America's Misplaced Priorities - Nudity Versus War

The ubiquitous news stories generated by last season’s Super Bowl were a matter of priorities, and it seems that in America ours are quite jumbled.

In the days following the game, we heard the chattering classes rail about the various social evils allegedly embodied by the Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake “costume malfunction,” from the racism inherent in a white male stripping a black female to the sexual violence underlying the act of a man exposing a woman in public.

While bigotry and misogyny are profound ills that pollute America, the so-called Nipplegate controversy made for a poor rallying cry against these problems simply because one can safely assume Jackson was a willing conspirator rather than an innocent victim. The overproduced, tedious dance act that raised the nation’s ire can more accurately be viewed as a product of the bad taste and warped values that currently define mainstream American society.

Why is it no one complained about P. Diddy and Nelly presenting the United States as a country that prizes a fur coat above all else? Having lived in Europe, where topless beaches are normal, I can assure you that the obsessive displays of material wealth by America’s pop icons made more of an impression on foreigners than the sudden, visual declaration that Janet Jackson owns a breast.

Half of the Earth’s population has breasts; comparably few have diamond-studded Rolexes. Yet apparently it is all right for our entertainers to wag the inordinate affluence we lord over the rest of the planet but rude for them to expose, however briefly, one of the common features we share with everyone else.

Even when it comes to skin we are selective about our morals. Football cheerleaders typically display more bod...

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...ing audience to say “no” to various social dysfunctions such as illiteracy. She then distracted everyone, and subsequently undermined her own message, by punctuating it with a Vegas flash courtesy of Mr. Timberlake. That should have told America something about how seriously to take Janet Jackson. If you need to drive home your social commentary with a starburst nipple accessory, perhaps your rhetoric needs some work.

In that light, we all should have sprinkled a grain of salt on Janet’s exposed chest. Miss Jackson, while sometimes nasty, should never have been a topic for discussion except to point out how silly it is to worry about a breast while the nation is mired in a war.

It is about time America got its priorities in line, because there is something very wrong with a country that is more offended by a glimpse of live skin than graves full of dead flesh.