Janet’s Boob
C’mon, already!
How many of you actually saw it, in real time, on the Super Bowl broadcast? Maybe we are too young to be honestly shocked today and too old to have kids who we honestly believe would be damaged by it.
It was less than a one-second flash of a pierced nipple shield; in fact, it went by so fast, at first, I thought it was a pastie. (couldn’t find the singular of pasties in the dictionary; would that be ‘pasty’?)
The way the director cut it; with MTV’s online hinting at “something shocking” occurring at the half-time show; with their reactions on stage, and Justin’s comments immediately afterward, before he knew what a firestorm this had become; there is no doubt in my mind that this was a planned deal, up to at least MTV-level.
I heard O’Reilly say he was in the box w/CBS brass, and they were immediately apoplectic about it, indicating that the Boys of Black Rock knew right away that something very, very, bad had occurred.
So what exactly happened? TV (by which I mean broadcast television, y’know, the free stuff), used to show married couples in separate beds, even after they’d had kids (the few times they would actually show bedroom scenes). All in The Family was the first show to have the sound of a flushing toilet (and even then it created quite a furor). Of course, I am old enough to remember the Comics Code, that wouldn’t allow you to show a drop of blood, even in a war comic where people were getting shot left and right. Public entertainment, until the last decade or so, has largely been “safe.” Safe for kids to watch (even though it has way too many double/triple entendres for today’s kids, and suggests everything it can’t show); safe for grandma and grandpa to view and castigate for being so much less than entertainment back when THEY were kids…
So, along came cable. Immediately they could take chances that commercial television couldn’t, because there were not sponsors to worry about offending; only the people paying the fee. And a large and ever-increasing number of those people were buying adult movies at the video store, and surfing the Net for soft and hard porn, as well as buying premium channels that showed everything and then some. Cable was able to narrowcast into the market that would allow smut and violence into the living room. Advertisers on commercial TV put more and more pressure on programmers to deliver the 18-39 market just as they were leaving broadcast TV in droves. So they coarsened TV a bit more, and a bit more, and those who saw the handwriting on the wall, like Viacom, bought MTV as well as CBS.
And this year, we wind up with MTV producing the halftime show for the SuperBowl, broadcast on CBS. Letterman: “For the first week in a long time, I wasn’t the biggest boob on CBS.” The specifics of the incident might’ve surprised, but how could anyone be surprised at where “entertainment” on TV is going?
What happened it that people forget, while they’re “pushing the envelope (remember, it’s the same Eddie Murphy who did Raw that did Dr. Doolittle),” that America is a conservative country. We’re tolerant of those with other points of view, so much so that many are amazed at, and most misunderstand, what that means.
We tolerate abortion in this country where the majority of Americans oppose it. We tolerate homosexuality in this country where the majority of Americans oppose it. We tolerate interracial and interfaith marriage, where the majority of Americans oppose it. Others view this tolerance as a sign of America’s moral decay, not realizing that however much of it allowed in this country, that the vast majority of Americans are still very conservative, particularly when it comes to what we’re willing to allow our kids to be exposed to. And when the fringe pulls and pulls at where the majority is comfortable, they can pull for a good long while, but then, something like this stupid little incident occurs, and-SNAP! We see this incredible overreaction.
Dunno where this is gonna take us, but it’s still a major news story after 6 DAYS, and over 200,000 people contacted the FCC to complain (they didn’t get that many complaints when the report on the Twilight Zone movie deaths showed Vic Morrow and the two Vietnamese kids get chopped up by whirlybird blades on the evening news, fercryinoutloud!).
Here’s the site (http://www.demask.com/dynamic/sitemap.asp) of the people that sold her the outfit; they’re suing her for suggesting it was a malfunction of the material that was at fault; they insist it was rigged by MsJackson’s people to breakaway that easily (someone on TV said, What kind of magic bra has the cup come off without ruining the bra?)
as for this little delight (sorry 'bout that; I haven't figured how to paste a picture of the pastie in place yet), the good news is, they’re not that hard to find. The bad news: it’s pierced. (ow ow ow!)
