Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show controversy
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Super Bowl XXXVIII (which aired on February 1, 2004 in Houston, Texas) was noted for a controversial halftime show produced by MTV and aired live on the CBS television network. At the time of Super Bowl XXXVIII, both MTV and CBS were owned by the media group Viacom, but as of January 2006 had been split into separate entities, with CBS as a self-owned company, and MTV as part of the Viacom group. It is said that one of the causes of the split was this controversy, especially after CBS renewed its National Football League television contract. The scandal has also been refered to as "Nipplegate," a reference to the Watergate. Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake were performing a medley/duet of their songs "Rhythm Nation"/"Rock Your Body", which featured many suggestive dance moves by both Timberlake and Jackson. As the song reached the final line, "I'm gonna have you naked by the end of this song", Timberlake pulled off a part of Jackson's costume, revealing her right breast (adorned with a large, sun-shaped nipple shield, a piece of jewelry worn to accentuate the appearance of a nipple piercing). CBS immediately cut to an aerial view of the stadium, but it had already been broadcast. Many people considered this indecent exposure and a record-breaking two hundred thousand Americans contacted the network to complain, saying it was inappropriate in the context of a football game.
Jackson and Timberlake stated that the exposure was an accident. Viacom (through both CBS and MTV) the National Football League, Jackson, Timberlake and halftime show sponsor America Online had since all apologized for the incident, dubbed "Nipplegate" by some observers. (AOL would later be refunded US$10 million by the NFL.) Jackson later admitted the stunt was devised beforehand, but "went further than she planned". According to her spokeswoman, a red lace bra was supposed to remain when Timberlake tore off the outer covering. Timberlake blamed the incident on a "wardrobe malfunction". However, in a future interview, Timberlake also made a statement saying that he "loved giving y'all something to talk about." In certain streams of the show found on the Internet, Timberlake can also be seen stating "That will give them something to talk about." Because of this incident "Janet Jackson" became the most looked-for term in 2004 for many search engines. [1]
Subsequently, the NFL announced that MTV, who also produced the halftime show for Super Bowl XXXV, would never be involved in another halftime show. Besides Jackson's exposure, the show featured numerous dancers, alongside rappers Sean "Diddy" Combs (who was nicknamed "P. Diddy" at the time) and Nelly, who were inappropriately grabbing their crotches, along with other participants in costumes, such as Kid Rock wearing an American flag with holes for the sleeves and collar, which many viewers felt were inappropriate and offensive due to the "difficult times of war" going on. The theme of the halftime show was intended to promote MTV's Rock the Vote campaign to encourage younger people to get out and vote, but this message was lost in the ensuing controversy, the loose connection between all the acts of the halftime show and the actions that ensued throughout the show. Kid Rock would later be criticized for touching his crotch several times during his performance.
In Canada, where the show was broadcast by Global, the incident passed largely without controversy: only about 50 Canadians[2] complained about the incident to the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (CBSC). CBSC received roughly twice as many complaints about other aspects of the Super Bowl broadcast, including music and advertising issues.[3]
On February 4, Terri Carlin launched a class action lawsuit against Jackson and Timberlake on behalf of "all American citizens who watched the outrageous conduct". The lawsuit alleged that the halftime show contained "sexually explicit acts solely designed to garner publicity and, ultimately, to increase profits for themselves". The lawsuit sought "maximum" punitive and compensatory damages from the performers. Ms. Carlin would later drop the lawsuit.
The incident triggered a rash of fines that the Federal Communications Commission levied soon after the Super Bowl. Clear Channel Communications removed "shock jock" Howard Stern from several of its large-market radio stations within a month of the incident, citing the raunchy content of Stern's show. The FCC fined Clear Channel after a Florida-based radio show featuring Bubba the Love Sponge was charged with indecency. In September 2004, the FCC fined Viacom the maximum $27,500 penalty for each of the twenty CBS-owned television stations (including satellites of WFRV, WCCO, and KUTV, note that current CBS O&O KOVR in Sacramento at the time was owned by Sinclair) for a total $550,000 fine, the largest ever against a television broadcaster at that time.
