MTV/Janet Jackson Fully Exposed Breast on Super Bowl

[Lokrian]

As perhaps the only -truly- uptight American in this crowd, I would just like to say all the therapeutic advice about how I should get over my obsession with boobs is duly noted, but sorry, I do not intend to change my ways. My first post on this subject was me trying not to be uptight, but people coming out and pawning themselves off as experts on how "uptight" Americans are gets under my skin.

It's fun being uptight. It makes for cheap thrills. I don't have to see as much skin before I am already turned on. It has its upside. Being a jaded sybarite is not necessarily all good.

As for what they do in Africa, well, I don't care. They have a place somewhere where the Pacific Islanders of this or that stripe wear gourds on their penises. Loong, skinny gourds that they then tie up with strings. If they are not wearing their penis gourds, they feel naked. I, personally, would hate to see that become the standard here. Then again, I never liked pants that show crack either, so what do I know?

In conclusion, different people have their different standards, and public standards are always a tad more prudish than private ones. I have been to Europe a time or two, and they are not THAT much more racy than we are. Trying to make some sort of semi-moral statement about how big a deal a boob is or is not supposed to be really just points out to me the hypocrisy of some people, who have their own values but refuse to budge an inch to the left or right to keep peace with their neighbors' values.

[Graeblyn]

I was scarcely paying attention to "the incident" at the time it occured, since I was at a superbowl party and was more interested in socializing then in the game itself. But, a lot of people at the party were upset about it, despite the fact that there were no children there.

First of all, date rape and sexual assault are big issues in professional sports. For a major sporting event such as the Superbowl to include a performance with a mock sexual-assault in it is highly inappropriate. Bear in mind, that even if it is true that this was a "wardrobe malfunction" Justin was still pretending to forcibly rip off Janet's bodice. Feminists often accuse the NFL, NBA and other sports organizations of creating an atmosphere of misogyny throughout athletics, and I am sure that performances such as Justin and Janet ACKNOWLEDGE they had in mind are not at all in keeping with the NFL's attempts to rehabilitate their image with women's groups. Moreover, call me a naive idealist, but NFL officials and fans are fathers, brothers, and some mother's son themselves. I really don't think they are the "he-man woman haters" some feminists make them out to be. So, PR aside, I think the NFL is sincerely apalled at the whole thing.

Note that none of the above paragraph even touches on the nudity itself. But, there is a legitimate issue there. Whenever people complain about nudity or sexuality on T.V., I have always been able to tell themif they don't like it, then change the channel. In the U.S. anyway, we have disclaimers before such programs air. We also have a rating system wherein a logo prominently flashes, alerting parents or prudes to potential offensive content. What Janet and Justin did undermines all that. Now, when people are screaming to censor broadcast television even more severely then it already is, I cannot argue they can just not watch. After all, none of us knew Janet was going to show off her boob, so the decision whether to watch or not was taken away. If they aren't slapped back HARSHLY, the argument for wholesale censorship will become a LOT MORE APPEALING to a lot of people, especially conservative parents.

[Kharum]

The only thing that surprises me about this whole deal is that enough people apparently watch the half-time show for it to even become an issue. Who the hell watches the half-time show? I've probably seen close to 20 Superbowls in my life and I don't think I've ever watched more than 5 minutes of a half-time show. Half-time is for the important things like refilling the chip dip, reheating the pizza, and cracking open a second case of beer (not to mention taking a leak so you don't have to miss any of the commercials). And even when you've gotten the necessities out of the way, surely there are more entertaining ways to spend half-time, like rotating the tires on your car or polishing your penis gourd.

[Mei]

Janet seems to be biting on your fakes, and appears to be leaving her
     chest slightly exposed

The worst part is that the football players are losing attention because of this.

[Aristotle]

Great post Graeblyn. You raised two particularly interesting points about the misogynistic reputation of pro sports and the fact that this gives the censorship fiends some serious ammo.

Imagine for a moment that she had something on under that cup, let's say hypothetically that it was another identical cup.

So, he ripped off the cup of her bodice, but revealed absolutely no flesh. Do you think that there would have been even 1% of the issues raised about it then than what are being raised about it now? I truly doubt it.

With this in mind, I personally think that it is infact almost entirely about the fact that a breast was exposed, and that's just drawn attention to the fact that it was an aggressive sexual action from a man to a woman.

