nly in America (or really great countries such as Iran or China) would the brief flash of most of a woman's boob on live TV become such a big issue. The event occurred as part of a "wardrobe malfunction" during the halftime show at the 2004 Superbowl, and rather than everyone having a good laugh and getting on with their lives, the right wing fundies got all up in a lather and tried to use it as an excuse to impose more of their antiquated moral agenda upon the rest of us. And with Bush in the White House and nepotism poster boy Michael Powell heading up the FCC, the fundies succeeded in making this a really big news story.

This page collects my various writings on the subject, and displays them chronologically, with the most recent stuff added on the bottom.  Enjoy.

February 3, 2004

The other big halftime story is about Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake.  We had the TV during halftime, but Malaya was in the other room and I was disinterested in the display, and was across the room on my computer, with my back turned to the TV.  I hadn't paid any attention to who was performing, since I didn't care.  I vaguely remembered hearing that Janet Jackson was going to be on it, and wondered how that would work.  I mean she hasn't had a hit in like 15 years; what's the going to sing?

So while I was surprised to hear the anthemic sounds of her 1989 hit Rhythm Nation coming from my TV a moment later, I wasn't really shocked.  What was shocking, and unseen by me, was her boobie, which made an appearance a few minutes later. She was singing some sort of flirtatious duet with human punchline Justin Timberlake, and at the climax he reached over the yanked off Janet's faux leather breastplate, revealing... something very odd.

"Every time an artist does something you think they sort of break the barrier, and it keeps getting more and more outrageous," said Tom Poleman, senior vice president of programming at New York City radio station Z100. "I think artists will keep on exploiting every opportunity they can get."

When Timberlake snatched off part of Jackson's bustier, revealing a breast clad only in a sun-shaped "nipple shield," the barrier was not broken, it was shattered before 89 million viewers.

Federal Communications Commission chief Michael Powell said in a statement, "Like millions of Americans, my family and I gathered around the television for a celebration. Instead, that celebration was tainted by a classless, crass and deplorable stunt." He promised an investigation, with potential fines of up to $27,500. If applied to each CBS station, the fine could reach the millions.

Despite the apparent premeditation — the display coincided exactly with Timberlake singing, "I'm gonna have you naked by the end of this song" — all involved denied that the peep show was planned.

So that's what the thing was.  I looked at the photos on Yahoo, and I was like, "What the hell has she got on her nipple?" Another article says it's a nipple piercing ornament, so in theory at the center of it there is some actual nipple visible, with the rest of the tender flesh nubbin ringed by the metal star-shaped thingie.  Interesting.

Looking at the photos, it's hard to say if Janet is in on the gig.  She looks pretty surprised by things, and covers herself up.  However, the article goes on to quote other things that make it sound pretty much pre-arranged.  Plus, why on earth would she have some weird star-shaped thing over her nipple if said nipple was to remain covered by clothing?

Although Timberlake issued a statement shortly after the show blaming the debacle on a "wardrobe malfunction," in comments to the syndicated show "Access Hollywood" right after the incident, he didn't seem too sorry.

"Hey man, we love giving you all something to talk about," he said, laughing.

Jackson's official Web site was bombarded with angry postings. Her spokeswoman, Jennifer Holiner, said a red lace garment was supposed to remain when Timberlake tore off the outer covering.

She said she was not sure whether Jackson's medieval-looking nipple decoration was meant to be seen, but added that the singer does wear such jewelry.

So she wears this sort of thing all the time, at least according to her spokesperson.  Is this the newest coming fashion trend now, allowing chicks to combine the fetishistic nipple piercing trend, with the ability to flash any time they want to, all without actually being naked?

Here's a series of photos, if you're like me and didn't watch it in the first place.

Earlier in the routine, when they're dancing and flirting and such.

Here he's reaching across, just before the unveiling.

Woot!  Boobie!  On TV! Whatever; it's about 15 years past the date and age when this would shock me.