In November 2004, Viacom paid out $3.5 million to settle outstanding indecency complaints, but still refused that it was challenging the $550,000 penalty related to the incident. As a result of the incident, some networks established regulations requiring time delays of as much as five minutes for live broadcasts such as awards shows and sporting events.
Janet Jackson's career seems to have been negatively impacted by this incident, something that did not happen to Justin's. Until the incident aired, all of Jackson's albums since 1986's Control went multi-platinum and generated a string of Billboard Top 10 singles. However, it did not happen to any of the albums released by her after that, and her highest charting single since then peaked at only #25, with some even failing to dent the Top 100. Her videos have been only broadcast by a few channels. In 2006, during an interview on the Oprah Winfrey Show, Jackson heard from Winfrey that during a declaration about the consequences of the incident, Timberlake declared that America is too harsh on women and especially on ethnic people, in a clear reference to the backlash suffered by Jackson but not by himself since then.
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[edit] The streaker
Moments after the Jackson-Timberlake tangle, famous streaker Mark Roberts added to the controversial halftime by running around the field nearly-naked except for some writing on his body which read "SUPER BOWEL" on the front, an advertisement for online betting website goldenpalace.com, and a well-placed G-string. Roberts' stunt was not seen on-air in the USA however, as CBS chose to keep its cameras in a wide-shot view of the stadium as Roberts ran around the field until players from both the New England Patriots and the Carolina Panthers tackled him, and cameras showed him being forcibly escorted from the field at Reliant Stadium. Matt Chatham, special teams expert and reserve linebacker for New England initially knocked Roberts down, allowing the police to expel him from the stadium. In a joking reference to that incident, game announcers Greg Gumbel and Phil Simms would say that the game would feature "raw, naked football".
[edit] Other controversies
The Super Bowl broadcast featured numerous commercials for erectile dysfunction medicines and beer advertisements with flatulating horses and dogs attacking male genitalia. In a league-mandated policy meant to clear the airwaves of such advertisements, with the exception of the erection pills, the NFL announced that those types of commercials would not air again during Super Bowl broadcasts. In January 2005, Fox, the network that carried Super Bowl XXXIX under the alternating network contract, rejected an advertisement for the cold remedy Airborne that briefly featured the naked buttocks of veteran actor Mickey Rooney. One year later, the league announced that it would no longer have an official erectile dysfunction medicine sponsor and would in effect, ban erectile dysfunction ads.
Prior to the unexpected halftime show mishap, CBS rejected both MoveonPac's ad "Bush in 30 Seconds" and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals ad because it was deemed too 'controversial' which lead to the debate of censorship on CNN.
[edit] Aftermath
Some have speculated that the fallout from this incident may have had a ripple effect on daytime television. These television shows are known for "love in the afternoon" and regularly feature romantic couplings; shortly before the Super Bowl, the Procter & Gamble soap operas As the World Turns and Guiding Light had gone as far as featuring rear male nudity during lovemaking scenes. After the Super Bowl controversy, FCC commissioner Michael J. Copps stated that it was time for a crackdown on daytime television and indicated that he was reviewing whether soap operas were violating the agency's indecency prohibitions.
Following these announcements, Guiding Light edited out nudity from an episode that had already been taped. A week later, the show's executive producer John Conboy was fired and replaced by Ellen Wheeler. All nine American network soaps began to impose an unwritten rule of avoiding any sort of risqué adult scenes, and in the months following, soap opera periodical Soap Opera Digest editors wrote about how daytime television was losing its steam. [4]
Nighttime television was not spared the fallout from the Jackson incident, either. For example, an episode of Star Trek: Enterprise entitled "Harbinger" originally included a brief shot of a character's buttocks, but this scene was censored when UPN—itself owned by CBS—aired the episode a few weeks after the Super Bowl event, while Canadian broadcasts of the episode were uncensored. The NBC drama ER also re-edited a scene in an episode two weeks after the incident where paramedics were wheeling an elderly woman into the hospital, and her breast could be seen non-explicitly in the context of her injury and treatment. The media gave much attention to this editing due to ER's standing as the network's top drama.
Also, both the Grammy Awards and the 76th Academy Awards both, which were scheduled for February 8 and 29 respectively) initiated a five-second delay to ensure that profanity and obscenity were not seen or heard. Since then, both award shows have used the tape delay.
