I’m afraid I call bollocks on this, too, since the 1981 UK Eurovision Contest entry, ‘Making Your Mind Up’ by the Bucks Fizz involved the two guys ripping the skirts off the two girls unexpectedly as part of their dance routine. Family entertainment, millions of viewers, nobody objected, everyone loved the ‘raciness’ of the routine, and they won the competition.
Just curious, but did you let your 4 year old watch the rest of Fellowship? It’s a very violent movie aimed at mature audiences; in fact, the DVD contains a warning to that effect. In this context, the Easter Egg may well be shown without a warning–because after all, only mature audiences should be watching, right?
FWIW, I don’t think the stereotypical American aversion to sex and nudity is as clear as it’s made out to be, nor is the “rest of the world” as open and permissive about matters hot and naked as we claim to be. Not to say that a cultural difference doesn’t exist, but this isn’t an entirely unique American distinction that we can freely point and laugh at.
For example, I believe that if a naked boob was shown during September’s broadcast of the Australian Football League Grand Final, I’m sure complaints would be laid and regulatory intervention urged (if not actually achieved). A distinction may be drawn from other instances of nudity and sex on Aussie TV, because they’re typically shown at night and with appropriate warnings.
Of course, the outcry wouldn’t be as loud here in Aus but remember we’re talking about the freakin’ Super Bowl–and that we’re in America, home of a bajillion hysteria-stirring, ratings-seeking, 24 hour, sanctimonious, blood-sucking, cannibal media outlets. The outcry in this case is huge partly because Super Bowl is huge and America is huge.
Yes, I allow my daughter (who is now five) to watch Lord of the Rings, under my supervision. Does it bother me to expose her to so much violence? Yes, which is why I take numerous steps to help her understand things better.
- First of all, I’m a stage actor, and Kizarvexilla has attended some of my performances. So she understands (as well as a young child can) what acting is all about.
- Secondly, I always show her the “making of” features, where she can see that the terrifying balrog is, in fact, a puppet three feet tall, and that the orcs and goblins are just actors in costumes. She also sees how much practice goes into the swordplay, and that everyone is actually being very careful not to hurt anyone else.
- Thirdly, whenever we see a movie that includes an actor she’s seen somewhere else, I point it out to her, again driving home the point that these are just actors (when I took her to see Finding Nemo, she leaned over to me and whispered “Gill has the same voice as the Green Goblin!”).
- And fourthly, we talk about what we watch, with a lot of emphasis on what the characters do, and why it is right or wrong. I’m not a psychologist, so I can’t say for absolute certain that my methods have shielded her from all possible harm, but I do know that my daughter does not act violently towards her classmates, towards the kids at daycare, or even when playing with her dolls.
Like it or not, kids encounter violence on a daily basis. Perhaps not the decapitation-with-a-greatsword type, but plenty of pushing and shoving and even hitting. As far as I’m concerned, the sooner they learn (in a healthy rather than traumatic fashion) that people really can get hurt when someone resorts to violence, the better. The sooner they learn to control violent urges, the better. The sooner they find a healthy outlet for their aggression, the better.
Sex, though, is a different matter. I’m all for having my daughter grow up with a healthy attitude towards her body and towards sex. But I can’t see that having her watch bump-and-grind dancing, crotch grabbing, and on-stage disrobing will do much to promote this, particularly at her age. Given the choice, I’d rather wait until she’s somewhat older before giving her the birds-and-the-bees talk – I was twice her age before I heard it. When she does start seeing sex portrayed on screen, I’d rather have her watching a naked couple gently embracing one another in private than two scantily clad dancers pelvic thrusting on a crowded floor. It may amount to the same thing to some people, but to me some means of expressing sexuality are infinitely healthier than others.
While my views towards sex and violence may seem contradictory to some people, they make perfect sense to me. And she’s my kid, dammit.
The situation is that many of the Super Bowl’s viewers enjoy seeing sexual displays. And many of the Super Bowl’s viewers are outraged by sexual displays. So the corporations responsible have it both ways, by putting on the sexual displays and then publically denouncing them afterwards.
Personally, I’ll believe that the NFL and television networks are seriously upset about sex in sports when they start banning cheerleaders on the sidelines.
