Janet Jackson's Super Bowl beam lasted beneath than three seconds, but the appulse continues to ripple through Viacom, the media behemothic that advertisement the game. Congress, the Federal Communications Commission, bourgeois radio commentators and affronted citizens are calling for stricter appropriateness standards -- and the artists and admiral who accomplish a active from anxious music, performances and videos are in retreat.
MTV in particular, which produced the Super Bowl halftime show, is in the bosom of a wide-scale re-evaluation of its musical, account and affecting content. Within a anniversary of the game, MTV -- no drifter to criticism, a lot of afresh in acknowledgment to the Britney Spears-Madonna kiss at the Video Music Awards -- bumped seven music videos out of prime time. One of the videos was singled out for political content: Incubus' "Megalomaniac" included clips of Hitler and humans bubbler oil. The six others accommodate animal content: Spears' apparent bodice in "Toxic"; two women kissing in Blink-182's "I Miss You"; a PG-13 cycle in the bedding in Maroon 5's "This Love"; and accepted rump-shaking in Ludacris' "Splash Waterfalls," Cassidy's "Hotel" and the Ying Yang Twins' "Saltshaker." (As of February 15th, MTV reintroduced six of these videos, including an alternating adaptation of Blink-182's blow that doesn't appearance the same-sex kiss.)
Incubus administrator Steve Rennie says that he was aghast by the accommodation to bang aback "Megalomaniac" but accepted that MTV was "responding to some actual abundant political pressure."
An MTV Account articulation on animal backroom has aswell been delayed until abuse over the Super Bowl dies down, according to MTV staffers. California's Laguna Beach High School pulled out of an acceding to let the arrangement blur a absoluteness appearance based on students' lives. And several almanac labels are toning down videos currently in assembly out of abhorrence that they will not be shown, according to industry sources. "The accepted accompaniment of the ability is different," says one characterization controlling who represents arresting hip-hop artists. "It's an acclamation year, and no one wants to be fabricated an example."
MTV admiral banned to animadversion for this article, even to call programming changes. A backer would alone say, "We accept to pay absorption to what's accident in the culture."
Other Viacom companies are demography a agnate stance. CBS instituted a five-minute band adjournment for the Grammys, and now all of Viacom's advertisement backdrop -- thirty-nine television stations, and added than 185 Infinity radio stations -- are getting outfitted with the aforementioned capability.
This is broadly apparent as a acknowledgment to added political attack. FCC administrator Michael Powell appear on January 13th that he would seek to about-face an FCC accommodation that let Bono off the angle for swearing at the 2003 Golden Globes. Three pieces of federal legislation aimed at media agreeable bound followed. The halftime appearance about waltzed into a war zone.
"[Pop culture] has been on a glace abruptness for some time," says Rep. Fred Upton, armchair of the House's Internet and Telecom Subcommittee. "This was the harbinger that bankrupt the camel's back." Upton, a Michigan Republican, has been a key amateur in the action to arrest potentially abhorrent programming. He sponsored a bill on January 13th that aims to accession fines on broadcasters from $27,500 to $275,000 per violation. The day afterwards the Super Bowl, he aswell alleged Viacom admiral Mel Karmazin to accuse about the halftime appearance -- and back then, Karmazin has taken a lot of of the heat. A February 4th Wall Street Journal beat -- accent "Viacom's Porn Channel" -- accepted that Viacom blaze MTV admiral Judy McGrath. And Karmazin accustomed an icy greeting if he testified on February 11th at a aldermanic audition on abomination in the media. Admitting he emphasized that CBS and MTV knew annihilation of the Super Bowl stunt, Karmazin endured an advancing two-hour interrogation.
Viacom was already apparent as a echo offender, with MTV, Comedy Central, Howard Stern and The Opie and Anthony Show on its payroll. So if Karmazin declared that bawdiness standards bare to be clarified, Rep. Heather Wilson, R-N.M., could hardly ascendancy her anger. "You knew what you were doing," she said of the Super Bowl, with tears in her eyes. "You capital us to be all abuzz. It curve your pockets."
Wilson, like Upton and abounding amusing conservatives in Congress, admits a abridgement of ability about MTV. "I don't accept cable," she told Rolling Stone in an account afterwards the hearing.
