Scott and I watched the entire Super Bowl halftime show this year. Not that we were particularly fond of any of the artists -- some of them I'd never heard of before -- but the rest of the party had migrated into other rooms and for whatever reason we stayed on the couch. So I saw Boobgate as it happened.
We weren't quite sure whether we'd even seen a naked breast, it was on screen so short an amount of time. It was not a topic of conversation when the rest of the party wandered back into the room. If someone had asked me about the show, I'd more likely have said how overall the show sucked, or something about Kid Rock's wearing the US flag as a poncho, than about Janet Jackson. So it really surprised me to see the avalanch of press the situation has gotten.
What really bugs me about the whole thing is, why aren't more people mad at Justin Timberlake? He was the instigator. He grabbed her boob and ripped off the clothing covering it. I'm not a lawyer but it seems possible to me that what he did approached the legal definition of sexual assault. So why are so many people mad at her?
I was listening to a local toalk radio show coming home from work last night and the guy on the air said that it's all because America is racist and that if Janety Jackson weren't black, things would have been different. I'm not sure I agree with that, mostly becasue I don't think of Janet Jackson as being black. She's so mainstream and so light-skinned that her color is not what immediately comes to mind for me. I think of Halle Berry in a similar light. They're entertainers first; their skin color is a very distant second.
At any rate, I don't think this is necessarily a racial issue. I'm not sure what the real reason is. It could be sexism, or the hypocritical morailty that so many Americans embrace, or just a slow news week.
Whatever the reason, it's a huge tempast made out of a very small teapot. Anyone who thinks that two flashing seconds of breast exposure on TV was indecent or immoral or would somehow harm their children is an idiot.
