The video clip is a favorite of Kenny Bell’s friends: The University of Nebraska receiver lays a punishing blind-side block on a Wisconsin defender during the 2012 Big Ten title game. But the clip found new life — and new meaning — on Friday when the White House Bell, now retired from pro football at 34, said he was disgusted with the montage set to AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck.”
“For that play to be associated with bombing human beings makes me sick,” Bell told The Washington Post. “I don’t want anything to do with images like that.”
The Trump White House is by now accustomed to the objections of those who have not appreciated their likenesses or works being used in political social media messaging. Another recent White House montage hyping the invasion of Iran, utilizing war movie clips, drew condemnation from actor Ben Stiller, who said he had “no interest in being part of your propaganda machine.”
The football montage, which was still online as of Thursday morning and by that time had collected over 10 million views on X, was met with criticism from members of the college and pro football community, not simply for the comparison of war and sport, but for the NFL’s and other rightsholders’ failure to object to the use of the images.
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