Posted on 02/02/2004 8:44:43 PM PST by SJackson
Super Bowl Sleaze Justin and Janet's half-time antics made the erectile-dysfunction ads look dignified.
I have been watching the Super Bowl since I was nine years old. I still remember so many of the highlights, beginning with the miraculous connections of Terry Bradshaw and Lynn Swann in Super Bowl X, in Miami. I still love watching the Super Bowl and I make a Super Bowl party for my kids every year.
But while the game is usually wonderful, the half-time show is becoming increasingly depraved. It would be nice if we football fans could watch the NFL championship game as a celebration of the human competitive spirit, rather than a display of the latest pop tart's cleavage. If seems incredible to me that the NFL would have allowed itself to be used to launch the next decadent music act, but that's what the Super Bowl half time shows seem to have become. To be honest, I can't even remember which pop harlot ran around half naked on stage last year. They all seem to blend into one boring blur.
But this year was by far the most degenerate of all. Justin Timberlake, a man distinguished neither for his dance nor his music, decided to open Janet Jackson's blouse and expose her breast. I'm not making this up. As soon as I saw it, I knew it had been planned, even though Janet gave this "shocked" look of surprise. Timberlake, who is locked in a permanent game of one-upsmanship with his former girlfriend, the vulgar Britney Spears, was looking to upstage the Britney-Madonna kiss. That's what happens in a popular culture that has deteriorated to being almost entirely about empty sensationalism.
Madonna and Britney's desperate attention-getting act, performed on a music awards show in sync with the perverted state of today's music, seemed to blend right in. But Justin and Janet's crude and offensive act was done during the Super Bowl half-time show, when all my kids were watching. My children looked confused and bewildered. What the heck was that? What is nudity doing on the Super Bowl? What is such disgusting behavior doing during a football game? How could the NFL allow the degradation of its flagship event? Is there really no level to which the modern culture won't stoop?
Do the kids of America need to see Janet's breast? Is there any way for me as a father to protect my five daughters from images of women inviting their own sexual exploitation just in order to appear in tomorrow's tabloids?
By allowing such disgusting spectacles, the NFL degrades every athlete who worked his hardest through the long football season to reach the Super Bowl. This is their moment. It ought not to be stolen away by Neanderthal music miscreants.
The rest of the half-time show was equally awful. P. Diddy, Nelly, and Kid Rock combined to produce nothing but horrible noise. Kid Rock especially seemed to be screaming at the top of his lungs with absolutely no melody accompanying him. I do not claim to be a connoisseur of music, and no doubt some of the younger generation will accuse me of being backward and judgmental. But if I'm wrong and this is music, then why is it more famous for nudity and sensationalism than rhythm and lyrics?
Amazingly, even the Cialis and Levitra commercials, both of which appeared at least three times each during the Super Bowl, were infinitely more respectable and subtle than the half-time show. And they were both commercials for erection pills!
In the midst of it all, CBS was running commercials for next week's Grammy's. The usual cast of lowlifes, including Madonna and Britney, were highlighted. They announced that a special tribute to the Beatles would be included in the Grammy's, as if there were any connection between today's exploitative and wearisome acts, who gain attention through vulgar sensationalism, and the Beatles, whose music was lasting and heavenly.
But if music is going into the gutter, that doesn't mean that America's leading sport, and greatest sporting event, need follow it.
Come on NFL. Get some dignity.
Schmuley is on the right, of the picture, not politically
unless you live in detroit then its all about the redwings
politics and chest baring aside,it was A DAMN GOOD football game last night i was very impressed with carolina
Yes he is.
This guy is slow to learn, but sure likes to liberally hand out advice to anyone and everyone.
Here's an example of his slow learning.
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"I have noticed that the past few years have seen a gradual erosion of my once considerable affection for President Clinton. I have endeavored to understand why. The Monica Lewinsky story was not the cause. As a relationship counselor, I have witnessed other essentially decent men who have been unfaithful to their wives. Less so was it Clinton's refusal to protect the United States amid continued provocation from al-Qaida, because, while I condemn his virtual inaction, the case can still be made that only a cataclysm the magnitude of Sept. 11 could have fully awakened the United States to the threat of international terrorism.
Rather, upon reflection, I have been able to identify the precise time and cause that Bill Clinton began to so shrivel in my eyes. It was when President Bush brought the American hammer down, first in Afghanistan obliterating the women-beating Taliban, and then in Iraq, where Saddam's genocidal assassins were sent early to their graves. Witnessing such humanitarian and heroic action, I was able to compare Clinton's indifference with the decisiveness of a leader who finally gave meaning to the words "Never again.""
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Shmuley sees the light, finally got it. What a guy.
Actually, there not the next decadent music act... they're all has-beens
He's just a needy, self-aggrandizing, publicity hound. He's also another person who should "just shut up".
Put me on it please if you start one. Anything to stay abreast.
On Hannity, I heard that Kid Rock was the only singer who was actually singing his music live instead of lip-sync. If that is true, I would give him credit for that almost no matter what he sounded like (I didn't hear the performance). That having been said, I don't understand the rationale of spending $millions on a half-time show that's indistinguishable from what MTV shows 24/7. If the goal is to attract an audience, why not show something that isn't already available elsewhere?
If he imitates this performance and rips off my 13 year old Annie's shirt, he'll get slugged in the jaw and end up laying on the floor like a flounder.
Knowing the state of things in this increasingly insane society, Annie will then end up on the wrong side of a lawsuit. Bring it on.
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