Princess Loser

How many people were actually offended by M.I.A. during last night’s halftime show? My guess is not many. For the most part, I bet people didn’t even notice. I know that I didn’t notice. Hell, I was online the whole time and I don’t remember seeing anyone even mention it.

Somehow, though, someone did. And apparently, it was the wrong someone because now the Parents Television Council, an organization which thinks it knows how to parent best and has such stellar parents on its advisory board as Billy Ray Cyrus, is involved, and they’re making it a big deal; a bigger deal than it should be. They complain about this event and talk about how this has harmed their children, but did it really?  Did the kids ask what the gesture or the word was?  Did they actually have to take time out of their Sunday evenings to actually parent their own kids? I have a feeling that the kids didn’t notice it, and that, if they did, they probably didn’t care.  By making this incident into such a scandalous affair and making it seem so taboo for someone to violate a social more, they are more likely to see this kind of behavior and language within their own families.

Obscenity laws run rampant in American culture, allowing groups like the PTC to attempt to govern what ends up on our television sets. In a society that promotes the idea of free thought and free speech, we have trouble accepting that some people might not conform to Puritanical ideals. We spend time on newscasts devoted to faux stories like the Super Bowl halftime show and we don’t pay attention to the real stories from the night, like Pete Hoekstra’s political ad that actually was offensive.

The PTC is demanding more than an apology from NBC and the NFL, in their words for having “a lineup full of performers who have based their careers on shock, profanity and titillation.”

How many performers don’t do something shocking in their careers?  I remember people freaking out when the Madonna/Britney and Madonna/Christina kisses happened on the MTV Video Music Awards.  Oh, or how about when the guy from Rage Against the Machine climbed up on the scaffolding on the VMA stage and made his political protest?  Or what about Miley Cyrus’ doing the pole dance at the Teen Choice Awards or, more recently, making photos at her boyfriend’s birthday party licking his phallic-shaped cake?  That might actually be considered shocking, profane, and titillating by a majority of people.

But, as a nation and as a culture, how define what is shocking, profane, or titillating? What is completely unacceptable to one person could be acceptable to another. To me, flipping off the camera is not a big deal.  And a singer mouthing a expletive?  Again, not a big deal, especially since being caught spouting off various expletives is not all that unheard of during a sports game.  (I grew up trying to figure out all the words that Greg Maddox used to say during Atlanta Braves games.)

We’ve got kids being beaten or molested in their homes, kids hearing epithets used on various groups and being raised to hate, kids being neglected, underage kids going on social media outlets and being exposed to things that they aren’t old enough to be exposed to, and kids watching violent programming. So why is it that this one incident is being lambasted?   Why is it such a big deal that this happened?

As I mentioned earlier, part of the problem is that we allow the PTC too much of an influence over how we are governed. Part of that influence is exerted through the FCC, whose power over obscenities and profanity is currently before the Supreme Court.  You may remember the FCC for their lovely part in the 2004 circus that was the Super Bowl halftime show with the wardrobe malfunction.  You may also remember the PTC from that, as well.

The actual power lies within the Supreme Court, if they choose to step in, which has established a three-part “test” for determining what is obscene:

• An average person, applying contemporary community standards, must find that the material, as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest;
• The material must depict or describe, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specially defined by applicable law; and
• The material, taken as a whole, must lack serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.

Now, I don’t know that this incident would qualify as obscene under the second and third parts, since it was not actually depicting or describing (despite the implication of the gesture and the meaning of the alleged expletive, since both are forms of showing contempt) sexual conduct and since it has caused a bit of a political and artistic debate in the country. I’m not even certain that the FCC could fine over it being an indecent act since it doesn’t describe or depict a sexual act. And I’m absolutely certain that it doesn’t meet the profanity rule, since you have to actually hear the word in order to break that rule. Of course, the same could be said about the Janet Jackson incident, but that didn’t stop the FCC from going after her for showing her nipple. So, I would definitely not be surprised if they go after M.I.A., NBC, and the NFL.  Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if they go after Madonna for wearing a skirt while doing a cartwheel next, or if they went after M&M’s for the “Sexy and I Know It” commercial or the GoDaddy body paint commercial.

Why don’t we actually focus on legitimate issues, instead of pretending like this halftime show crap is significant?  Are we too afraid of dealing with the real problems of the world  that we have to focus on something as dumb as this?

Mirrored from Hyperaware.