Two weeks after the controversy, NASCAR reacted with a stern warning to Busch Series and Nextel Cup Series drivers at the drivers' meeting at their respective races in Rockingham, North Carolina, which later was given to Craftsman Truck Series drivers in Hampton, Georgia two weeks afterwards at their next race, saying in addition to fines, point penalties to driver and team would be assessed for obscenities on air. NASCAR President Mike Helton gave the following warnings to competitors:
| When being interviewed, please understand you are talking to an audience from 8 to 80. You have a greater responsibility than we've ever had before. |
| (The Super Bowl XXXVIII) incident led the FCC and the federal government to react. There's now a greater scrutiny on the sports industry. Be sure to understand that (cursing) is detrimental and is under as great a scrutiny as it's ever been. |
A week later, Busch Series driver Johnny Sauter drew a $10,000 fine and a 25-point penalty for using an obscenity during a radio interview at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway after the Sam's Town 300. In June, Ron Hornaday was fined the same for another radio interview during the MBNA 200 at Dover International Speedway.
The controversy resumed in October when, during an NBC interview, Dale Earnhardt Jr. told Matt Yocum, who had asked Earnhardt about the meaning of his third consecutive EA Sports 500 win what it meant, in comparison to his father's ten wins at Talladega Superspeedway, "That don't mean shit". Producers turned the broadcast immediately to play-by-play announcer Bill Weber, who substituted for an injured Allen Bestwick, who apologized for the mistake.
NASCAR did not budge, and slapped Earnhardt the same penalty, which took him out of the lead in the chase for the Nextel Cup playoff, a setback from which he never recovered.
A three-member panel of the National Stock Car Racing Commission of Chairman George Silbermann, former Viacom executive David Hall, who headed the network's cable operations in Nashville from 1997 until 2000 (general manager of The Nashville Network and Country Music Television), and former NBA player Brad Daugherty (who once co-owned a Craftsman Truck Series team) heard the appeal, and upheld the penalty, stating Mr. Earnhardt had violated the warning and was supposed to be a role model.
In 2005, NASCAR threw the same penalty on two Busch Series drivers for using an obscene gesture, and another on a Nextel Cup driver for obscene language. (A second Nextel Cup driver's penalty was overturned when evidence on video showed no obscene gesture.)
NASCAR has continued the language crackdown, imposing time and lap penalties for in-race obscenities heard on team radios, such as Martin Truex Jr being parked from the 2006 Food City 500 when his crew chief, Kevin Manion, said "shit", which was heard on the Fox television broadcast. (The penalty would be the equivalent of 30 points, greater than NASCAR's standard 25-point penalty.) FOX then went to a five-second delay starting with the following race.
Other sports telecasts have also been affected, even those held long after Super Bowl XXXVIII. When the 2006 Little League World Series began, ABC Sports and ESPN did not impose a delay on its broadcasts, despite the fact that all managers and coaches were equipped with miniature microphones. That changed after an incident late in a preliminary-round game in which a player for Mid-Island Little League of Staten Island, New York, who has not been publicly identified, used an obscenity that was broadcast live on ESPN. In response, the team's manager, Nick Doscher, slapped the player, a violation of a Little League policy against physical contact targeting players. Both the player and manager were reprimanded, and ESPN and ABC imposed a five-second delay on future telecasts.
In apparent reaction to the controversy, the next two Super Bowls featured halftime performances by older acts—Paul McCartney (XXXIX) and the Rolling Stones (XL). McCartney's performance was uncontroversial; the Rolling Stones' aired with a five-second delay, and the NFL briefly muted Mick Jagger's vocals on the songs "Start Me Up" and "Rough Justice".
[edit] Parody
- The incident was parodied by singer Alanis Morissette at the Juno Awards of 2004.
- The Bob Rivers Show parodied the event in the song "Janet's Coconut"
- In D12's music video "My Band", the event is re-enacted as a parody, with Bizarre as Jackson, and Eminem as Timberlake, and also in the form of puppets in Eminem's music video of "Ass Like That".
- The website Request-a-Song [5] recorded and released "I saw Janet Jackson's Boob," which is one of the most popular songs on that site.