That booby thing looks big and awkward to me, but I don't have boobies and aren't related to Michael Jackson, so what do I know.  Pretty scary make up Janet's sporting there too.

It looks like Janet's just looking down here and realizing that one of her kids is poking out, assuming she didn't have it all planned from the start.  There's no photo of the moment of shock crossing her face, unfortunately.  Assuming there was such a moment. 

On another topic, god do male entertainers have it easy.  You look at the elaborate thing Janet's got on, fitted, contoured, specially made.  She spent hours getting her hair straightened and layered just right, her make up done (no matter how witch-like she looks in some other shots) etc.

And then there's Justin, his head buzzed like a freshly-shorn sheep, baggy pants, ugly shoes, casual jacket and shirt, unshaven... generally looking like any McD's employee you might see on the weekend in an auto parts store, buying some stick on chrome to rice up his Tercel.

They don't exactly look triumphant and giddy with the success of their antics, do they?

Post rip, and Janet looks far from calm and happy about things to me. She looks downright resentful, which might be her best defense if the "fined $27k per station" thing starts to come down on the guttering flames of her career.

But hey, considering that she hasn't really had a hit album in over a decade, and would be as forgotten as any other pop star of the 80's by now, if not for her blood relations, there's some motivation for you. Superbowl appearance, massive attention, how best to seize it and become famous and hot again?  Public nudity, anyone?

February 5, 2004

Here's a close up of the offending body part, and it looks pretty good, I have to admit.  I've never really found Janet attractive, and her music does nothing for me, but the boobie here is pretty nice. I like the ornament also, which is hard to believe, since I've always though pierced nipples (on women, especially) are a ridiculous way to mar and besmirch an otherwise lovely breast.

Actor Rob Schneider poses for a photo as he arrives at the premiere of '50 First Dates' at Mann Village Theater, Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2004, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/ Nam Y. Huh)

¤ It's a pity that Howard Dean isn't getting more votes and that he appears to be entirely a "peaked too early" Internet sensation, since I liked his common sense reply when asked about Janet's boobie.

"I find that to be a bit of a flap about nothing," the former Vermont governor said.

"In general, I think the FCC does have a role in promoting some reasonable standard of decency," Dean told reporters aboard his campaign plane. "However, considering what's on television these days, I think the FCC is being pretty silly about investigating this."

"I don't find it terribly shocking relative to some of the things you can find on standard cable television," he added. "I think the FCC probably has a lot of other things they should be pursuing."

His comments were so much in agreement with my opinions that I had to go search out someone who would actually admit to being offended by it. There's got to be some publicity-hungry conservatives who can be counted on for an outraged and puritanical condemnation of this, don't there?

My first stop was the AFA, a sure source for lunacy, and sure enough, I found a long article about it.  They don't really do much condemning themselves, but they have heaps of links to other fringe sites that do, if you care enough to click some of them.  I'm a bit too bored with the whole thing at this point to bother, and reading things by people who think a glimpse of a bare breast is the biggest problem on earth makes my head hurt.

Here's a typical quote from the article:

Traditional Values Coalition executive director Andrea Lafferty is another pro-family leader who says she is angered but not at all surprised at what went on. She says CBS, MTV, and the NFL have betrayed the American public.

"If the Drudge Report turns out to be true," she says, "we believe that heads should roll at CBS for exposing millions of children to the pornographic antics of Jackson and Timberlake. The Super Bowl is supposed to be a family affair, not a peep show or an MTV music video featuring half-naked women engaging in mock sex acts with their male partners."

Lafferty describes the Super Bowl as "an American institution" that ought to be safe for families to watch, and says the NFL leadership should have known MTV would produce a sleazy show.

And Eric Whittington of the group Rock For Life agrees. He says MTV has always depicted America's youth as animals with no sexual control. "I highly doubt MTV is sorry, and I think this is just another way for MTV to thumb its nose at parents while raising the sexual curiosity in teen boys," he says.

