stereotypical picture of cacti and maybe an armadillo? God forbid someone puts a little effort into the promo.