The implications of overexposure

Ray Richmond at the Hollywood Reporter has a great editorial on the implications of the exposure of Janet Jackson. Below is an exceprt, but take a minute to read the whole thing.

Let's not waste a lot of time overanalyzing whether this little improvisational diversion may have done emotional harm to any kids who were watching. It was there and gone in a mere few fleeting seconds.

If anything is going to damage the moral fiber of America's youth, it's the indignation and fallout in the moment's wake, the high-voltage, far-out-of-proportion reaction of grown men and women.

This naturally isn't about the children. It never is. It's about re-election-minded public officials who won't rest until they work the indecency-outrage angle as much as possible to show that they're not really in bed with Big Media.

Of course, the FCC is already in obscenity crackdown mode. This simply gives the censorheads more fodder. Meanwhile, it's apparently just fine during the game for Bud Light to run a spot that appears to endorse a monkey's being intimate with a woman and another ad (plugging Budweiser) that shows a woman ranting and raving shrewlike at her husband.

The message would seem to be this: It's permissible to demean women, and even to look at them as sexual playthings. God knows football telecasts are chock-full of phallic imagery. But just let one female make the sexuality itself overt and there's hell to pay. Because that's different, you see. That's pornography.