Bill Maher rips Nike’s Super Bowl 2025 ad featuring Caitlin Clark as ‘zombie lie’ about the patriarchy

nypost.com:

Bill Maher blasted Nike’s new Super Bowl 2025 commercial featuring iconic female athletes like Sha’Carri Richardson and Caitlin Clark as deceiving viewers with a so-called “zombie lie” about the patriarchy.The new black-and-white ad, “So Win,” features a vaunted roster of female athletes, including WNBA stars Clark, Sabrina Ionescu and A’ja Wilson, as well as Olympic runner Richardson and gymnast Jordan Chiles.

During the minute-long clip, musician Doechii narrates myriad doubts and fears coursing through female athletes’ minds — they can’t be “demanding,” “relentless” or “put yourself first” — before stressing how they should prove critics wrong as Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love” blares in the background. “What you do, you can’t win — so win,” the narration said, with footage of the athletes in action.

But the black-and-white ad, the sports apparel behemoth’s first to air during a Super Bowl since 1998, came under fire from Maher and his guests Friday night on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher.” The comedian slammed the ad as being a “zombie lie,” which he explained as a concept that was once true and no longer is, but people still keep saying it. “I feel like this is a giant zombie lie,” he said. “When was the last time a woman was told: ‘You can’t do this, you can’t be confident’?’” he continued.