I’m thinking sort of an ala Little Kim at the Grammys a couple of years ago when Dianna Ross jiggled her boobie.
I finally saw the bodice ripping in action (I’d only seen stills of the boob before that) and I agree that it was pretty cheesy although not particularly rude. My question is, if Janet had worn some sort of pasty or tassle, as opposed to the nipple ring with shield, would there have been so much hoopla? Is it the glimpse of nipple that has people so worked up?
Personally, I think if she’d had a tassle on there, and maybe twirled it a little people would have been shocked, but less outraged - it’s not a boob - it’s just a spinning tassle.
I guess there’s a point at which enough skin is covered so that it doesn’t seem as if the breast is exposed. Pasties and tassles, though, typically just cover the nipple. They are associated with strippers. The very large, general pulbic audience that watches the Super Bowl isn’t the same as the smaller, younger audience that watches the Grammys. The general public doesn’t want to see strippers on a show they thought was suitable for the whole family.
The uproar wasn’t just from the exposed breast, although that was the main item involved. The lewd dancing, the lyrics, and the man ripping off the woman’s clothes were other distasteful components of the event. But the “we don’t give a rat’s ass about you, we’re going to do what we want even if you think it’s nasty” attitude, reinforced by nonexistent-to-pitifully-lame “apologies,” is probably the real basis for the negative reaction. If a breast had been exposed under circumstances that appeared truly accidental, with sincere apologies afterwards, there wouldn’t have been much stink.
I agree with Gary T; the issue isn’t so much the exposed breast as it is the venue. Those who watch music awards shows expect a little risqué behaviour; those who watch the Super Bowl don’t expect it and don’t appreciate having it thrust upon them.
In the end the artists are shooting themsleves in the foot. Had they restricted this kind of performance to the proper audience (e.g. MTV), there wouldn’t be such a furor. Now, however, the FCC and Congress are investigating, parents are discovering what goes on in youth-oriented programming (e.g. music videos), and the entertainment industry will be under close scrutiny, at least for while.
Indeed. When Lucy Lawless (TV’s Xena) performed the national anthem at a Red Wings game a few years back she had a genuine costume mishap and wound up exposing one breast. She was wearing a strapless top, and when she raised her hands over her head with a flourish at the end of the song…well…out popped one of her girls. There was no public outcry over this! No federal investigation, no lawsuits, nuthin’.
The incident admittedly took place before a much smaller audience then the Super Bowl, but it was on live television and the story got mentioned in the celebrity gossip pages and all so people who weren’t watching did hear about it. I don’t remember anyone seeming upset or offended. It was just an amusing thing that happened to a semi-famous person. Ms. Lawless got some teasing from talk show hosts and the photos wound up all over the Internet, but that was the end of it.
The American public can, in fact, handle the sight of a woman’s bare breast without flying into a puritanical frenzy. But the American public apparently found the Super Bowl halftime show offensive, and I don’t think sticking a pastie on Janet Jackson would have served as a sufficient Band-Aid for the entire situation.
I agree, I don’t think a pasty would have covered it, so to speak. When asked, most parents would say that they’d like to make informed choices as to what their kids are seeing; I know a lot of families who allow their younger kids to stay up late to watch the 'Bowl, including my nieces who are 8 and 10 years old, respectively.
I’m one of the last people anyone could ever call a prude, but even I agree that the mostly-naked dancers onstage, Justin and Janet’s may-as-well-have-been-naked dancing, and then the bodice-ripping itself was just too much for a halftime show. Quite a few feminist writers/bloggers have been in an uproar over it, as well, because of the -context- in which the breast was exposed. The ripping off of her clothes, combined with the lyrics “I’ll have you nekkid by the end of this song,” pretty well lent the breast-exposure an air of simulated unwanted sexual contact. The beginning of the show had an MTV “Choose or Lose” voting ad in the beginning, you know, the usual “Choose Democracy” type messages, ending with a nearly-nekkid Jessica Simpson in a teeny majorette costume shouting “Houston, Choose to Paaartaaaaay!” – add that to the boobie-exposure at the end, and one really has to wonder, what message -were- they trying to convey? It wasn’t exactly clear.
It’s called a nipple shield – basically, a piece of circular body jewelry that goes around the nipple, that’s held on by a barbell through the pierced nipple. There’s some examples of the type of jewelry at this site – just pics of the jewelry, no nipple pictures to be seen here. They’re definitely a piece of body jewelry that’s meant to be seen, not something that a bodypierced person would wear every day. (Speaking from experience, here.)
And to flesh out (har!) what Mizzkyttie said, a pasty is a different animal. It completely covers the nipple, and is pasted on. Pasties are a way for strippers to show breasts without violating laws against showing nipples (banned as erectile tissue, usually). Nipple shields are a way to decorate and highlight nipples without obscuring them.
You know as a Canadian, I don’t see what the hell the big deal was. It was a freaking breast! Who cares.
It was in frame for about 1.2 seconds! How can one get offended by that! If that wasn’t bad enough, what’s haoppening now in the entertainment industry is even worse:
ER being censored (BTW, when it aired in Canada, the breast was still there, and ER has shown a grown womans breast at least 1 other time!)
Grammy 5 second delay (I’m curious if the delay had anything to do with the audio problems they were having)
Academy Awards delay
In Canada they show “The Osbournes” and “The Soprano’s” uncut during primetime! The first time CTV showed the Soprano’s, they had few dozen complaints. You want to know what most were about? It ran til 10 minutes past the hour, so everyone who set their VCR’s for 1 hour missed the last 10 minutes!
I didn’t think Canada was that liberal, but after this link: Crazy Texas
As several other posts have pointed out, the issue is not the exposure of the breast per se, rather everything leading up to it and associated with it.
As several other posts have pointed out, there are shows on the air where might reasonably expect things that some find objectionable, but the Super Bowl is not one of them.
