I’ve already made my opinion on the Janet-Justin Halftime Boobtacular clear: The problem is not the nudity (which in itself is hardly worse than the Coors Light commercials that run about a bajillion times per football game, or than the cheerleaders the NFL parades around, or the boobs-for-food bartering on the Tiffany Network’s Survivor a season or two back), but the simulated non-consensual sex act that caused the nudity in the first place. In that regard the fiasco is at least as much Justin Timberlake’s doing as Janet Jackson’s.
So why doesn’t it surprise me at all that in this memo from “the bipartisan [Congressional] Sex and Violence in the Media Caucus” (oh, it’s bipartisan! I guess that means the First Amendment says it’s okay for these elected officials to begin spending our money to investigate fake gunfights and blowjobs on TV!) that the Congressmorons in question describe the unfortunate event thusly:
Viewers watched as the star of the show, performer Janet Jackson, had her costume ripped away to reveal her bare breast. Her on-camera sexual gyrations and exposure were broadcast by CBS via 200 free, over-the-air television stations around the country.
Note the awkward use of the passive voice in order to place the blame squarely on Janet, and not her male counterpart (who I imagine is a bigger star than she is these days, saleswise). Note that mere “sexual gyrations” are viewed as just as bad as actual nudity. Note that the violent and misogynistic overtones of the act are not even mentioned.
Listen: We all like breasts. And nipples. The obviously fake breasts of a plastic-surgeried freakshow, complete with ninja throwing star ornamentation–well, these we’re not so sure about. Generally, however, I’d just as soon see the American TV industry go European, where nudity has been shown on broadcast for decades (I’ve got the Monty Python DVDs to prove it.) Of course, the Super Bowl, despite the best efforts of the NFL and its sponsors, is family programming, and not the appropriate venue for this sort of thing, but ultimately a split-second nip slip should not be the stuff of federal investigations.
What is disturbing is that the forcibly enforced second-class sexual citizen status of women is so ingrained into our culture that not even self-appointed First-Amendment violating bluenoses don’t even think to comment upon it. They’ve missed the point, and over on the other side of the argument, everyone saying “hey, no big deal” is missing the point as well.