Whittington also contends that performers who are secure in their talent would not need to revert to lewd acts on stage in front of millions of unsuspecting viewers. He says Rock For Life commends the NFL for promising never to let MTV produce another halftime show.

I like that last bit, by the "rock for life" guy, whoever he is.  God knows teenaged boys had no interest in sex at all before Mtv came along.  And the "secure in their talent" one is an interesting line.  Sort of a twist on the old "secure in my masculinity" attitude that confident, non-homophobic men take.

¤ The word is now that Janet planned out the whole thing and only tipped Justin off just before they went out on stage.  That makes sense; as I speculated on Tuesday, she certainly needs the career boost at this point, and this has gotten her name back into the news. I don't know if it'll translate into any record sales, or even if she's got a new record coming out, but you'd like to think her agents have the whole thing coordinated well enough to have something people can buy of hers in stores now.

Singer Janet Jackson masterminded the Super Bowl halftime stunt that left her right breast exposed and prompted a federal probe into television indecency, the head of MTV said Tuesday.

"Janet Jackson engineered it," MTV Chief Executive Tom Freston told Reuters in an interview.

The blame on Jackson comes on a second day of fallout after pop idol Justin Timberlake tore off half of Jackson's black leather bustier while the pair were singing a duet, exposing her right breast at the conclusion of Sunday's Super Bowl halftime show.

The article even contains some comic relief, courtesy of AOL.

The sources told Reuters that Time Warner Inc. unit America Online may now seek a partial refund of the estimated $10 million it paid as a major Super Bowl advertiser and exclusive halftime show sponsor.

"While AOL was the sponsor of the Super Bowl Halftime Show, we did not produce it," the company said in a statement. "Like the NFL, we were surprised and disappointed with certain elements of the show."

The company said the exposure of Jackson's breast means it cannot now broadcast the halftime extravaganza on its web site for 25 million AOL members and visitors.

"In deference to our membership and the fans, AOL and AOL.com will not be presenting the Halftime Show online as originally planned," the company said.

Guys, no one cared about watching the halftime show before.  If people wanted to see B-list pop stars lip synching a medley of their big sing-a-long hits, they'd have watched the Superbowl in the first place.  But now, since the boobie incident, it's a huge coup to be able to rebroadcast it, even online. But the boobie!  Can you imagine, nudity on the Internet!  The horror!

Even if we're going to pretend that a second of slightly- topless female on the Internet is a big deal, especially when you consider the postage stamp sized window you know AOL would be streaming it through, why the hell can't they just censor the one second of offensive material?  You know, pixel it out, like they done with all of the accidentally (and otherwise) naked people on every talk show and reality show on TV for the last ten years?

And you thought it was just AOL users who were so dopey? With a brain trust like this, it's hard to see how their stock value has dropped about 90% in three years.

¤ And lastly, by far the funniest thing I've read about the whole "controversy" is this spoof, quoted from here:

We deeply regret the appalling incident that occurred during halftime celebrations at the Super Bowl yesterday. For 40 years and more our league has been tantalizing our fans with partial views of women's breasts. We have been committed to showing cleavage and, failing that, the outline of women's breasts on our cheerleaders, in the commercials of our sponsors, the silhouettes of our network sideline reporters and the crowd shots by our network broadcast teams - to titillate and to fill downtime. We have hoped that our viewers would discuss women's breasts and imagine women's breasts, speculate on their authenticity, ponder nipple color and size, daydream of seizing those spongy masses and twisting them this way and then that way, of burying one's face in them like a spaniel at the dinner bowl. Above all, we have hoped that our viewers will associate women's breasts with the National Football League.

But we never meant to show you the whole thing. We sincerely regret that our half-century long tease overshot its mark yesterday. We urge our viewers to forgive us, and to continue to content themselves with veils and innuendo in our future seasons.

P.S. And no pussy. Ever. Quite.