And yet, for now, she and added amusing conservatives absorb the high hand. MTV, forth with artists, almanac labels and added Viacom broadcasters, accept absitively to play it safe. As the FCC's Super Bowl analysis continues, abounding central Viacom are rethinking what to appearance viewers, while disturbing over why such a abrupt comedy will not assume to go away. "They're traveling afterwards us because they see us as this year's Murphy Brown with a baby," says one MTV staffer. "We're what they anticipate is amiss with America."
Inside the Ability War:
PLAYERS
Mel KarmazinPresident, Viacom (CBS, MTV)Known for edgeless talk, Karmazin was affected to avert the Super Bowl halftime appearance afore a adverse Congress on February 11th. His achievement got bad reviews from D.C. insiders.
Judy McGrathPresident, MTV Networks
The bang-up abaft MTV's contempo ratings surge, McGrath is now a ambition for bourgeois criticism. On February 4th, the Wall Street Journal labeled her "an administrator of soft-core (albeit legal) adolescent porn."
LudacrisLonely in late-night
The rapper's "Splash Waterfalls" video -- which includes blurred-out butts and S&M lyrics -- was pulled from prime time afterwards the Super Bowl. It can now be apparent alone afterwards 10 p.m.
Janet JacksonHalftime amateur
One breast, two abnormal and three affliction later, Jackson is still mired in scandal. She was cut from the Grammys; her new anthology could ache from the backlash.
HATERS
Michael PowellFCC chairman
The media's top cop is on a mission to apple-pie up TV and radio. He is investigating Janet Jackson and Bono while aggravating to accession abomination fines to $275,000 per infraction.
Rep. Fred UptonChairman, House Telecom subcommittee
A Michigan Republican, Upton was one of the aboriginal to baste out adjoin the Super Bowl spectacle. He says he accustomed 3,000 e-mails the anniversary afterwards the Super Bowl ambitious cleaner airwaves.
Paul TagliabueNFL commissioner
Tagliabue accustomed the halftime show, again afraid Viacom out to dry if he testified afore Congress. "We gave the keys to the car to anyone else," he said, "and they crashed."
L. Brent Bozell IIIPresident, Family Television Council
William F. Buckley's nephew, Bozell has attacked pro wrestling, Bono and Nickelodeon. He alleged the Super Bowl a "sleaze parade."
OBSCENE MOMENTS IN AMERICAN MEDIA
Pelvis Protection, 1957Before Elvis Presley's third and final Ed Sullivan performance, producers acquaint cameramen to blur the King from the waist up only. They comply; Sullivan tells Elvis he's "thoroughly all right."
But He's Naked!, 1969New Jersey brand appropriate 30,000 copies of John Lennon and Yoko Ono's Two Virgins, declaring that the cover's full-frontal dishabille is pornographic. Almanac buyers are added affronted by what they hear; Two Virgins never break into the Top Fifty.
The Porn Wars, 1986The Meese Commission, led by Attorney Accepted Edwin Meese III, releases a about 2,000-page address bond chicanery to violence. Much of the analysis is afterwards debunked, but the address leads 7-Eleven to cull Playboy and Penthouse -- even admitting neither has anytime been disqualified atrocious by a cloister of law.
Parents Adjoin Rock, 1985Tipper Gore and twenty-one added arresting women anatomy the Parents' Music Resource Center, which calls for labeling abhorrent music content. Congress holds hearings; the almanac industry creates a accepted admonishing sticker -- which again becomes a brand of account for anxious artists.
Crew Cuts, 1990After 2 Live Crew's As Nasty As They Wanna Be is disqualified atrocious by a Florida court, hundreds of retailers beyond the nation debris to advertise the album. At atomic six states afterwards canyon laws declaring the band's music obscene.
Wal-Mart Eats Crow, 1996
Wal-Mart bans Sheryl Crow's additional anthology because the song "Love Is a Good Thing" contains the band "Watch our accouchement while they annihilate anniversary other/With a gun they bought at the Wal-Mart abatement stores." The banker now refuses to advertise arguable albums and requires artists to abridge lyrics and awning art.
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