Super Bowl Half Time Show

[Desdichado]

Worst half-time show I've ever seen. The stupid ratings junkies and their antics I was expecting -- but where was the "show"?

Used to be a lot of showmanship and drill-team style maneuvers to woo the crowd, but they shuffled all that off to make more room for the stupid celebs and their slutty publicity ploys. Sad.

I'm glad I'll I've slipped over onto the road to dead. I'll make a note to watch an old Danny Kaye movie before I'm gone though. My generation might have been tight in the rectal vicinity, but we knew what entertainment was.

<---- this is me sad.

[phuloi]

February 2, 2004 | Print | Send

Cal Thomas

Maybe it's appropriate that Super Bowls are numbered with Roman numerals. Sunday's, Super Bowl XXXVIII, featured a halftime show that could have served as backdrop for one of Caligula's orgies.

Remember Super Bowl XXXIV? The halftime entertainment was produced by Walt Disney Productions. This year's was put on by MTV, and the difference was as stark as that between heaven and hell, between good taste and garbage. The commercials also reflected what the networks apparently think about our remaining "community standards."

Janet Jackson, a member of America's most dysfunctional family, bared a breast during her onstage gyrations. There were the usual network apologies to "anyone who was offended." Jackson's singing partner, Justin Timberlake, should get the award for the ultimate in disingenuousness: "I am sorry that anyone was offended by the wardrobe malfunction. ... It was not intentional." Sure. Why, then, was Jackson wearing a pasty, instead of underwear that might have limited her exposure during the "malfunction"?

Other singers, including P. Diddy, grabbed their crotches (a la Michael Jackson) and promised through their lyrics to have sex with gyrating women, who signaled their interest by removing some of their skimpy outfits.

There were so many commercials for erectile dysfunction medications, one might have thought it has become an epidemic, on a par with AIDS or cancer. Other commercials featured a flatulant horse igniting a candle that blows up in a woman's face; a dog that bites a man in the crotch until he surrenders his beer; and a chimpanzee that puts the moves on a woman and then asks if she has a problem with back hair.

CBS, once known as the Tiffany network, has been gobbled up by its MTV division and morphed into the trash network. Sunday's halftime show was soft porn, and those apologies and assurances - that the excess was a surprise to management and won't happen again - are insufficient. A father, his children and grandchildren (and women who like football) should be able to experience rare family time in front of the television set in their own home without being surprised by such sleaze.

CBS should have expected trash. Anyone who watches even a little MTV knows that raunch and roll is standard programming fare. If you hire people like these, you're not going to get gospel music.

The FCC - which recently warned it might start issuing heavier fines for indecency and obscenity, and revoking broadcast licenses - announced a "thorough and swift" investigation into Sunday's halftime show. But it's a little late for the FCC and Chairman Michael Powell to be expressing outrage. Where was the commission during CBS's Victoria's Secret fashion show? Why didn't the agency take action after singer Bono uttered the F-word during NBC's airing of Golden Globe Awards last month?

It's easy for free-speech advocates to argue that if you don't like something, you shouldn't watch. But Sunday's halftime show came as a complete surprise to viewers and, I suspect, was unwelcome by many, to judge from the calls that flooded CBS.

Freedom of speech should also allow for viewers to be free from speech they don't want to hear, and images they don't wish to see, on broadcast television, especially with young children in the room. A TV ratings system is supposed to warn audiences what to expect so they can decide whether to watch or not, and shield their children or not. One doesn't expect this sort of thing from the Super Bowl.

The National Football League says it won't hire MTV to produce another halftime show. As for CBS, it has trolled too deep and gone too far in its unending quest for younger viewers. Just after the Jackson-Timberlake fiasco, a naked man streaked onto the field. If his "act" had been moved up just a few minutes, he would have fit seamlessly into their show. CBS cameramen focused elsewhere. Was the network suddenly gripped by pangs of puritanical morality?

One commentator made a joking reference to "naked football." I was ready for some football. I was not ready for this.

[MORTARDUDE]

Did anybody watch the Lingerie Bowl ? I forgot all about it...

It is ironic that one of the best Super Bowl games produced such crappy commercials and probably the worst half-time show ever...

