On Super Bowl Sunday, a nation of sweet, innocent children gathered around their televisions to celebrate the wholesome tradition of grown men risking permanent brain damage in the name of sports. What should have been a respectable evening of family-friendly violence was soon marred by something so crude and disgusting it inflicted irreparable damage on the game’s youngest, most vulnerable viewers:
Open up your jewelry box and grab a necklace because it’s time to clutch some pearls.
Not long after Shakira and Jennifer Lopez took the stage Sunday came a predictable flood of online outrage about how two pop stars who had been singing and dancing in flashy costumes for a combined 49 years were suddenly deemed too risque for television.
Florida columnist Gil Smart called the halftime show “obscene” because it featured two famous women gyrating rhythmically to music — an act commonly referred to as “dancing” — in an off-putting display that was entirely too inappropriate for the writer’s young child.
“We let my 9-year-old son stay up and watch, thinking — hey, it’s the Super Bowl, so long as we’re not talking another Janet Jackson ‘wardrobe malfunction,’ how bad can it be?
Less than a third of the way through my wife started saying, ‘Ummmm ...’
Call it educational programming, I guess.”
The natural conclusion here is that two grown women performing their hits as a nod to their success and respective cultures is not only a sin, but far more harmful to children than watching men playing an inherently violent sport. Football players destroying themselves on a field is appropriate viewing for a kid because at least their bodies are covered in fabric, whereas two grown women performing in a manner replicated in music videos and on award shows for decades is not.
Given its history, the Super Bowl halftime show has long been buyer-beware. If you’re the kind of person who is likely to be offended by any display of human sexuality, then at this point it’s on you not to watch. Aforementioned Jackson moment aside, it was only a year ago that Adam Levine performed almost the entirety of his show without a shirt on — which is inherently more sexual than anything Shakira and Lopez did in Miami on Sunday. Still, Smart goes so far as to suggest future Super Bowls come with a warning in the event the sight of a woman’s body is more than viewers can handle:
“But if the Super Bowl is going to be touted as family entertainment, or at least not marketed as adult entertainment, perhaps the NFL has an obligation to warn people with children that what they’re about to see may be upsetting to some viewers.”
In re-watching the halftime show I’m still at a loss to find anything that could be deemed as “upsetting to some viewers” outside of the same performance style Shakira and Lopez have long been known for. Sports and news programs are naturally exempt from parental TV guidelines due to their unpredictable nature, but let’s play this game for a second and rate what football should actually be.
To obtain a G rating a broadcast must have “little or no violence.” Football itself doesn’t pass the test on violence, so we must default to TV-PG — which states:
“Parents may find material unsuitable for younger children. Contains one or more of the following: Moderate violence, some sexual situations, infrequent coarse language and some suggestive dialog.”
While there was nothing objectionable in my eyes, if someone else wants to shelter their child to the point they unleash their repression as adults and possibly get themselves in far more trouble than children raised with a healthier understanding of how the world works, so be it. And considering this is a sport where players are routinely maimed and injured on live TV, parents watching with young children should already be prepared to either turn the channel or remove them from the room in the case of a serious situation. Why shouldn’t the expectation be the same for the halftime show?
It’s worth mentioning Shakira and Lopez were arguably the most inspirational parts of the entire damn Super Bowl. Two successful women in their 40s and 50s celebrating their bodies, talents, and cultures, along with their womanhood. This is exactly the kind of thing we need kids to see as we teach them to value themselves and others.
“And that, to me, is the biggest problem here. J. Lo and Shakira shaking their respective rear ends? Who cares? That’s what they do, I’m not interested, and in general I use the halftime show as a chance to hit the head and see what snacks are left.”
Not everything has to appeal to all people. That said, if you want to point the finger at Shakira and Lopez for being too “inappropriate” for children while watching a sporting event that even adults should approach with caution, perhaps start by taking some parental responsibility and point that finger at yourself.
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiZ2h0dHBzOi8vd3d3LnNibmF0aW9uLmNvbS9uZmwvMjAyMC8yLzUvMjExMjI1NTgvc3VwZXItYm93bC1oYWxmdGltZS1zaG93LWJhY2tsYXNoLXNoYWtpcmEtamVubmlmZXItbG9wZXrSAXRodHRwczovL3d3dy5zYm5hdGlvbi5jb20vcGxhdGZvcm0vYW1wL25mbC8yMDIwLzIvNS8yMTEyMjU1OC9zdXBlci1ib3dsLWhhbGZ0aW1lLXNob3ctYmFja2xhc2gtc2hha2lyYS1qZW5uaWZlci1sb3Bleg?oc=5
2020-02-05 16:25:56Z
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