Right and Left Have a Problem With Janet's Breast (Wonder Land)

The Wall Street Journal ^ | Friday, February 6, 2004 | DANIEL HENNINGER

[presidio9]

An appalled friend sent in the quick solution to what happened at half-time during the Super Bowl: "The entire Jackson family should be launched into outer space." Since we can't do that (can we?), it falls to we earthlings to discern just what came to pass on Super Bowl Sunday. Another friend -- also young, urban and sophisticated -- found cause to be perplexed: "One feels like a bluenose complaining, but that's part of the problem. How did things reach this point, with strip-club sleaze part of mainstream youth culture?"

[anniegetyourgun]

"...it takes a toll, not only in the obvious ways, the vulnerable crashing over emotional cliffs, but in less expected ways, the wasted energy of a society's most creative minds finding new ways to show old sex."

As if this were the worst of it.....sigh....another one misses the point....

[camle]

if you're gonna show breasts on TV, at least show nice looking ones, not that overaged sack of silicone!

[theDentist]

The next televised "shocker" out of Hollywood will be of a pubic variety on network TV. Prime Time, of course.

[skip2myloo]

Here's what it leads to:

Boys, ages 11 and 12, face sex charges

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1072687/posts

[barker]

As far as I'm concerned it wasn't just the Janet/Justin thing. The whole show was inappropriate. From the crotch grabbing to the dancers with the garter belts and not much more doing their bumping and grinding so called dance and ending with the "wardrobe malfunction."

CBS watched the rehearsals and saw nothing wrong with any of it. Only reason I will watch anything on CBS is when the Chiefs play next year. Very seldom watch the regular channels anyway.

[TheGeezer]

The left has insisted that propriety is censoship for so long that it cannot discern what is art and what is crap.

I was taught long ago that 95% of what people do as art is dung. Fashionable critics, who depend upon criticism for their income, fail to apply this truism so they can have the broadest possible market in which to ply their trade. So much today is accepted as art that criticism is now as bankrupt as the leftist morality that motivates government art subsidies.

Is it any wonder that we are where we are?

[ItsTheMediaStupid]

My kids are just coming of age where they could enjoy the Superbowl, the oldest the twins are 13 and will be 14 this May. They grew tired of the 0-0 score, but tuned back in for the half time show. They thought it wierd and unentertaining. My wife even commented about how good the commercials were, except for OCC and the Budwiser donkey they were no good either. My kids and wife have said that they won't be watching the Superbowl.

[proxy_user]

You should have watched the golf tournament instead. Mickelson, Kaye, and DiMarco competing in a thrilling back nine, a totally honorable and legitimate sporting event.

I turned off my TV after that...

[zarf]

If people were honest, we'd be talking about the influence of the "urban" ethic on lamestream Amurika.

But that would lead to ugly charges of racism.

[highnoon]

>As far as I'm concerned it wasn't just the Janet/Justin thing. The whole show was inappropriate. From the crotch grabbing to the dancers with the garter belts and not much more doing their bumping and grinding so called dance and ending with the "wardrobe malfunction." <

You are right on the money! I totally agree. Other than sporting events, or a good, old movie (albiet with commercials)I shy away from network TV completely. Last night on O'Reilly, some guy from an Islamic organization was trying to play the race card since she was yanked from the Grammys. IMHO this sh*t is TOTALLY getting out of hand.

[gridlock]

If Howard Dean were smart (a false premise, I know), he would use this flap for a quick shot of electoral adrenaline. It is all anybody is talking about this week. If he gets out in front of this and starts banging the table about media immorality, he can ride the wave, for a little while. He needs something to put him back on the RADAR.

Of course, it may already be too late. The time to hit this hard was Monday, Tuesday latest...

[anniegetyourgun]

Does make you wonder though....what made Janet think that America wanted to see her breast? She's got to be one sick puppy.....in fact, come to think about it....the whole family needs therapy.

[ItsTheMediaStupid]

You should have watched the golf tournament instead.

ZZZzzzzzz Borrring!

[ItsTheMediaStupid]

If he gets out in front of this and starts banging the table about media immorality, he can ride the wave, for a little while.

Maybe Lieberman is the dumb one? He could have done that more credibly.

[elli1]

I think it was quite a good article, especially this point: ...how civilization, so difficult to achieve over so long a period, is constantly under pressure from recapture by "the bush." Unopposed, the bush -- the rough place we chose to abandon -- inexorably creeps forward to retake the ground we civilized at great cost.

[gridlock]

Ooooooo! You're right about that. Lieberman really missed the boat on this one. These guys have to be more agile in the Primary Season. Bubba used to change his core issue and highest aspiration on an hour-by-hour basis during the '92 primaries, which is why he landed the prize.

[DustyMoment]

Hollywood has long felt that by driving American values to their lowest level is the highest form of their "art". We had plenty of warning what was coming when we raised Michael "the Crotch-Grabbing Pedophile" Jackson, Madonna and Brittany "the Teen Slut" Spears to superstar status. We have allowed purile garbage to pass as "art" and have paid "comedians" to "entertain" us with 3rd grade level jokes about body functions.

Whenever anyone raised objections to these types of performances, they were immediately repelled with allegations of censorship. Rather than responding in kind, conservatives recoiled in horror at the prospect of being labeled "censors".

There comes a time when principled individuals must take a stand. Lewd, suggestive, and obscene performances do not belong in the public mass broadcast media. These types of performances belong in the bedroom and in the gutter level of strip clubs for those whose opinion of themselves doesn't merit anything better.

[elli1]

If Howard Dean were smart (a false premise, I know), he would use this flap for a quick shot of electoral adrenaline.

Dean has already weighed in...said, in so many words, that it wasn't a big deal. Qualified that by reminding us that he was a ''doctor'' w/ the implication that he was used to seeing tits. Looney bin response since the SuperBowl isn't exactly a clinical setting. Slightly more apt comparison would be if one of his patients disrobed in the waiting room ahead of being called into the examination room.

[MeSpikeLibs]

They show boobs all the time on Network Television; to bad it is John Kerry and Howard Dean.