Move over Thanksgiving, the Super Bowl is the most American day of the year.

Chicken wings, beer, football – sign me up.

In fact, sign up 111.5 million Americans, as reports show that many people watched the Seattle Seahawks derail the Denver Broncos 43-8 in Super Bowl XLVIII on Sunday.

Maybe it is the fact that Super Bowl Sunday is so “American” that explains the reaction to the Coca-Cola commercial that aired in the second quarter in which “America the Beautiful” was sung in a variety of languages.

There have been calls to boycott Coca-Cola, social media rants against the company and a fair amount of national conversation about one minute of airtime on a Sunday night in February.

What the reaction of people ‑ whom I know constitute the minority of the population – shows us that it doesn’t take much to bring out the jingoism in Americans.

The ad, which features people of varying ethnic backgrounds in different walks of life, was an attempt to show the diversity of this country and how we can have our differences and still be American.

However, those calling for a national boycott of Coca-Cola see the ad quite differently.

“The Coke Ad at the Super Bowl was just a continuing attempt at diluting our Society! Name one other Country that encourages a multi-lingual Society, and thinks it’s cool to hear one of their anthems sung in several languages, where 2/3’rds of the population can’t understand some or all of it! Try that shit in Japan, Russia, China, Germany, etc!!” wrote the creator of the Facebook page “Boycott Coca-Cola.”

Funny – I thought most Americans were happy they lived without the small-mindedness shown by the Russian and Chinese governments.

While the page has just more than 2,100 likes as of Tuesday, this message is similar in style, tone and content to many others that can be found across the social media landscape since the ad aired.

Coca-Cola has responded on its own Facebook page by posting videos of behind-the-scenes interviews with the people in the commercial, whom they specifically state are everyday Americans.

What stands out amongst all the hateful, prejudiced and nationalistic commentary sparked by this minute-long commercial is the belief that the people in the commercial were not American because they did not “look American.”

Maybe they were too brown, or wore the wrong clothing or headgear, or just did not fit the mold set by Renée Fleming, the white opera singer who sang the national anthem prior to the game.

Throughout this nation’s history, one of its identities has been of the melting pot – a country full of different people living together, creating a multicultural national landscape.

Those who attack the commercial by citing American values are undermining the very thing they pretend to defend.

I hope this vitriol aimed at a company trying to exemplify something we claim to value in our country ends soon.

For now, I’ll have a Coke.