Larry

[Seascamp]

I don?t see this issue as a commentary on the appearance of the female human form. At least in this area there are 24/7 casino and bar shows that are infinitely more revealing, then there is the legal brothels and Cave Rock/Lake Tahoe unsupervised nude beach for the adventurous. So Janet?s little ?T? show is not a big thing in my book but there are some business ethics involved, or more appropriately, a complete void and absence of business ethics.
It is just my gut feel that CBS and MTV are just hell bent for election to ram-rod/muzzle load their wild side agenda anytime and anywhere and on anyone they damn well choose and that isn?t right at all and lacks in honesty and integrity. They may get their kicks by jacking-up well meaning parents and/or getting young kiddos all squirmy and/or offending anyone they possibly can, fair enough, but the standards and ethics should be that a warning is up front and advertised; as in X rated or PG.

As the cover stories abound, noses grow longer and longer and the finger pointing is gets more ridiculous, we can?t be anything but amazed at how stupid CBS and MTV must think the viewing public is. That was no ?wardrobe accident? at all, just a cheep sensationalistic and choreographed stunt; sort of like popping off a hub cap, no more, no less.
In my opinion both CBS and MTV have the mind-set that it?s easier to beg forgiveness than to be honest and up front in the first place. I think the spokesperson for MTV said it best when she said something to the effect that ?CBS knew what we do so they shouldn?t have put us on if they had any objections?. Hmmm, I smell the stink of an MTV move to do a legal CYA fratracidal deal in that statement.

Scamp

[bandito]

I agree with Dragon Lady-Lynyrd Skynrd singing Freebird or Charlie Daniels- The Devil Went Down To Georgia-would have been a hell of a lot better than that rap crap with the crotch grabbing.The advertisement about erictile dysfunction-that warned if still erect after 4 hrs-see a doctor-that would be something to explain in the emergency room.Oh to be young again

[revwardoc]

"Rap" is short for "crap"!

[BLUEHAWK]

There's the no time-honored arguement usually offered (probably while we speak right now) that it is more obscene to present TV images of violence (one of which would be, of course, Football itself) than to be more permissive about sexuality and human nudity.

One can imagine that might be the case, in a sort of twisted logic kind of way... I mean who wouldn't prefer some graceful sexual contact than killing and blood and suffering and agony etc.

However, the SB was not the time or place... what surprises me is that there is not FAR more outrage being expressed about Kid Rock's desecration of the flag, which was to me and many people I talk with daily easily the worst part of that half-time debacle.

Could we maybe just agree to go back to good ole marching bands and twirlers? Especially if they performed traditional BAND music :-)

[Packo]

The Kama-Sutra show's every sexual position imaginable and some I can't even imagine. It is an ancient Indian book and not intended to be pornography. Maybe next year at half-time some "celebs" could do the Kama-Sutra. It will just be human bodies and we all know how beautiful they are. Having intercourse is normal and healthy. I think we ought to show our children every position imaginable.

Griz, Cal Thomas's editorial is right on. This has nothing to do with the human body and it's beauty. I'm no prude for sure, but to continue to expose this stuff, the simulated sex acts, the simulated rape, to our children is a crime. And people wonder why girls are getting pregnant younger and younger. Well,
" thank God" we have abortion. Our teen's can get knocked up whenever they want.

Packo

[MORTARDUDE]

Yes, I thought Kid Rock was off base also. I guess that got lost in the flash of the "silicon blob"... LOL

Larry

P.S. : In Europe and other parts of the world, they must think we are slightly off kilter to be so upset about this...after all she did have a cover for her nipple !! I have seen some European talk shows on HBO, where nudity wasn't a big deal....just IMHO.

Larry

[SuperScout]

In the argument of violence vs. human nudity, the matter is usually one of choice. For example, if I want to watch "The Barbarians" on the Discovery Channel, it's a sure bet that the program will not be introduced by Jerry Falwell. Clicking that channel changer to the Discovery Channel, I know full well that blood, guts, and (can't bring myself to use that "g" word) mayhem will be my virtual viewing companion for the next hour or so. However, in viewing a football game, I am not automatically also tuning into to a soft-porn show, or at least I shouldn't be subjected to that scum-bucket form of entertainment without a primal warning by the producer.

To automatically ascribe the term "violence" to football is to make an automatic value judgement. The desired objective of football is not to visit harm and violence upon one's opponent - it's simply to outscore him. If, coincidentally, he get his nose bloodied, shins bruised, or shoulder dislocated, wal, golly gee, excrement occurreth. Shifting to the real art of violence, as it were, those aforementioned oowees are the cause of mirth and derision enroute to performing the act of cranial-lumbar separation. Now that's violence.

The "dumbing-down" of half-time shows to the point of rivaling the worst of Roman days only adds to my wondrous choice of reading a good book instead. Join me in boycotting The Crap Broadcasting System once known as CBS.