The FCC Is Still After Janet? Ridiculous

The Jackson nipple-slip battle continues; 'how insane' is this?

By Neal Colgrass, Newser Staff

Posted Sep 19, 2009 6:21 PM CDT

(Newser) – Back in President Bush's America, the FCC assault on Janet Jackson's nipple-ringed revelation made an odd sort of sense, Michelle Dean writes in Bitch. After all, "the inmates were running the asylum" and sanity was "unrepresented in government." But now that President Obama is in office, and "crazy people" get airtime to call him "a secret Muslim," the FCC has said it wants another review of the 5-year-old Jackson case. "How absolutely insane" is this?

"My point is that I don’t think the half-second or so of nipplage has done nearly as much damage" as unfair, on-air assaults on the nation's president, writes Dean, who adds that she's "no free speech absolutist." She would love a national conversation on what is "valuable and relevant" on the airwaves. "That is not, of course, what the FCC is doing. The FCC wants to make some idiotic top-down ruling about the trauma inflicted on children by seeing a tit."

[Images (1)]

[Quotes (1)]

Singer Janet Jackson, left, covers her breast after her outfit came undone during a number with Justin Timberlake during the halftime show of Super Bowl XXXVIII in Houston on Feb. 1, 2004. (AP Photo)

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How absolutely insane is it that the major discussion about 'standards' for broadcast television today always takes place in the context of 'indecency'—and in particular, that women’s bodies are 'indecent'? -

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COMMENTS

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Showing 3 of 16 comments

freethemall

Sep 21, 2009 12:53 PM CDT

I agree with all you say. The down side, for me and other dirty old men, for doing away with the double standard you speak of, is that the sight of bare breasted women might become so common as to be no longer titillating. This would ruin all the fun to be had at wet T shirt contests.

freethemall

Sep 21, 2009 12:39 PM CDT

Amen!

thejoint00

Sep 21, 2009 5:25 AM CDT

well now that Michael's dead and he left you all this money we may need to charge more for a crime that you already paid for because now you have more money. <\> yea right and Obama didn't try to exploit Kenedy's death to get americans to go along with health care but Latoya exploited Michael's death to sell records, and now the FCC is using Michael's death as a reason to drudge up old memories.

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The FCC Is Still After Janet? Ridiculous