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Topic: My Hero, Janet Jackson, by Frank Rich |
chas smith R.I.P.
From:
Encino, CA, USA
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Posted 15 Feb 2004 12:11 pm |
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FRANK RICH
My Hero, Janet Jackson
Published: February 15, 2004, New York Times
It may be a dirty job, but somebody's got to do it. Two weeks after the bustier bust, almost no one has come to the defense of Janet Jackson. I do so with a full heart. By baring a single breast in a slam-dunk publicity stunt of two seconds' duration, this singer also exposed just how many boobs we have in this country. We owe her thanks for a genuine public service.
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You can argue that Ms. Jackson is the only honest figure in this Super Bowl of hypocrisy. She was out to accomplish a naked agenda — the resuscitation of her fading career on the eve of her new album's release — and so she did. She's not faking much remorse, either. Last Sunday she refused to appear on the Grammys rather than accede to CBS's demand that she perform a disingenuous, misty-eyed ritual "apology" to the nation for her crime of a week earlier. By contrast, Justin Timberlake, the wimp who gave the English language the lasting gift of "wardrobe malfunction," did as he was told, a would-be pop rebel in a jacket and a tie, looking like a schoolboy reporting to the principal's office. Ms. Jackson, one suspects, is laughing all the way to the bank.
There are plenty of Americans to laugh at, starting with the public itself. If we are to believe the general outcry, the nation's families were utterly blindsided by the Janet-Justin pas de deux while watching an entertainment akin to "Little Women." As Laura Bush put it, "Parents wouldn't know to turn their television off before that happened." They wouldn't? In the two-plus hours "before that happened," parents saw not only the commercials featuring a crotch-biting dog, a flatulent horse and a potty-mouthed child but also the number in which the crotch-grabbing Nelly successfully commanded a gaggle of cheerleaders to rip off their skirts. What signal were these poor, helpless adults waiting for before pulling their children away from the set? Apparently nothing short of a simulated rape would do.
Once the deed was done, the audience couldn't stop watching it. TV viewers with TiVo set an instant-replay record as they slowed down the offending imagery with a clinical alacrity heretofore reserved for the Zapruder film. Lycos, the Internet search engine, reported that the number of searches for Janet Jackson tied the record set by 9/11-related searches on and just after 9/11.
"That a single breast received as much attention as the first attack on United States soil in 60 years is beyond belief," wrote Aaron Schatz, the columnist on the Lycos Top 50 site. (Though not, perhaps, to the fundamentalist zealots who attacked us.)
For those who still couldn't get enough, the cable news channels giddily played the video over and over to remind us of just how deplorable it was. Even though by this point the networks were blurring the breast with electronic pasties, there was still an erotic kick to be milked: the act of a man tearing off a woman's clothes was as thrilling to the audience as whatever flesh was revealed therein, perhaps more so. But to say that aloud is to travel down a road that our moral watchdogs do not want to take. It's the unwritten rule of our culture that the public is always right. The "folks," as Bill O'Reilly is fond of condescending to them, are always the innocent victims of the big, bad cultural villains. They're never complicit in the crime. The idea that the folks might have the free will to tune out tasteless TV programming or do without TV altogether — or that they might eat up the sleaze, with or without young 'uns in the room — is almost never stated on television, for obvious reasons of fiscal self-interest. You don't insult your customers.
Since the public is blameless for its role in creating a market for displays like the Super Bowl's, who should be the scapegoat instead? If you peruse Mr. O'Reilly's admonitions in his first three programs dealing with the topic, or the tirades of The Wall Street Journal editorial page and right-wing direct-mail mills like the Parents Television Council and Concerned Women for America, you'll find a revealing pattern: MTV, CBS and their parent corporation, Viacom, are the exclusive targets of the invective. The National Football League is barely mentioned, if at all. To blame the country's highest-rated sports operation, after all, might risk insulting the football-watching folks to whom these moral watchdogs pander for fun and profit.
But the N.F.L. is in the sex business as assiduously as CBS and MTV, and for the same reason: it wants those prurient eyeballs. It's now been more than a quarter-century since Super Bowl X, when the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders first caught the attention of the nation. "The audience deserves a little sex with its violence," Chuck Milton, a CBS sports producer, said back then.