Kizarvexius, I gotta say, it does seem completely irrational to me to allow a kid to watch FotR but get upset when she sees a naked man’s butt in a comic context.
Hey, you got every right to raise your kid in a manner I consider irrational; at the same time, I’ll encourage media outlets to make no allowances whatsoever for that.
If you want to supervise your daughter, that’s your business. If you try to limit, however indirectly, the entertainment I can get, it becomes my business.
Daniel
…I’ve tried to purge that song out of my head for years…
AARRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!
http://www.gearchange.org/clips/Bucks%20Fizz%20-%20Making%20Your%20Mind%20Up.mp3
I’m not trying to limit anyone else’s entertainment, and I’m not calling for censorship. The entertainment industry has long preached that parents should be responsible for supervising what their own kids watch or listen to. I couldn’t agree more. As long as the content of a TV show or DVD is clearly labeled whenever there’s something I might not want my daughter to see, I’m cool with it.
I don’t want entertainers made responsible for raising my kid. That’s not their job. So I’m not going to enforce my own questionable morality on them, and demand they clean up their acts because of the negative effect it has on kids. If people want bumping and grinding during the halftime show, they’re welcome to it – but a little advanced warning would be appreciated. Ditto with Jack Black dropping trou. It wouldn’t have bothered me in the least had they put in some little five second message on the DVD to the effect that this file includes adult content.
Okay, I’m not sure why the same rational explanations cannot be applied to Jack Black exposing his pale buttocks in an non-sexual manner–but as you said, it’s your kid.
I do think it’s a little pedantic, however, to insist that a DVD already rated for mature audiences requires a separate warning to protect viewers from the sight of bare arse, but there you have it. Thanks for the explanation.
Perhaps I used the term “third party” wrongly. I was just trying to differentiate between the actual CBS broadcast and photos taken by other people including: professional photographers for magazines and your average joe with a camera.
Now, in view of the fact that most of the photos we are seeing which provide a clear picture of Janet’s breast are those that were taken by photographers, it would seem that the bigger crime/blame does not lie with CBS but actually lies with the people putting up the high-res photos taken by the photographers. Which leads me to believe that all the reasons/outcries given about “kids/families watching CBS being exposed to indecent material” are very weak.
If you were watching CBS, it would seem that you would not have been able to see very clearly whether Janet’s breast was indeed revealed or not or whether she was (for example) wearing say a brown undergarment, or whatever. If people had to rely on the high-res photos to be able to say with certainty that Janet’s breast was indeed exposed, then that means that the original footage from CBS was not indecent.
So my personal conclusion is:
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People who supposedly “saw” it on TV have no grounds of complaint based on indecency.
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People at the actual stadium may or may not have ground of complaint (I don’t know how clear it was on the Big Screen at the stadium, assuming there was one).
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The people who are the biggest cause of clear photos of Janet’s breast being shown on all spectrums of the media are the people who themselves are vocally complaining about it. Because their vocal complaints are whats making it newsworthy and hence proliferating the multiple high-res pictures zoomed up pictures of Janet’s breasts around the media.
My 2 cents.
You’d be surprised, really, of what’s already been shown.
The movie Shaka Zulu has been shown, seemingly uncut, on broadcast TV quite a few times. Complete with hundreds of exposed breasts.
The show CSI, from what I’ve heard, has shown some completely topless women on a few occasions. (I haven’t seen the show myself, so I can’t confirm it. And since the women in question were dead, I suppose it’s possible that they were either “played” my mannequins, or the breasts were latex prosthetics used while filming an autopsy, or something.)
Schindler’s List was run, uncut, on ABC a few years ago. With nudity.
PBS and National Geographic have shown nudity often enough. Mostly filmed deep in the Amazon.
An episode of The Simpsons from about 10 years ago showed an uncensored, animated rendering of Michelangelo’s David.
And, of course, countless numbers of male nipples have been seen, over the years.
I dunno…maybe people are just upset because they weren’t expecting to see Janet’s boob.
You have to understand, for many years, people in the U.S. had issues with naked breasts (and I’m not making this up) on the radio!
Think of it this way:
Would you like a beautiful woman to come to your house and take her clothes off, or would you prefer a big guy with a lot of guns to arrive and start shooting at you?
Think carefully, now… :rolleyes: