A lot of people are wondering why so many people, the media, parents, and so on, are making a big fuss over the matter of Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake performing a publicity stunt. Justin rips off a section of Janet’s corset to reveal her breast during half-time of the Superbowl. Both CBS and MTV apologized, and the FCC are performing an investigation on the matter.
Now, I’ve tried to explain to these people who feel that it’s just a harmless breast, and that it won’t hurt anybody, that it will cause some harm. It has been causing harm. Why should we let them get away with it? If we let them get away with it, more and more entertainers will get more and more daring. Next thing you know, we’ll see other skanks like Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, and Madonna all exposing their tits in music videos, prime-time television, and commercials. The more lenient we become, the more people will try to take advantage of us.
Janet is an aging pop star, and her new album is due out in stores this Spring. She clearly wanted this bad publicity, because in the entertainment industry, bad publicity means good publicity, and she is hoping this stunt will increase sales of her album. CBS and MTV apologized and said it was unexpected, but that’s a big lie. Anyone who hires Janet Jackson for a performance should be very familiar with her style and routine. She’s very risque and doesn’t mind the bump-and-grind dirty dancing in her shows, sex is her tall order of the day. To think she wasn’t going to do something outrageous would be putting yourself in serious denial. If you really want to show Janet that she can’t get away with this, vote with your wallet, don’t buy her new album.
A mother made a post that hit the nail on the head squarely on why this is such a big issue, and I couldn’t have said it better:
“I guess I more object to the whole environment of crass sensationalism, overt sexuality, profanity and tastelessness than one specific event. My kids are too young to really understand this – had they seen it – but it’s the idea of them growing up in a culture that doesn’t respect people, where
the cheap thrill is taken over true taste and art, where the human body and sexuality is so disrespected that it becomes a tawdry object instead of something to be appreciated and, ugh I’m searching for words, but respected will do I guess.”“To me, it’s more than a guy ripping off a girl’s shirt. It’s a package deal. So much of popular culture today teaches kids that everything is disposable, cheap and the thrill is all that matters. I want my kids to
believe better. I want my daughter to grow up a confident young woman, believing in her own intelligence, beauty (inner and outer) and abilities, not one that desperately tries to fit herself into Abercrombie and Fitch’s
or MTV’s vision of what a young woman should be. I want my son to grow up respecting himself and women – that they aren’t sexual objects you can have your fun with and throw away. The whole half-time show was the complete antithesis of how I believe and what I want to teach my kids. And *that’s* why I object to it so much.” – Mary
I happen to seriously disagree with you on this one Matt although I understand where you are coming from. I think that it was a cheapo stunt but the mere fact that America has so much moral outrage when we are quite happy to show dead mutilated bodies on the news and to glorify war as well as condone the ownership of firearms which are designed to be used for only one thing. I feel that janets’s breast is not really that important and as a parent I don’t feel that my son and daughter are going to be morally scarred for life at the vision of a pasty.
My children are not ashamed of their bodies and quite frankly are not in the least interested in Janet Jackson’s breast because that is what it is, a breast. Not a gun, not a bomb or even a knife, just a breast and it’s not going to hurt them particularly. It’s only our Victorian morals that actually class breasts in the sexual category and the sooner we get past that the better.
I too have to express strong disagreement. The fact that America is showing profound “outrage” at the exposing of a breast is just pathetic. This mother of who’s writing you showed us is a perfect example. Fine, if you don’t want your kids to grow up to be like that then, here’s an idea, don’t raise them like that. Stop blaming the media and the world around you for the way YOUR kids turn out. Yes, there’s an impact but in the end, with proper parents and a proper upbringing, its negligeable.
Look at England. They LAUGH at us with events like this. There public nudity is taken as a given. Hell, its in the newspaper (page 3?) daily. You don’t see their children growing up to be demented. You don’t see terrible damage done to their society as a whole. You don’t see constant one up manship to always degrade ourselves more.
Why? Because they don’t HIDE sexuality. They know its there, they’ve accepted that fact. Why is America still hiding the fact that umm…we all come from sex? Well have sexual parts. They’re there and for a damn long part of our lives its a primary driving force behind our every move.
Please, while Janet and Justin’s actions were tasteless and silly but its the REACTION to them that is sad and degrading. We cheer when someone gets decapitated in a movie but god save the world if we see a tit.
Just because it’s okay over in England, doesn’t mean that it should be okay here in America. Would it be okay that we forced women to dress in robes from head to toes, because it’s okay over in Afghanistan? No, our culture is a lot different over here. People are raised different here, and their ideals and beliefs are different. America is a diverse cultural country, and as such laws have to be made to respect EVERYONE’s beliefs and ways of life.
Nudity on TV may not offend one family, but it may offend another. So you have to play the middle ground and not offend either, and this means no amount of nudity or sexual acts on prime-time TV. These laws are in place for a reason, they weren’t put in by a bunch of Protestant prudes looking to burn witches at the stake, they were put in to respect a nation of diverse beliefs.
The reaction is sad and degrading? Why? You even agree that the actions of Justin and Janet is tasteless and silly, so why should they get away with it? If you piss off millions of people, you don’t sit there and wonder why, or shrug it off, you FIX the problem. Running 3DGPU.com has taught me that much. If 50 people complained they didn’t like a blinking ad, I don’t say “other sites do it, so I can too”, or figure 50 people isn’t enough to warrant an action, I take it down, apologize, and don’t do it again. Because that’s respecting peoples’ feelings.