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The N.F.L. has since worked tirelessly to fill that need. This year was not the first MTV halftime show that the league has ordered to try to expand its aging audience beyond the Levitra demographic. The first such collaboration, Super Bowl XXXV three years ago, featured Britney Spears all but falling out of a halter top and numbers in which both Mr. Timberlake (then appearing with 'NSync) and Nelly grabbed their crotches. There was, to my eye, twice as much crotch-grabbing then as there was this year, but that show generated no outrage whatsoever.
It did, however, attract two million more viewers than the game itself. The N.F.L. wanted more of the same for 2004, which is why the league's commissioner, Paul Tagliabue, released a statement saying, "We're pleased to work again with MTV" when announcing the encore. Or pleased up to a point. When MTV proposed that part of the show be devoted to a performance of the song "An American Prayer" by Bono to increase awareness of the horrific AIDS epidemic in Africa, the N.F.L. said no — even though Bono had done the league the favor of giving the 2002 Super Bowl halftime show a dignified musical tribute to the victims of the 9/11 attacks.
The mention of a sexually transmitted disease might dampen the libido of the salacious MTV show that the N.F.L. wanted this year and wanted so badly that the league remained silent even when MTV's pregame publicity promised that the performance would contain "some shocking moments." As one participant in the production told me, the N.F.L. saw "every camera angle" at the show's rehearsals and thus was no less aware of its general tone than CBS and MTV were. You don't hire Ms. Jackson, who's been steadily exposing more of her breasts for over a decade on magazine covers, to sing "Rock Your Body" if you have a G-rated game plan. Nonetheless, Joe Browne, the league's flak, pleaded total innocence after the event, releasing a hilarious statement that the N.F.L., like the public, was the unwitting victim of a show that it had both commissioned and helped supervise: "We applaud the F.C.C.'s investigation into the MTV-produced halftime. We and our fans were embarrassed by the entire show."
That investigation, piggybacked by last week's Congressional hearings, is an election-year stunt as full of hot air as the Bud Light horse flatulence ad. "Like millions of Americans, my family and I gathered around the television for a celebration," declared Michael Powell, the F.C.C. chairman, upon announcing that the entire halftime would be examined. A celebration of what, exactly? Didn't Mr. Powell, the nation's chief television regulator, watch the previous MTV halftime show?
He promises to conduct the investigation himself — a meaningless gesture, though it may gain him an audience and perhaps a photo op with Ms. Jackson. Mr. Powell's real agenda here is to conduct a show trial that might counter his well-earned reputation as a wholly owned subsidiary of our media giants. Viacom has been a particularly happy beneficiary of the deregulatory push of his reign, buying up every slice of the media pie that's not nailed down. Should CBS be found guilty of "indecency" by the feds, the total penalty would amount to some $5 million, roughly the price of two 30-second Super Bowl commercials. Congress's new push to increase those fines tenfold is just as laughable. Viacom took in $26.6 billion last year.
Not for nothing did the company's stock actually go up the day after the Super Bowl. The halftime show was great merchandising for both MTV and CBS, the go-to network for "Victoria's Secret Fashion Show." Not to be left without a piece of the action, even NBC got into the act. Citing the Jackson flap, it decreed that two split-second shots of an 80-year-old woman's breast in an emergency room sequence in "E.R." be excised. But the "E.R." star Noah Wyle then went on NBC's "Today" show the morning of the broadcast to joke about the decision, and the network-owned NBC affiliate in New York used the banned breast as a promo for its post-"E.R." news broadcast: "What you won't see on tonight's episode of `E.R.' — at 11!" Thus did NBC successfully transform its decision not to bare geriatric flesh into a sexual tease to hype ratings. This is true marketing genius, American-style.
What's next? Some are predicting that all the tape delays being injected into TV events to pre-empt future wardrobe malfunctions will be the death of spontaneous, live TV. But the moment an awards show takes a ratings hit, this new electronic prophylactic will be quietly abandoned by the networks even faster than the N.F.L.'s vague threat not to collaborate with MTV next year.
Ms. Jackson, the biggest winner in this whole escapade, is already back on the air. Her official rehabilitation began right after the Super Bowl, when BET started broadcasting a 10-part series of "special Black History Month" spots in which she profiles historical luminaries like Harriet Tubman, Paul Robeson and Sidney Poitier.
