....LMB: "Boobery"....

a little nipple sombrero, ha ha, i like that! obviously, there is a lull in the drama the conservative media loves to spew and this breast issue brought a "spicey" tidbit to it. but... on the other hand, two points:
1) you see more on the national geographic channel than you saw on that milli-second breast shot. it's just a surgically augmented/enhanced breast for heaven's sake! and as far as the kids who were watching are concerned, most have seen so much more in their lifetime, a breast shot is not going to set them back.
2)this definitely reeks of promotional b.s.- janet's new album, record sales,capturing an obscenely large enraptured audience more than likely half drunk with a little skin....and does she always wear the little sombrero? janet, desperation is a bad perfume. shame.
my hope that this skin shot inadvertendly deflected some of the domestic violence that is usually at its crescendo on super bowl sunday. make love not war.

Hey Jake, this is Susan. An adult woman's nipples certainly aren't disgusting, but for what it's worth, I think they can even be shown at least partially on network television, though usually associated with breastfeeding, cancer screening, or in some National Geographic-like context. What made this slip different and over the line was that it was part of a MTV-produced halftime show which itself was over-the-top, probably even in the eyes of many MTV fans. While the nipple exposure itself was unintentional, the stunt wasn't, and MTV wasn't aware of it and so didn't approve of it. That's what made this "news". It might be even more newsworthy to explore how MTV and the network censors are supposed to have advance knowledge of every breast grope and crotch grab, but I don't want to go there.

What really deserves comment on was a much less prominent part of the halftime show, a political message that we think most young people would have missed even if not for the nipple incident:

http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/news/2004-02-02-jackson-halftime-incident_x.htm

"MTV president Van Toffler said the network was "incredibly disappointed because it completely overshadowed" MTV's get-out-the-vote message."

Here the same thought is elaborated a bit more in an official MTV statement:

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1484766/20040201/jackson_janet.jhtml?headlines=true

"Our goal with the Super Bowl Halftime show was to produce an entertaining stage experience with a positive message about empowerment and voting. We are disappointed that this message has been overshadowed by the unfortunate incident."

For you or anyone who watched the show, what did the halftime show have to do at all with empowerment, or connectivity, for that matter? Was there a Macintosh or PC-compatible product insert we missed? And if you saw any reference to voting, do you think it was more for cause marketing, to use a cause primarily to advance their business interests, than to seriously mobilize young people to vote? I didn't see the halftime show or game at all, but I think any "get out the vote" (GOTV) message was near-subliminal compared to the sensory overload of the rest of the performance. I cannot find mention anywhere in reporting on the web, nor from friends of mine who watched most of the halftime show, of what reference was made to voting at all. I do find a lot of references to MoveOn and PETA's ads which CBS declined to air, citing their policy against airing ads on "controversial issues of public importance", but that's been criticized elsewhere by bigger voices than ours, and we aren't posting a comment here to talk about that.

We don't want to criticize all that MTV does in their PSAs and documentaries, they do produce documentaries showing kids how racism and homophobia is bad, though "real world" strategies for doing something about it are hard to find in the "Fight for Your Rights" shows I've seen. And I'm sure that some good is done by them saying, for example, that high school students' schools should provide comprehensive sex education -- somehow -- even if they say nary a word about how minors also deserve community health care providers offering confidential contraception and abortion services.

And -- once every four years -- MTV and music industry interests deserve credit for putting on the road a very expensive bandwagon that tells young people when they turn 18 they ought to vote at least every four years for someone or something or other. It's easy to pick on MTV, but they aren't alone in this approach, "cause marketing" projects abound like this, and not just every four years. These capital-infused ventures with a altruistic front combine businesses' interest with some well-meaning activist group, all of whom want to catch a wave of youthful enthusiasm, or at least increased consumption of the businesses' products and "street teams" and volunteer fundraisers for the activist groups in question.

I just think that MTV and similar music industry efforts are WAY overexposed -- no reference to Janet's breast intended -- and overrated as being part of the solution, and deserving of credit when youth voter participation surges in a Presidential election year, as it surges in every other demographic as well. Given the steady decline overall of youth voter participation since the early 90s, going back maybe coincidentally to the beginning of MTV and the music industry's GOTV efforts, aren't they at least part of the problem too?

We have some ideas for a better plan for GOTV efforts, but we'd rather you and the fellow readers of Lying Media Bastards take credit for it. Let's just keep the ideas to ourselves, for now...no one from the corporate media reads this weblog anyway, so we can plot in secret.

To start with, how about working up a proposal for next year's Super Bowl with Tom, Serj and AOJ Radio for a halftime GOTV performance they'll never forget? It will be after the elections, and we won't be accused of raising "wedge issues" in the campaign. You can count on our support as radical cheerleaders backing y'all up:

Lights out, guerrilla marketing!