I have personally seen things like people being slapped and hit (yes this includes men slapping or hitting women, and women slapping or hitting men - Not that women doing it to men is anywhere near as bad ... apparently) on daytime television, and no, there are NOT warnings at the start of dramas and such (generally) that can often depict things like this.

I'm not saying that I think it was appropriate or not, I think it was very stupid that in a country like America, they would do something like that during a program so hugely televised. It's just asking for trouble. But as I said earlier, just by looking at this forum compared with the one about the actual event of the superbowl, they certainly have got the publicity they were after.

Dol

[Aristotle]

Originally posted by Dolencion
I have personally seen things like people being slapped and hit (yes this includes men slapping or hitting women, and women slapping or hitting men - Not that women doing it to men is anywhere near as bad ... apparently) on daytime television, and no, there are NOT warnings at the start of dramas and such (generally) that can often depict things like this.

You might want to look more closely. Every single drama I have EVER seen has the appropriate ratings and warnings.

[Yatar]

Originally posted by Dolencion
Imagine for a moment that she had something on under that cup, let's say hypothetically that it was another identical cup.

So, he ripped off the cup of her bodice, but revealed absolutely no flesh. Do you think that there would have been even 1% of the issues raised about it then than what are being raised about it now? I truly doubt it.

I'm not so sure this accurately describes the American culture I know and have grown up in. The people I know that take offense to showing flesh are much, much more offended by a portrayal of aggressive sexual behavior. If Justin had torn off part of the bodice without revealing skin, they would have complained just as loud. The thing that would be different, though, is that it would be more of a private outcry than public.

Why the difference?

In this case, there is a tangible, quantifiable, illegal action that went on. It is a lot easier to investigate, report on, and make a big deal out of something that is quantifiable: "Janet Jackson showed a breast on TV during safe hours without any warning." It's not a moral issue so much as a legal one. And in America, legal/quantifiable issues get the attention, because they're the issues people can actually do something about.

In your instance, there would be nothing quantifiable. How can you investigate or report on something like: "Janet Jackson performed an inappropriate and indecent act without any warning"? If this happened, people would be very upset, but the media/FCC/etc would have a much tougher time making a big deal out of it, given how subjective things like "inappropriate" and "indecent" can be. And in American culture, this lack of attention would actually make people complain even louder - they would think the issue was going unnoticed, and be all the more peeved.

So though it may appear to be outrage over a nipple, it's not. Don't think that just because the news talks about a breast, that's what people are outraged about. The boob is just the easiest thing to talk about, report on, and investigate.

(As for this being talked about more than the game, it's sad, but not unexpected. When else does the U.S. get to talk about something illegal that 58% of all Americans got to witness?...If I'm not mistaken, that's the estimated percentage of people that watch the Super Bowl.)

Okay, with the rating thing, on second thought you're probably right, from what I saw of television in America it's a LOT more stringent on rating than Australia, there were programs that edited out the word 'damn' and such, it boggled my mind.

I'm not sure that it's 58% of the population, that would mean about 120 million people from America alone. Could be wrong, but I doubt that.

I agree about it being illegal and therefore easier to target more vocally, however I definitely agree with Salimar that there's too bad a stigma with nudity in the USA, and not enough of one with violence and such. From what I was told, there was little other than graphic footage of the war on National news programs for a long time, yet a breast gets the entire country in an uproar (and yes, I know it was because of the violent nature yada yada).

Dol

[Yatar]

Well, just for accuracy's sake, here's the statistic: This Super Bowl got a rating of 41.4 (% of all American television households), for a total of 89,795,000 viewers. The July 2003 U.S. population estimate was 290,342,554, so that's 31% of Americans that watched the big game.

I got my previous number from a recent survey that said that 54% of Americans watch the Super Bowl, and about 2/5 of those watch for the commercials. So I was a little off, but not by much. (Statistics provided mighty generously by Nielsen Media Research, InsightExpress, and the CIA)

ANYWAY, the point of all this blah was that it's understandable for there to be so much coverage of a boob, even if most Americans are more concerned about the aggressive sexual act. But I said that already.

If ya'll want to start up a different thread about America's nudity vs. violence media problems, have at it. But I get the feeling that's a bigger discussion than should be in this thread.