"Her tone is serious and focused, with the air and diction of a seasoned lecturer," says the network's news release, which also notes that "the spots feature Ms. Jackson clad in classic black." Wasn't her Super Bowl dominatrix costume classic black as well? Well, never underestimate the power of synergy. BET is another wholly owned subsidiary of Viacom. |
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David L. Donald
From:
Koh Samui Island, Thailand
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Posted 15 Feb 2004 1:28 pm
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From over here is added the absurdity of even being worried about a naked breast in the 1st place.
You walk by any pharmacy here, and much of europe, and will see tastefull nudes in the windows at the nose height of the average 7 year old.
Not once have I ever seen a mother hide her childs eyes from this.
The most I have heard is ;
"Yes dear it is a pretty lady", and in the store they go.
Not even from the muslims in headscarves and chadors, They just ignore it.
I have bumped into several different nationalities here since this happened,
and to a person, without a difference in gender,
they are all laughing themselves silly over the responce to this.
Myself included.
God did a fine job making people, why should we be ashamed of his work.[This message was edited by David L. Donald on 15 February 2004 at 01:30 PM.] |
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HowardR
From:
N.Y.C.-Fire Island-Asheville
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Posted 15 Feb 2004 2:36 pm
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because sometimes, there's just too much cabinet drop....  |
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Gene Jones
From:
Oklahoma City, OK USA, (deceased)
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Posted 15 Feb 2004 2:49 pm
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All of the hype surrounding this incident is completely over my head, because I didn't see any of it.....including the game!
After all, the Dallas Cowboys weren't playing, and if they had been, the Cheerleaders are never shown on camera anymore because they are too distracting! 
[This message was edited by Gene Jones on 16 February 2004 at 04:42 AM.] |
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Ray Montee
From:
Portland, Oregon (deceased)
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Posted 15 Feb 2004 3:07 pm
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| I believe Janet Jackson has done for the right breast of all women, world-wide, what one steel guitar player has been credited for doing for his favorite musical instrument.....perhaps she is the savior of female breast baring in the USA; perhaps she is responsible for creating a resurgance/or, new wave of interest in the right breast for all of our younger generations to cherrish. Atleast, while millions of them flit around the country-side, she and she alone stepped forth and taught all Americans what's there and has finally exposed it for just what it is. Were it not for her, interest in the subject may very well have simply faded away to be forgotten forever. It's supposed to be America's greatest obsession. Without the teachings of her and her brother, where would America be today? |
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HowardR
From:
N.Y.C.-Fire Island-Asheville
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Posted 15 Feb 2004 3:28 pm
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| Quote: |
| this incident is completely over my head |
Gene, I didn't know that you're only 3 feet tall...  |
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Larry Robbins
From:
Fort Edward, New York
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Posted 15 Feb 2004 4:09 pm
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Very well put Ray! And I for one pledge from this day forth, a new and genuine intrest in not only the right female brest but the long overlooked left as well!
Who will join me in my quest?
(for science only of course!)  |
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Steinar Gregertsen
From:
Arendal, Norway, R.I.P.
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Jay Fagerlie
From:
Lotus, California, USA
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Posted 15 Feb 2004 7:00 pm
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Larry,
Is that the "Release the twins" foundation?
I've heard they do good work......
Jay[This message was edited by Jay Fagerlie on 15 February 2004 at 07:01 PM.] |
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LARRY COLE
From:
LANCASTER, OHIO, USA
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Posted 15 Feb 2004 7:34 pm
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Just another rebel prostituting herself. Trying to further her carrer by shoving more immorality down our throats. What does this have to do with steel guitar anyway? I am supprised that b0b has let this garbage go on this long.
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Playing For JESUS,LC. WILLIAMS U12,SHO-BUD PRO1,CARVIN TL60,GIBSON LES PAUL CUSTOM,YAMAHA L-10A ACOUSTIC,ROLAND JW-50 KEYBOARD,G&L AND BC RICH BASS'S
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chas smith R.I.P.
From:
Encino, CA, USA
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Posted 15 Feb 2004 8:03 pm
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| Larry, you don't have to read it if you don't want to. This is the entertainment business and the world we live in. For those of us who rely on the entertainment business as a source of income, it's important to see which way it's going. For those people who think the entertainment business has co-opted reality, it's a mirror. |
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David L. Donald
From:
Koh Samui Island, Thailand
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Posted 16 Feb 2004 4:36 am
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Yes Larry, you need not read any further.