Sincerely,

Paul Tagliabue
NFL Commissioner

Meanwhile, they've got titties on network TV in prime time in most every other Western country on earth, on all of the beaches, in many public parks on sunny days, on Page 2 or Page 3 in all of the newspapers, etc. And they've all got fewer social problems, lower crime, lower teen pregnancy, lower drug use, etc.  Good thing all of the US' self-proclaimed moralists are on the case, stopping this partial nudity before it corrupts our youth.

Sigh...

February 6, 2004

After two days of Janet Jackson's right tit-related news and discussion, I'll try to change the subject today.  Right after this.

Here's an email from a European site reader about the forever ongoing Janet situation. 

Hi Flux,

I think you're being a bit unfair to Janet Jackson, here in Europe she's still a big star and her albums sell really well (at least as far as I know, I'm not a fan but I do know her songs appear in the european pop charts regularly).

JR

PS: Less (boring american) sports please! ;-)

Well first of all, I have an entire large section of this website devoted to being unfair to musicians. So at least I'm consistent, eh?

As for the charts, I have no idea. I follow the European pop charts even less closely than I follow the US ones.  And I don't follow those at all.  I don't know what songs she'd have on the charts though, since she's basically retired, as far as I can tell.

I checked her discography on Artist Direct the day after the Superbowl, to confirm my thoughts that she doesn't really record anything anymore, and it appeared that I was correct.  Her big hit was in 1995 with Rhythm Nation, and she followed that up with The Velvet Rope in 1997.  After that she took four years off before releasing All For You in 2001, and that's it.  She hasn't released an album since then, though I suppose remixes and such are probably around on the dance charts.

I was talking to Malaya about Janet on Thursday, Malaya being almost infinitely more knowledgable than me when it comes to pop and R&B and such.  Malaya said that yeah, she was pretty much retired, but that she was enjoying it. Certainly compared to her freak show brother, whose star set 10 years ago, but who continues to try so hard, releasing albums that no one wants to buy.  No matter how many hip, current, non-pedophile artists he tries to team up with.

As for the boring US sports, I don't think there will be much more on that any time soon.  Football season is over, I'm not paying any attention to basketball, and I don't care about baseball, at least not until the post season, when I periodically indulge in some Yankee bashing posts.  So I'll just talk about boring US politics, for the foreseeable future.

And just since no day would be complete without a couple more Janet's boobie photos, here's another view of it from German Yahoo, and a cartoon from French Yahoo. All of the international Yahoo news sites have the uncensored Janet photos as their most popular shots, rather than the boobie-covered shots that are on the US version, since no Western country on earth other than the US is uptight about that sort of thing.

Her star thing is really quite large.  Thick. When viewed from this angle, I mean.  As for the painting, I dunno. It's symbolic, I guess, but what does Janet's boobie really have to do with the Statue of Liberty? I just threw it in there since it adds some variety, and the white wine and peanut M&Ms I'm full of are impairing my better judgment.

February 17, 2004

A few day ago, I remembered that I'd been curious as to where Janet got the nipple decoration she so memorably sported during the Super Bowl halftime show. So I Googled around a bit, and wound at a site with the descriptive domain name of www.NippleHuggers.com.  There are a lot of topless females with hard nipples pictured on the site, so go there or not depending on your desire to see such things, and the safety you feel viewing them from your current location.

What Janet's got is a pierced nipple, with a barbell through it, and the star-shaped thing goes around the nipple, and is held on by the barbell. In theory it can rotate and such, if you give it a twist, and the tight gripping action of it is stimulating and will pretty much guarantee that at least one of your headlights is on at all times, if you know what I mean.

Also, check out Tribalectic.com for every imaginable sort of piercing accessory and decoration.  There are no sexy photos at all on this site, or at least none that I saw, so you can view it with mom and dad and Baby Jesus himself, if you so desire. I found things similar to Janet's on their accessories page, and if you go there, check out the spring coil things, made to insert your barbell into, and then twist, stretching the nipple out gradually.  Ouch... and yet... hmm.

All site content copyright "Flux" (Eric Bruce), 2002-2007.