Why did only Janet take the fallout....
Janet Jackson's Super Bowl wardrobe malfunction remembered, on its 10th anniversary
KERRY MALONEY / THE TIMES-PICAYUNE Janet Jackson performs Friday night at the Essence Music Festival 2010. A decade ago, her Super Bowl wardrobe malfunction made headlines, as well as a phrase that has unexpectedly endured.
on February 01, 2014 at 4:11 PM, updated February 01, 2014 at 5:03 PM
As America gears up for the big game on Sunday, Feb. 2, some are taking a moment to remember another Super Bowl. Super Bowl XLVIII, tomorrow, will mark the 10th anniversary of the 2004 Super Bowl, a game that lives in television infamy — and not for anything that actually happened between the players on the field.
Super Bowl XXXVIII, which pitted the Carolina Panthers against the New England Patriots, was the site of Janet Jackson's now-legendary wardrobe malfunction — known by some, now, as "Nipplegate" — during her halftime performance with Justin Timberlake.
During a live duet of Timberlake's "Rock Your Body," which includes the line, "Bet I'll have you naked by the end of this song," the former boy-band star tore off a piece of Jackson's costume, revealing her bare breast topped off with a metal pasty. The media erupted; FCC chairman Michael Powell made the rounds of talk shows decrying the incident, calling it at one point "a new low for prime-time television." The president of Viacom (CBS and MTV's parent company) the CEO of the CBS network, the NFL commissioner and the chairman of MTV Networks variously called the situation "offensive," "shocking," "appalling" and "embarrassing."
The criticism was markedly directed at Jackson, not Timberlake, as the Daily Beast site noted Saturday. Reportedly under pressure from CBS, she taped an immediate official apology. Timberlake, though he apologized at later public appearances, did not.
"In short," the site wrote of Timberlake, "he threw Jackson under the bus, letting her take almost all the blame for the "wardrobe malfunction," while shouldering none of it himself."
In an extremely thorough consideration titled "Nipplegate at 10: How Justin Won Super Bowl XXXVIII, and How Janet Lost," Gawker's Rich Juzwiak points out that while Timberlake's career flourished after the incident (at the time, she was the far bigger name, and he had yet to reach true superstar status as a solo act) Janet's began to decline.
It probably didn't help that in 2004, under Republican president George W. Bush, American was particularly conservative. As the Gawker piece points out, "Nipplegate" became a catalyst for a wave of preemptive self-censorship in American media.
"America suddenly became a more dangerous place for public sexual expression," Juzwiak wrote.
"Broadcasters began regulating themselves even before the FCC raised indecency fines tenfold, up to $325,000, in 2006 (a result of what the Washington Post described as a "culture clash among lawmakers, regulators, broadcasters, interest groups, lawyers and ordinary consumers" that began two weeks before it found a catalyst in Nipplegate). CBS imposed several seconds of a delay on the following week's Grammy Awards ceremony."
For those Grammys, Juzwiak also noted, an offer to Jackson to be a presenter was withdrawn and she was urged not to attend the ceremony, though Timberlake went himself, and won two awards.
"A promised orgy scene on 'America's Next Top Model' was censored," he wrote. "'ER' and 'Without a Trace' were scrubbed of stray shots of nudity. 'NYPD Blue,' a show that existed to push boundaries, was scrutinized. The Victoria's Secret Fashion Show was canceled that year. (The chief marketing officer lied and said it wasn't because of the Super Bowl.) The FCC fined Clear Channel $495,000 for Howard Stern's then-terrestrial radio show."
Ten years later, the incident is far from forgotten. To commemorate the dubious anniversary, outlets from E! Online to MSNBC's African American-focused blog The Grio have posted stories remembering "Nipplegate," which range from saucy photo galleries to thoughtful considerations of how our ideas about indecency change with time. The New York Daily News offered a slideshow of prominent unintentional exposures in recent pop culture history, while the New Yorker, which called the fiery response to Jackson's breast-baring a "voluptuous fallout," considered the enduring nature of the phrase "wardrobe malfunction."