I think extreme presure to be taking anesthsia shots in the knee joints to play through the pain, or go out again with the 3rd concussion this year,
just to gain another big pay day at the risk of the loss of your bodily functions, future health and possibly your life,
is much more immoral than showing a little breast.
I do like football anyway, but wish it was easier on the players health.
For the record I made my observations in the 1st post from a socio-anthropological point of view,
and not at all politicaly. Nor is it in anyway an attack on faith in any form.
It's just the way it is, as observed.
In europe in general this wouldn't even raise an eyebrow.
This has to do with the "music business" for the simple reason that in the age of music video and a huge press and internet media, and huge competition,
an "artist" is under extreme presure to use any and all " marketiing tools " at their disposal to sell "product".
Like in the classicd ays of Hollywood, any press you can get, good or bad, and not die getting it, is good press.
Steelers are rarely the front person / headliner and so are generally not exposed to the need to make these same choices,
so have the luxury of saying it is wrong more readily.
In her stylistic segment Janet J. is a stone cold pro, and one of the better acts going. She is also a sex symbol for many.
I also find her one of the least hypocritical in that genre.
Her brother on the other hand should transfer Never Land to the orbiting space station, as a NASA wag suggested.[This message was edited by David L. Donald on 16 February 2004 at 07:57 AM.] |
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Pat Burns
From:
Branchville, N.J. USA
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Posted 16 Feb 2004 6:23 am
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| Quote: |
| Just another rebel prostituting herself. Trying to further her carrer by shoving more immorality down our throats. |
...Shoved down our throats?...I didn't see the crotch-grabbing number in which this incident happened, because I had something better to do with my time than to watch it...you could have made the same choice, Larry...actually, you could make the same choice now, instead of coming back to read my response, but you didn't, did you?...
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| What does this have to do with steel guitar, anyway? |
..nothing. That's why it's in the "music" section, which b0b created for "Musical topics not directly related to steel guitar"...it says so right on the table of contents header...if you just want to read about topics directly related to the steel guitar, go to the "Steel Guitar" topics and don't come here...
...and even if you stumbled in here by accident, you could quietly leave the same way...if you accidently walk into the ladies room, do you just quietly back out the same way you came, or holler at all those shameless jezebels to get the hell out of your bathroom...
...and even if you did stumble into the music section, you made a conscious effort to click on the Janet Jackson topic...why would you do that, if you find it so offensive...
..you remind of the joke about the hunter and the grizzly bear (and you know the one I mean)...you didn't come here for the hunting, did you...[This message was edited by Pat Burns on 16 February 2004 at 06:32 AM.] |
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LARRY COLE
From:
LANCASTER, OHIO, USA
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Posted 16 Feb 2004 8:05 am
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I have reread this whole topic and the only thing I can find remotely related to music is quote ""this singer" also exposed just how many boobs we have in this country", quote"You don't hire Ms. Jackson, who's been steadily exposing more of her breasts for over a decade on magazine covers, to sing "Rock Your Body" if you have a G-rated game plan" and quote "When MTV proposed that part of the show be devoted to a performance of the song "An American Prayer" by Bono to increase awareness of the horrific AIDS epidemic in Africa, the N.F.L. said no — even though Bono had done the league the favor of giving the 2002 Super Bowl halftime show a dignified musical tribute to the victims of the 9/11 attacks".
Chas, the porno industry is in the entertainment business too.
Donald, I don't like football and didn't watch any of this but my pastor had people from church including kids over to watch the game. I am sure him and many others would not have had their kids watch if they had known this was going to happen. Here in the US nudity is not accepted like it is in Europe. People are arrested for exposing themselfs.
Pat, b0b moved the off topic the another board to post other related topics.
Don't get me wrong, I am not mad at any of you guys, just stating my opinion.
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Playing For JESUS,LC. WILLIAMS U12,SHO-BUD PRO1,CARVIN TL60,GIBSON LES PAUL CUSTOM,YAMAHA L-10A ACOUSTIC,ROLAND JW-50 KEYBOARD,G&L AND BC RICH BASS'S
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Erv Niehaus
From:
Litchfield, MN, USA
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Posted 16 Feb 2004 8:15 am
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David,
I think with an attitude like yours, Europe is the best place for you. |
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Pat Burns
From:
Branchville, N.J. USA
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Posted 16 Feb 2004 9:07 am
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...I knew you'd be back, Larry...you're not here for the hunting, are you...
| Quote: |
| I don't like football and didn't watch any of this but my pastor had people from church including kids over to watch the game. I am sure him and many others would not have had their kids watch if they had known this was going to happen. |
...so, the good reverend was OK sitting with the kids watching the crotch grabbing, pelvis pumping, leg humping musical number...he never thought to change the channel at that point...he sat all the way through that unmoved, until he was ambushed by indecency at the very end of the number...
