Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show controversy

File:Nipple Shield.jpg

Super Bowl XXXVIII, which aired live on February 1, 2004 in Houston, Texas, was noted for a controversial halftime show in which 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. The scandal has also been referred to as the portmanteau Nipplegate.

The halftime show was produced by MTV and aired on the CBS television network. At the time, 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 controversy also prompted tighter control of live television and radio broadcasts in the United States by station owners in fear of high fines that could be levied by the Federal Communications Commission.

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 grabbing their crotches^{[citation needed]}, along with other participants in costumes, such as Kid Rock wearing an American flag with holes for the sleeves and collar, which some viewers felt was 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^[1] 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.^[2]

In Europe public reaction was widely affected by incomprehension – to the indignation of the US-Media and the american audience and not in terms to the bare breast of Janet Jackson.

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 "talk-radio host" 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. On September 22, 2004 ^[3], the FCC fined Viacom the maximum $27,500 (US) penalty for each of the twenty CBS-owned television stations (including satellites of WFRV in Green Bay, WCCO in Minneapolis, and KUTV in Salt Lake City; current CBS owned-and-operated station KOVR in Sacramento at the time was owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group) for a total $550,000 fine, the largest ever against a television broadcaster at that time.

The United States House of Representatives passed a bill, soon after the Super Bowl, to raise the maximum FCC fine penalty from said $27,500 to $500,000 per violation. The United States Senate voted to decrease it to $275,000 per incident, with a cap of $3 million per day. The two houses reconciled the differences in fine levels, settling for a fine of $375,000 (US) per violation in 2005.

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. When the game telecast from CBS aired February 1, 2007 on NFL Network, the entire halftime show was passed over, cutting after a commercial break directly to the second half, and another incident. (See "The Streaker".)

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Janet Jackson's career seems to have been negatively impacted by this incident, something that did not happen to Timberlake's. Before the Super Bowl incident, all of Jackson's albums since her 1986 breakthrough effort Control went multi-platinum and generated a string of Billboard Top 10 singles. However, this level of success was not garnered by any of her post-Super Bowl material, as shown on Jackson's discography. Her highest charting single since the Super Bowl incident, "Call on Me", peaked at only #25 (US), with some singles even failing to chart on the Hot 100. Her music videos have since lost considerable airplay on channels such as MTV and VH1. In spite of all this, Jackson has remained popular on urban media outlets such as Viacom-owned BET, where her latest music videos are still in heavy rotation. In 2006, during an interview on The Oprah Winfrey Show, Jackson stated that the Super Bowl scandal was an accident. Also on The Oprah Winfrey Show, Justin Timberlake declared that America is too harsh on women and especially on people of color in a clear reference to the backlash suffered by Jackson but not by himself.

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. Part of Roberts' stunt was seen on-air in the USA however, then CBS chose to keep its cameras in a wide-shot view of the stadium and quick cutaways to players and coaches as Roberts ran around the field until players from both competing teams, the New England Patriots and the Carolina Panthers, tackled him. Matt Chatham, the Patriots' special teams expert and reserve linebacker initially knocked Roberts down, thus allowing stadium security and police to arrest Roberts and eject him from Reliant Stadium, the site of the game. In a joking reference to that incident, CBS play-by-play announcer Greg Gumbel stated to fellow commentator Phil Simms the following:

I think we've had an omen that the second half is going to be a lot of raw, naked football.

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The Super Bowl broadcast featured numerous commercials for erectile dysfunction medicines and beer advertisements with a flatulating horse and a dog 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, and is known for its edgy, risk-taking programming, 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. However, when the league-owned NFL Network broadcast NFL games starting in 2006, Viagra ads were aired at the two-minute warning in the fourth quarter.

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 led to the debate of censorship on CNN.

Some have speculated that the fallout from this incident may have had a subtle 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.

Two other major sporting events that followed the Super Bowl that year also were forced to clean up their respective halftime shows following the incident. The Pro Bowl, which would be played on February 8 and also televised live on CBS, originally was to feature singer J.C. Chasez, who was a member of boy band NSYNC as was Timberlake, sing the National Anthem before the game and perform his hit song "Blowin' Me Up (with Her Love)" at halftime. However, the NFL would not allow Chasez to perform during halftime due to the sexually suggestive content of his chosen song, replacing it with traditional Hawaiian dancers, which would be more appropriate for the game's atmosphere given that it was held in Honolulu, Hawaii, and many television viewers in the nation were still in shock from the Super Bowl incident. The 2004 NBA All-Star Game also cleaned up its act, despite being broadcast on cable television channel TNT, having halftime performer Beyonce Knowles perform "Crazy in Love" rather than "Naughty Girl", which they feared would incite controversy given its sexual content. Ironically, Janet Jackson was in attendance at the game, and dressed conservatively. ^[4]

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.^[5]

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 46th Grammy Awards and the 76th Academy Awards, which were scheduled for February 8 and 29 respectively, initiated a delay (up to ten minutes) 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 CBS Vice President David Hall, who headed the network's cable operations in Nashville from 1997 (after CBS acquired Gaylord Entertainment's cable television operations) 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. While there was no fine, the ejection of the team from the event resulted in a penalty equivalent to 30 points, greater than NASCAR's standard 25-point penalty, and ten positions on the track, which meant a loss of purse money of about $5,000. While Fox did not institute a delay for the race broadcast, the network has further observed in-car radio conversations, usually airing them (but not race action) with a delay.

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.

The incident also prompted tighter control over content by station owners and managers. Viacom, at the center of the controversy, also employed the controversial Howard Stern in its radio division (at the time called Infinity Broadcasting).The expanding control on content is said to be a contributing factor that drove Stern away from terrestrial radio and onto Sirius Satellite Radio.

The following acts have performed at halftime of the Super Bowl since the controversy:

• Paul McCartney performed at Super Bowl XXXIX in Jacksonville, Florida. The performance, mixing classic Beatles songs with some of his solo material, went off without incident.

• The Rolling Stones were chosen for the slot at Super Bowl XL in Detroit, Michigan. The NFL and ABC, which televised the game, muted some of the lyrics to "Start Me Up" and "Rough Justice", which contained controversial lyrics.

• Prince performed at the halftime of Super Bowl XLI, played in Miami Gardens, Florida. Prince was once known for his provocative lyrics and sexually-suggestive music videos; however, since becoming one of Jehovah's Witnesses, this material is no longer a part of his act.

• Jackson 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 affiliates WLBZ and WCSH, in Bangor and Portland, Maine, respectively, ended up cutting off the broadcast for fear of a repeat of the infamous incident.

• CBS late-night host David Letterman jokingly commentated on the controversy on the Late Show the day after the Super Bowl that he "was happy to see this thing happen...because that meant for one night I wasn't the biggest boob on CBS." He also compared the streaker Mark Roberts to Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean. The Super Bowl controversy was also a subject of comedy all across the late-night talk shows. ^[6]

• At the end of Blue Man Group's second performance of I Feel Love on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, one of the Blue Men tears off a section of the other's shirt, revealing a heart on his chest. ^[7]

• The Bob Rivers Show parodied the event in the song "Janet's Coconut."^[8]

• 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."

• Anheuser-Busch's Bud Light beer brand 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^[9] 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 (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. This also 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^[10] 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. Another ad with Michelle and IndyCar driver Danica Patrick is scheduled to air during Super Bowl XLI on CBS in 2007.

• 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 sexually-related 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.

On an episode of The Office entitled "Halloween", Michael Scott makes it known that for Halloween one year, he dressed up as "Janet Jackson's boob".