Nipplegate: a word we all became familiar with in the wake of the Super Bowl halftime show debacle last February. For those of you who have been living in a spider hole for the past nine months I am speaking of the "wardrobe malfunction" that occurred with Janet Jackson's performance at that very show. The problem that presented itself with this malfunction was that millions of people, including the elderly and children, witnessed Jackson bare her breast on national television. To add to CBS's ever-growing mountain of problems, the FCC decided to fine the network $550,000 this past Wednesday.
The question that popped in my head when I first heard of the outrageous fine was, "Why is this still such a problem?" I understand that it is obscene and indecent and that such things should not be seen on network television, but why nearly nine months later are we still talking about this? As if the world doesn't have enough to talk about right now, with the upcoming election, the war in Iraq, the inhumane treatment of hostages in Iraq, and, another problem CBS faces, the forged documents about President Bush. The problem here is not with CBS or with the American people, but with the FCC. This fine is the stiffest fine the agency can charge to the network.
The media watchdog received 540,000 complaints about the incident. 540,000 complaints, although the most of any show in television history, out of the nearly 90 million people that watched the super bowl. Now, I am not a math major to say the least, but by my calculator figures that is only 0.6% of the people that were viewing. A small fine for the broadcast can be understood: CBS did not adhere to the FCC regulations, although the network claims that it was not aware of any plans for such an action to take place. And although the network's credibility has been hurt lately by other factors, they have no reason to lie about something as small as a breast.
The incident created a slew of censorship. The fallout from this event caused the networks to impose time delays on any live events that they were boadcasting. This came from the fear of being censored by the FCC and being slapped with a outragous fine. This censorship, which was never needed in the past, came all because one breast made its way onto network television. Now although there is a line where free expression becomes obscene or indecent I think the censorship that spawned was out of line, and the thought of a fine of over a half million dollars is obscene in its own way.
The US government has crossed the line on censorship in the past. Although it is clearly stated that nudity is prohibited during certain hours of the day on television for fear of children seeing it, the action the FCC took following the nipple was way above the call of duty. The FCC has created many restrictions on television programming and content, although most of them have a proper reasoning to them. In my eyes the subsequent actions taken in regards to Nipplegate, and the fine imposed to CBS are uncalled for. The actions that caused the outburst from the FCC were those of a couple overzealous pop singers, and the nation as a whole should not be punished with regulation after regulation for something that was a bad judgment call by two people. A publicity stunt gone wrong is not the reason to stop expression of the masses.
Write to Steve at smbristow@gmail.com
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