I think we’ll have to agree to disagree here Matt because I have enormous respect for your integrity and I do not live in America so cannot comment but I will add that a country where guns are readily available in high street shops and they have more murders in one city that we have in the whole country because of these guns can get upset about a breast just leaves me in a state of total confusion. Because of that confusion I feel that I probably will never understand so I think the best thing is to forget it and carry on.
As a father of four daughters, I see both sides of the issue. I do think that our society (America) is overly decadent and violent. My main issue with stunts like Janet and Justin pulled is this.
I had no choice in deciding if I wanted my children to see it. I know what to expect on the news. I know what to expect with a R rated movie, or certain TV dramas. I would never expect to sit down to watch the Superbowl and see that type of act. It isn’t even the exposure of a breast (Big Deal!) It is the sight of a man tearing off a womens clothes…not the image I want my daughters to see.
The problem with America, and society in general is the gradual desensitivation of sex. It has turned from something deep, beautiful and personal into something like going to the store for a coke. It is cheap and tawdry and that makes it extremely hard to teach young girls the opposite of what they are bombarded with by the media. My wife and I are by no means prudes and we are very open with the human body and when the time is right, sex. We try to teach our girls to respect themselves and their bodies
Very well said, Brian, I agree completely.
Actually Matt, many of our laws DO stem from our Puritan fore-fathers. One can draw a direct correlation between the uptightness our society has with sex versus the difference of the English. THEY kicked out the stiff necked people that gave us so many stupid and troubling baggage that we still carry into the 21st century.
I’m not disagreeing that there should be limits. I’m not disagreeing that it was done in bad taste and that it should be limited but for gods sakes it was a boob. Its not like they got on stage and did the horizontal mombo or anything. It was a breast. You see more skin on the average beach than you did on that show. My problem is with the reaction, the overwelming sad reaction to what occured. You don’t see it in ANYTHING else in America. Not in politics, not regarding our economy, not even regarding violence. Yet a breast becomes the MOST WATCHED TIVO EVENT EVER. Its now one of the most heavily searched items on the internet. Thats just…sad.
More air time and more effort will be expended on the two second clip of an exposed breast then will be spent on politics for the next year. THAT is my problem with this event. Yes, it was sad and tasteless but our reaction is worse. Like I said on my weblog, America needs to grow up.
Chris:
I always mix the Puritans with the Protestants. Whether laws stem from their beliefs would be hard to prove, considering the majority of our laws have to be approved by the people, and not everyone in American follows the Puritan belief. I certainly don’t.
Once again, you’re focusing on the wrong thing here. People aren’t upset because of a boob being displayed, it was the context, the place, and timing of it. It was disrespectful to the common viewer, over 89 million of them. It was disrespectful towards women, with a man ripping a section of the breast off, and the woman looking shocked and then outraged at the act. A young child would/can interpret that the wrong way, and teach the wrong values.
Of course it was the most replayed event on TIVO, who wants to replay boring politicians or information about the economy. The majority of the people that use TIVO are those who are using it to watch soap operas at night or sporting events they couldn’t catch, which are people likely to be interested in a 2 second clip of a breast. TIVO doesn’t represent America, as much as you make it sound like it does.
leave janet alone did she hurt any one?? no it is no worse than anything else on tv all these gay shows on tv it happened get a lfe get over it .!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Actually Matt, just going by what you said over Tivo it does represent the vast majority of Americans. Hence why I found that so disturbing.
I’ll drop it though and just go with the “we agree to disagree” aspect. I don’t want to come off as an ass with it because in general I do like your writing even though I just came across it last week.
Let the record show I also strongly disagree with you. I wish everyone who is getting so offended by part of a person’s anatomy would get more up in arms about the disastrous direction our country is going in. That is ultimately more harmful to children and decency.
It’s good to see so many people disagree with me, and no I’m not being sarcastic. I really do like to hear other viewpoints, and keep an open mind. I don’t think we are heading for disaster in this country, and I don’t think it has anything to do with Janet Jackson’s boob. I do agree that people get upset over the wrong reasons, and should be more upset about things with higher priority, such as voting, the future of our country (and world), and so on.
America is in a serious cultural time lag. Our juvenile approach to culture is the stuff that the rest of the world deserves to laugh at. In France an errant breast would have barely made the morning news. In America it is not obscene to drop cluster bombs on children but a woman’s breast causes a national outcry. In the age of Bush II we have forgotten the fable of “The Emporer’s New Clothes”.
“In France an errant breast would have barely made the morning news. In America it is not obscene to drop cluster bombs on children but a woman’s breast causes a national outcry. In the age of Bush II we have forgotten the fable of “The Emporer’s New Clothes”.”
right, the french are great role models. they fed Saddam with weapons to gas and bomb his own people and neighboring countries. these very weapons were used to kill the allies in the recent war.
at least now we know what all those breast-baring French are doing, killing women, children, and men indirectly. their attitude is give weapons first, show breasts later. so while the rest of the world is laughing at the US they’re desperate to keep up with them, and wish they had their quality of living. the US doesn’t envy any other country, they envy the US.
This is why I thank God daily that I don’t live in France. ;)