..I don't choose to watch that trash, either, and I set an example by telling my 6 and 11 year-old daughters that it is, in my opinion, trash and that they could spend their time better doing or watching something else, and that I don't allow it here in my home...I can only do that much as a parent...sooner or later they'll do what they want..
...on the other hand, for those of us on the forum who do live in America..in America we have a first amendment so that we don't have the thought police, morality police, or any other type of police forcing their will on us and telling us what we have to watch or what we cannot watch...and as you can see, it was a well-considered constitutional amendment, because someone is always trying to force their will on us...
...again, you have the option of just not watching...excercise your option, and stop trying to control everybody else...they'll excercise their own options, thank you...
[This message was edited by Pat Burns on 16 February 2004 at 09:45 AM.] |
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Jason Stillwell
From:
Caddo, OK, USA
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Posted 16 Feb 2004 10:08 am
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Just when I think there's nothing worse than liberal, immoral "Hollyweird" garbage, along comes some liberal European garbage (the comment, not the man) to prove me wrong.
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| God did a fine job making people, why should we be ashamed of his work? |
Genesis 3:21—"The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife, and clothed them." |
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Jon Light
From:
Saugerties, NY
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Posted 16 Feb 2004 10:21 am
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| Including Janet Jackson's nipple pasties. Like it or not, it's god's work. Mysterious ways, eh? |
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Mike Weirauch
From:
Harrisburg, Illinois**The Hub of the Universe
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Posted 16 Feb 2004 10:57 am
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What was so offensive about this incident? I saw it but was not impressed nor offended by it. She got her "t!t in a wringer" over something that doesn't amount to a hill of beans or in this case, a lump of fat cells and lactating glands. You thin skinned people need to get grip on life and the real world as it is today, like it or not!
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| "The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife, and clothed them." |
......signaling the beginning of man's quest to unclothe a woman![This message was edited by Mike Weirauch on 16 February 2004 at 10:59 AM.] |
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Jim Cohen
From:
Philadelphia, PA
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Posted 16 Feb 2004 11:09 am
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| Weirauch, you have no credibility in this debate, cuz you've seen it all... too many times! |
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Mike Weirauch
From:
Harrisburg, Illinois**The Hub of the Universe
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Posted 16 Feb 2004 11:37 am
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| Quote: |
| cuz you've seen it all |
One thing I haven't seen is a Hooter's going out of business.  |
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chas smith R.I.P.
From:
Encino, CA, USA
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Posted 16 Feb 2004 11:40 am
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| One of the things I find to be fascinating, and what appears to be a common bond between the world's fundamentalist religeons, whether Islamic, Jewish or Christian is the discomfort with nude or suggestively clothed women. |
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LARRY COLE
From:
LANCASTER, OHIO, USA
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Posted 16 Feb 2004 11:46 am
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Pat, I didn't accuse YOU of coming here for gay sex with bears, my mother taught me better than that. Anyway I have a great wife. If that's the way you think, you are one sicko. By the way, I will be praying for you.
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Playing For JESUS,LC. WILLIAMS U12,SHO-BUD PRO1,CARVIN TL60,GIBSON LES PAUL CUSTOM,YAMAHA L-10A ACOUSTIC,ROLAND JW-50 KEYBOARD,G&L AND BC RICH BASS'S
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C Dixon
From:
Duluth, GA USA
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Posted 16 Feb 2004 12:17 pm
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WHO is Janet Jackson
A Better Way[This message was edited by C Dixon on 16 February 2004 at 02:37 PM.] |
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CrowBear Schmitt
From:
Ariege, - PairO'knees, - France
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Posted 16 Feb 2004 12:17 pm
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Wow i'm surprised this thread has'nt been closed yet
Intolerance and Fundamentalists have been slowly but surely taking over all over the globe
Fascism is not too far off....
[This message was edited by CrowBear Schmitt on 16 February 2004 at 12:23 PM.] |
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