FCC chairman: Super Bowl halftime 'offensive'; fines can be sweeping

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP) — The fallout from the Super Bowl halftime show has led to new discussion of the current levels of decency on America’s airwaves.

FCC Chairman Michael Powell said Feb. 3 that much of the show – and not simply the controversial ending – was offensive.

“I actually find other parts of the programming even more offensive, because I don’t think it took much imagination to understand what a great deal of the choreography was portraying,” Powell, head of the Federal Communications Commission, said on ABC’s Good Morning America.

The halftime show concluded with singer Justin Timberlake ripping off part of Janet Jackson’s costume, exposing her right breast. But Powell and others say that the performance up to that point was just as risque.

At the beginning of the halftime program, rapper Nelly performed a single that ended with the lyrics, “It’s getting hot in here, so take off all your clothes.” Dancing cheerleaders then ripped off their outfits, revealing skimpy shorts and shirts.

Jackson and Timberlake sang Timberlake’s single, Rock Your Body, which includes the chorus, “Bet I’ll have you naked by the end of this song.” Suggestive choreography accompanied the suggestive lyrics.

The day after the Super Bowl, MTV, which produced the halftime show, was promoting the shocking performance on its website: “Jaws across the country hit the carpet at exactly the same time. You know what we’re talking about ... Janet Jackson, Justin Timberlake and a kinky finale that rocked the Super Bowl to its core.”

But by the end of the day, MTV had changed its tune by removing any promotion and by posting an apology, saying that the finale was not included in rehearsals. Jackson also issued an apology, saying in a statement that the “decision to have a costume reveal at the end of my halftime show performance was made after final rehearsals. MTV was completely unaware of it. It was not my intention that it go as far as it did.”

NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue issued a statement saying that the league will make changes. Another NFL executive said that MTV likely wouldn’t produce another halftime show.

The fallout is extending beyond the FCC probe. Jackson and was subsequently removed from an appearance at the Grammy Awards, which instituted a television delay for the event. In addition, thePost reported that AOL – a sponsor of the halftime program – might ask for at least a partial refund. AOL intended to stream the video online, but won’t because of the ending, the Post said.

Powell said on NBC that the investigation would be quick, although he wouldn’t give a time limit.

“We’ll be pretty swift about this,” he said. “This has a lot of interest behind it.”

While CBS and the NFL were apologizing, conservatives were left wondering why the network and the league expected anything less than risque content from MTV, which doesn’t face the same restrictions from the FCC that broadcast networks do.

“... CBS and the NFL have absolutely no credibility as they try to deny complicity and responsibility for the incident,” R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, wrote in his Crosswalk.com weblog. “They took MTV as their partner, and they knew what they were getting.”

Family Research Council President Tony Perkins agreed.

“The entire halftime program was tasteless and not family friendly,” he said in a statement. “CBS should know better than to turn the halftime entertainment over to MTV, which relishes its ability to shock.”

Timberlake has clamed that the incident was a “wardrobe malfunction.” But Morality in the Media President Robert Peters said the stunt was inappropriate – even if it was a malfunction.

“[W]hat will the FCC have to say,” he asked, “about a young man purposefully grabbing a female’s breast, while singing ‘Got to have you naked by the end of this song’? Is this not a patently offensive ‘sexual activity’ when aired when tens of millions of children are watching?”

Several family organizations, including the Family Research Council, the American Family Association and the Parents Television Council, have begun online petition campaigns directed toward the FCC.

Other family leaders spoke up Feb. 2, criticizing the broadcast. Among them:

• Southern Baptist Convention President Jack Graham said the incident was a “public exhibition of the disregard for virtue, innocence, purity and true love in our present society. Yet, while we express our displeasure with such a display of sexually explicit behaviors, we also express love and compassion for a generation of young people who are saturated by this sex-crazed culture.”

• Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, criticized the involvement of MTV in the program.

“When you lie down with mangy dogs, you will get up with fleas,” Land said. “[W]hen you contract your halftime show out to an extremely raunchy, push-the-envelope conglomerate like MTV, whose moral compass has been totally demagnetized, you get what you paid for – an R-rated, hedonistic exhibition of human depravity.”