Okay, so now we're going to talk about the breast.

Everyone is mad about the Breast. Janet Jackson showed her breast on national television at the halftime show of the Super Bowl, which made her breast appearance at approximately 8:40 pm Eastern Standard Time, or somewhere in that vicinity. Basically prime Prime Time.

The Breast made an appearance for approximately 1.5 seconds before the Super Bowl Halftime Show Director at CBS cut away.

Big.

Fucking.

Deal.

My favorite argument is the Coors Lite Football Commercial argument. This argument goes like this: If you're so fucking up in arms about the Breast, where is your moral basis? Where were you during the commercials for Coors Lite, which for the past two years have shown women in bikinis and snowpants and cheerleader outfits rolling around in the snow to maximum cleavage exposure. These commercials have been on during EVERY SINGLE football game broadcast for the past two years. Whining about the Breast is a little too simplistic, don't you think? It's not the idea of it that bothers you, is it? Ideas are a little too complex for you, aren't they? It's actually just the flesh of it. I understand. It's sort of like instead of hating some concept of homosexuality for a morally sound reason (not there is a morally sound reason for hating homosexuality, but that's another argument), you just decide to beat up that kid on the street. I understand how you think. People are simulating sexual acts in commercials and, in fact, on the very same stage as the one on which the Breast appeared. But I understand that it's complicated to formulate opinions about ideas. It's easier just to go for the fleshy thing hanging there.

Another argument I like to make is the Colin Powell argument. Seriously, Colin Powell, don't you have enough to do with making up reasons to attack nations or something? You actually manage to find the time to make a comment about a 1.5 second exposure of a breast? Where is our country headed when the leaders of our nation can find the time to comment on the Super Bowl Halftime Show? 1.5 seconds of a breast.

This leads us to the next argument, which is this one: the It's Just a Breast argument. It's just a breast, people. Every single person who's spoken out about this "incident" has seen a breast (with the likely exception of NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue). All women have breasts, and all women have shown them to people. Many women have breastfed their children. It's likely even you have suckled on your mom's breast; possibly in public, too.

Another argument is the What About the Children argument. Lots of people say, "what about the children?" I say the same thing, but with a different tone. This is how I say it: "What about the children? They should go their whole young lives pretending that there's nothing underneath people's shirts? I have a young son. If he noticed the Breast, he probably would have looked at me with a face of surprise. I would have said, "Oops! She fell out of her shirt!" and he would have thought that was funny, that someone could "fall out" of their shirt, and we would have laughed about it for a while, before we continued to play with his cars. If he was any older, it would have been a great opportunity to discuss why women shouldn't go around flashing their breasts. If he was older than, say, 12 or 13, I'd have to ask him if he wanted to talk about it, to which he'd probably respond that he'd seen better in the magazine his friend brought to school the other day. Anyone who makes the complaint that it was on television during a time when children would be exposed to it is making that complaint because they want to demonstrate to the world that they are lousy, lazy parents who are obviously incapable of dealing with the fact that people have skin underneath their clothes. To me, this seems a simple truth, and one that a parent should be able to face: Clothes cover things.

Things I would get angry about if my sons were inadvertantly exposed to on television:

1. Actual sex acts, simulated or otherwise.

2. Violence. I actually probably have a lower threshold for violence exposure to kids than many people. My kids are young and I feel they need to learn that violence really hurts before they realize that violence can sometimes be funny.

3. Star Jones. Seriously. Gah.

There are so many other things to get angry about. Like the fact that Tom Brady keeps winning Super Bowls. Let's focus our energies in a more appropriate fashion, people.



- posted by seanmh @ 5:08 PM