It seems like only yesterday that I was sitting on my buddy’s couch during Super Bowl XXXVIII, elbow deep in a bowl of homemade salsa, when he jabbed me in the ribs and said “dude, did you just see that?”
The “that” in question was the now infamous “wardrobe malfunction” endured by pop star Janet Jackson during the halftime show.
She is going to be in so much trouble, said my friend.
As it turned out, CBS, the network which broadcast the game that year took the brunt of the blame as people across the nation immediately called for a crackdown on broadcast indecency.
But on July 21, the U.S. Appeals Court for the Third Circuit overturned a $550,000 fine against CBS imposed by the Federal Communications Commission for the 2004 incident viewed by an estimated 90 million viewers.
In it’s ruling, the court stated that the FCC’s decision to fine CBS for broadcasting Jackson’s semi-exposed breast for nine-sixteenths of a second was “arbitrary and capricious,” because it deviated from the agency’s longstanding policy of penalizing broadcasters for “indecent material so pervasive as to amount to ‘shock treatment’ for the audience.”
Bravo to the court for recognizing the snafu for what it was – an oversight and not a “willful action” as claimed by the FCC.
Anyone who has navigated a broadcast television lineup lately can trip over a bevy of imagery aimed at alienating and attracting viewers at the same time. Why single out an instance which I suspect most people did not even witness live.
![[Print]](http://wislawjournal.com/wp-content/plugins/dmc_sociable_toolbar/print.png)
![[Email]](http://wislawjournal.com/wp-content/plugins/dmc_sociable_toolbar/email_2.png)
July 23rd, 2008 at 3:54 pm
Now if only we could return sports to what it really is…and halftime to what it really is. We are overpaying athletes, networks, and professional teams while underpaying teachers, public service officials, and others we rely on for our future. Bridges woudn’t collapse if we came to expect the same level of professionalism from city engineers as we do those engineers responsible for creating Micro-processors, and our kids would learn a lot more if we paid teachers and school officials a wage commensurate with their overwhelming responsibilities. Let’s stop the madness! No more half-time shows, no more expensiove commercials. Let’s pay each professional athlete $250,000 per year, and every teach $250,000 per year.
July 23rd, 2008 at 3:50 pm
Two wrongs do not make it right. Court should fine both, CBS and FCC officials for not enforcing decency rules on all TV coverage.
July 23rd, 2008 at 6:49 pm
“Decency rules” in this instance (not all) are arbitrary, narrow, counter-productive, ignorant, and a few other things. The FCC was not created to be the state’s censor, nor to allow it to kill much good work on basic channels because producers are afraid an autocratic bunch of body-phobic prudes will capriciously try to put them out of business.
July 23rd, 2008 at 10:46 pm
“She is going to be in so much trouble, said my friend. ”
Sad that it wasn’t “THEY are going to be in so much trouble”. That breast didn’t fall out by itself.
July 25th, 2008 at 8:41 am
This whole thing was a farce from the beginning and all involved are a bunch of phonies and hypocrites.
A split-second shot of a boob is on TV is bad, but dead and mutilated corpses on the nightly news is perfectly okay. We live in a very sick society with twisted morals and values. A nude body is verboten, a mutilated and dead one is just peachy-keen. I am sick and tired of Puritan sexual values being shoved down the throats of Americans over 200 years after they thankfully passed away. A pox on the FCC and Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake. All three are trash with no morals or values; pond scum we used to call such people in high school. Our federal government is in many ways a total joke and this case shows why.