What do you think? Ten years ago, was Janet Jackson hung out to dry? Should Timberlake have taken a bigger public hit for his role? Was it "Nipplegate" that deflated her career? How would such a "wardrobe malfunction" be taken today?
Super Bowl XXXVIII, which pitted the Carolina Panthers against the New England Patriots, was the site of Janet Jackson's now-legendary wardrobe malfunction — known by some, now, as "Nipplegate" — during her halftime performance with Justin Timberlake.
During a live duet of Timberlake's "Rock Your Body," which includes the line, "Bet I'll have you naked by the end of this song," the former boy-band star tore off a piece of Jackson's costume, revealing her bare breast topped off with a metal pasty. The media erupted; FCC chairman Michael Powell made the rounds of talk shows decrying the incident, calling it at one point "a new low for prime-time television." The president of Viacom (CBS and MTV's parent company) the CEO of the CBS network, the NFL commissioner and the chairman of MTV Networks variously called the situation "offensive," "shocking," "appalling" and "embarrassing."
The criticism was markedly directed at Jackson, not Timberlake, as the Daily Beast site noted Saturday. Reportedly under pressure from CBS, she taped an immediate official apology. Timberlake, though he apologized at later public appearances, did not.
"In short," the site wrote of Timberlake, "he threw Jackson under the bus, letting her take almost all the blame for the "wardrobe malfunction," while shouldering none of it himself."
In an extremely thorough consideration titled "Nipplegate at 10: How Justin Won Super Bowl XXXVIII, and How Janet Lost," Gawker's Rich Juzwiak points out that while Timberlake's career flourished after the incident (at the time, she was the far bigger name, and he had yet to reach true superstar status as a solo act) Janet's began to decline.
It probably didn't help that in 2004, under Republican president George W. Bush, American was particularly conservative. As the Gawker piece points out, "Nipplegate" became a catalyst for a wave of preemptive self-censorship in American media.
"America suddenly became a more dangerous place for public sexual expression," Juzwiak wrote.
"Broadcasters began regulating themselves even before the FCC raised indecency fines tenfold, up to $325,000, in 2006 (a result of what the Washington Post described as a "culture clash among lawmakers, regulators, broadcasters, interest groups, lawyers and ordinary consumers" that began two weeks before it found a catalyst in Nipplegate). CBS imposed several seconds of a delay on the following week's Grammy Awards ceremony."
For those Grammys, Juzwiak also noted, an offer to Jackson to be a presenter was withdrawn and she was urged not to attend the ceremony, though Timberlake went himself, and won two awards.
"A promised orgy scene on 'America's Next Top Model' was censored," he wrote. "'ER' and 'Without a Trace' were scrubbed of stray shots of nudity. 'NYPD Blue,' a show that existed to push boundaries, was scrutinized. The Victoria's Secret Fashion Show was canceled that year. (The chief marketing officer lied and said it wasn't because of the Super Bowl.) The FCC fined Clear Channel $495,000 for Howard Stern's then-terrestrial radio show."
Ten years later, the incident is far from forgotten. To commemorate the dubious anniversary, outlets from E! Online to MSNBC's African American-focused blog The Grio have posted stories remembering "Nipplegate," which range from saucy photo galleries to thoughtful considerations of how our ideas about indecency change with time. The New York Daily News offered a slideshow of prominent unintentional exposures in recent pop culture history, while the New Yorker, which called the fiery response to Jackson's breast-baring a "voluptuous fallout," considered the enduring nature of the phrase "wardrobe malfunction."
What do you think? Ten years ago, was Janet Jackson hung out to dry? Should Timberlake have taken a bigger public hit for his role? Was it "Nipplegate" that deflated her career? How would such a "wardrobe malfunction" be taken today?
Comments
Post a Comment