- Singer Eric West made media headlines when he wore a I Support Janet Jackson T-shirt to the 2004 MTV Video Music Awards. West told Teen People magazine, "It was my way of showing Janet support after being blacklisted by so many media outlets".
- Jackson also made fun of herself in a 2004 Saturday Night Live appearance, first while playing Condoleezza Rice, nervously answering a question by exposing her right breast, then by viewing a mock "home video" from her childhood when her bathing suit top came off in a wading pool. NBC affiliate WLBZ and WCSH in Bangor and Portland, Maine ended up cutting off the broadcast for fear of a repeat of the infamous incident.
- Anheuser-Busch's Budweiser light beer brand (called "Bud Light") poked fun at the incident in a commercial that was not chosen to air during Super Bowl XXXIX, but rather made available for viewing from their website, in which a stagehand supposedly used Ms. Jackson's bustier to open a bottle of beer, and then uses a piece of tape to repair the damage.
- South Park took aim at the hysteria in its eighth season premiere, "Good Times With Weapons", on March 17, 2004, when Eric Cartman snuck across a stage in the nude and later blamed the incident on a "wardrobe malfunction." In typical South Park fashion, the scene was an illustration of satire and depicted the American culture's selective outrage. The townspeople are angered by Cartman's display, rather than feeling concern for a horribly mutilated and disoriented character (Butters) who is also present on stage, referencing the acceptance of violence and the taboo against sexual references.
- A commercial for Burger King [6] included two male office workers fighting over a Burger King sandwich, with one worker's shirt being ripped open to reveal a nipple shield similar to Jackson's.
- Richard Thompson wrote and performed a song, "Dear Janet Jackson", mocking the use of her breasts at the Super Bowl.
- The Onion, a parody newspaper, ran as its headline article for January 26, 2005, U.S. Children Still Traumatized One Year After Seeing Partially Exposed Breast On TV. The article's satirical target was the nation's reaction to the incident, rather than the incident itself.
- In a Super Bowl XXXIX commercial for Go Daddy a comely young lady (portrayed by WWE Diva Candice Michelle) who was making a statement before an advertising committee continues to have the right strap of her tank top fall while she is demonstrating how she would be performing in front of the committee (strangely enough, the dance that she was doing would become part of her wrestling gimmick that she uses on the WWE roster); the original commercial included the phrase "wardrobe malfunction", but the words were cut after FCC complaints. Oddly enough, this stirred a bit of its own controversy when a scheduled second airing of the ad and a ten-second plug that was scheduled to be aired at the two minute warning of the fourth quarter were pulled by Fox, who broadcast the game, out of fear that the NFL would have objected about the content of the commercial. Go Daddy received a refund, as well as an apology from both Fox and the NFL several weeks later. They have aired a new ad with Michelle cleaning an office window in a rather sensuous way during Fox's 2005 NFL Playoff broadcasts, and planned a new ad to debut during Super Bowl XL, provided it clears ABC's Standards and Practices officials; however, ABC did not clear the entire ad. Instead, a tamer version aired on game day, with viewers being told to visit the company's website to see the ad in its entirety. The commercial also aired on USA Network the next night as part of RAW, on which Michelle regularly appears.
- The Simpsons episode "Homer and Ned's Hail Mary Pass", which aired after Super Bowl XXXIX (except in Philadelphia and Boston, the cities of two teams that played in that game, where it aired an hour following the actual game telecast's conclusion) features Homer and Ned making a Super Bowl halftime show that shocks the nation (but not because of nudity). A promo for this episode replaced the second airing of the aforementioned Go Daddy ad.
- An episode of Family Guy deals with the aftermath of the "David Hyde Pierce Incident", in which the actor inadvertently reveals his testicles at the Emmy Awards. During the end of the musical number in the episode, several freeze frame images are included with the characters doing tasteless things. One frame includes an animated Justin Timberlake and Peter Griffin recreating the wardrobe malfunction. Peter is wearing Janet Jackson's outfit from the halftime incident.
- An episode of The Now Show featured a song on the subject.
- The manga Othello features a reference to the incident when something similar happens.de:Nipplegate
fr:Scandale du Nipplegate pt:Escândalo do Super Bowl XXXVIII