How many of you actually saw it, in real time, on the Super Bowl broadcast? Maybe we are too young to be honestly shocked today and too old to have kids who we honestly believe would be damaged by it.
It was less than a one-second flash of a pierced nipple shield; in fact, it went by so fast, at first, I thought it was a pastie. (couldn’t find the singular of pasties in the dictionary; would that be ‘pasty’?)
The way the director cut it; with MTV’s online hinting at “something shocking” occurring at the half-time show; with their reactions on stage, and Justin’s comments immediately afterward, before he knew what a firestorm this had become; there is no doubt in my mind that this was a planned deal, up to at least MTV-level.
I heard O’Reilly say he was in the box w/CBS brass, and they were immediately apoplectic about it, indicating that the Boys of Black Rock knew right away that something very, very, bad had occurred.
So what exactly happened? TV (by which I mean broadcast television, y’know, the free stuff), used to show married couples in separate beds, even after they’d had kids (the few times they would actually show bedroom scenes). All in The Family was the first show to have the sound of a flushing toilet (and even then it created quite a furor). Of course, I am old enough to remember the Comics Code, that wouldn’t allow you to show a drop of blood, even in a war comic where people were getting shot left and right. Public entertainment, until the last decade or so, has largely been “safe.” Safe for kids to watch (even though it has way too many double/triple entendres for today’s kids, and suggests everything it can’t show); safe for grandma and grandpa to view and castigate for being so much less than entertainment back when THEY were kids…
So, along came cable. Immediately they could take chances that commercial television couldn’t, because there were not sponsors to worry about offending; only the people paying the fee. And a large and ever-increasing number of those people were buying adult movies at the video store, and surfing the Net for soft and hard porn, as well as buying premium channels that showed everything and then some. Cable was able to narrowcast into the market that would allow smut and violence into the living room. Advertisers on commercial TV put more and more pressure on programmers to deliver the 18-39 market just as they were leaving broadcast TV in droves. So they coarsened TV a bit more, and a bit more, and those who saw the handwriting on the wall, like Viacom, bought MTV as well as CBS.
And this year, we wind up with MTV producing the halftime show for the SuperBowl, broadcast on CBS. Letterman: “For the first week in a long time, I wasn’t the biggest boob on CBS.” The specifics of the incident might’ve surprised, but how could anyone be surprised at where “entertainment” on TV is going?
What happened it that people forget, while they’re “pushing the envelope (remember, it’s the same Eddie Murphy who did Raw that did Dr. Doolittle),” that America is a conservative country. We’re tolerant of those with other points of view, so much so that many are amazed at, and most misunderstand, what that means.
We tolerate abortion in this country where the majority of Americans oppose it. We tolerate homosexuality in this country where the majority of Americans oppose it. We tolerate interracial and interfaith marriage, where the majority of Americans oppose it. Others view this tolerance as a sign of America’s moral decay, not realizing that however much of it allowed in this country, that the vast majority of Americans are still very conservative, particularly when it comes to what we’re willing to allow our kids to be exposed to. And when the fringe pulls and pulls at where the majority is comfortable, they can pull for a good long while, but then, something like this stupid little incident occurs, and-SNAP! We see this incredible overreaction.
Dunno where this is gonna take us, but it’s still a major news story after 6 DAYS, and over 200,000 people contacted the FCC to complain (they didn’t get that many complaints when the report on the Twilight Zone movie deaths showed Vic Morrow and the two Vietnamese kids get chopped up by whirlybird blades on the evening news, fercryinoutloud!).
Here’s the site (http://www.demask.com/dynamic/sitemap.asp) of the people that sold her the outfit; they’re suing her for suggesting it was a malfunction of the material that was at fault; they insist it was rigged by MsJackson’s people to breakaway that easily (someone on TV said, What kind of magic bra has the cup come off without ruining the bra?)
as for this little delight (sorry 'bout that; I haven't figured how to paste a picture of the pastie in place yet), the good news is, they’re not that hard to find. The bad news: it’s pierced. (ow ow ow!)