© REUTERS / Shannon StapletonSuper Bowl LIV Halftime Show
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) received a total of 1,312 complaints from outraged viewers condemning the organizers for converting the highly-anticipated sporting event into a "disgraceful and amoral" show.
The vast majority of the viewers who shared their anger with the FCC were outraged with the singers' tight-fitting outfits and gyrating dance moves which they found offensive and non-family friendly.
"I do not subscribe to The Playboy Channel, we do not buy porn for $20 a flick, we simply wanted to sit down as a family and watch the Super Bowl," one complaint read. "God forbid we expected to watch football and a quick concert but instead had our eyes molested."
"Please, please, please stop the pornography!!" another said. "My entire family was repulsed and had to turn off the television during the Super Bowl halftime show. This is to be a fun family event!!!!" another viewer wrote.
Many stressed that they were forced to switch off the TV to protect their kids from watching "clearly obscene content."
"That show was a disgrace to all that was moral, my family was watching, kids were watching. This is a disgrace to everyone who built this country before us. What a shame that our morals are being sold for profit," one person said.
"The performers exposed areas of the lower buttocks, abdomen, and cleavage. This content was clearly obscene, and should not have been broadcast. I believe FOX should be subject to regulatory penalties for broadcasting obscene content not suitable for public viewing."
"Leather pants fully exposing butt cheeks, pole dancing, twerking, simulated orgies, and sexual gyrations, crotch grabs, and pelvic thrusts were all in front of my family and friends with preschoolers and elementary age students," another comment read.
"I don't understand how it is appropriate for Jennifer Lopez's ass to be in the faces of my children during the Superbowl halftime show. What is wrong with FOX and the NFL and frankly, the FCC for allowing this? another person asked.
The performance at Super Bowl LIV in Miami featured veteran pop star Lopez, 50, pole-dancing and knee-sliding toward the camera while touching her crotch.
Colombian diva Shakira, 43, belly-danced and performed while bound with ropes.
The two singers performed their hits, including 'Jenny from the Block' by Lopez and Shakira's 'Whenever, Wherever', which promptly soared to the top of the iTunes charts right after their show.
Reader Comments
1) The ladies our age would say, 'Wow, J.Lo. has done well to be able to keep that figure; BUT
2) Once Shakira took the stage, that J.Lo's butt seemed twice as wide as before.
God, I LOVE women!
RC
OMG! Turn off the f'g TV you frigging prude!
J-Lo is about as LOW as a babe can get - yuk!
Overt sexual behavior lauded and enjoyed by the elite.
And what about Caligula,...by all accounts he participated in every sexual and physical desecration know to man. Or so the story goes..
Yes, the west is well on the way to collapse....
My thoughts, not a prude, just a conservative.
Fact is he was kind like the Donald Trump of the Roman Empire. The Elite hated him because he took the mickey out of them (for eg declaring his horse the head Consul because he said it could do a better job than any of the human contenders)
As far as the Superbowl show goes, I have no doubt that as Rowan says, a lot of work went into the production and it was a spectacular performance. However, the question wasn't about the quality of the performance, but about context . If I took my family to a large sporting event in NZ and got that performance displayed in front of my young kids, I'd raise merry hell about it. I'm no prude and am pretty broad minded about human sexuality in it's proper time and place.
It was an Adults-Only performance and that's the context in which it should have been performed, and not in the context of a family-oriented event.
They're always trying to push the boundaries of acceptability and we do need to push back when we disapprove or they'll just keep pushing the boundaries.
There is a right time and place for such performances, but the Superbowl ain't it in my opinion.
After all the issues of human sexuality and it's place in child education are of great concern for parents.
And what is, as it seems to me is a postmodern free for all of anything goes, regardless of the consequences, we as adults, should be able to make choices.
Children are not bound by that, they are lead by their parents...for the most part, when parental information in their children's future is denied...then we IMO have a social breakdown...And the state is the surrogate parent, reminds of Huxley's Brave New World.
My thoughts.
Astute observation. RC
Pornography (which is a huge and far-ranging subject) is indeed a big deal, and especially the exposure of children to it. Which is why I disagree with the Half-Time show being so sexually suggestive; quite overtly so, particularly when there's a captive audience.
On the other hand, pornography has been around ever since our cave-painting days. It isn't going away. So it has to be controlled and regulated by both legal and social/moral standards and called out when we feel those laws or standards have been breached.
Are you sure you read my comments correctly Joan?
We seem to be in total agreement on the matter of the Super Bowl half-time show being inappropiate
And above that you clearly wrote
No I won't publish links here in case I get accused of promoting porn
Try Googling the subject.
As to the future, current trends show porn is as popular as ever before and far more accessible (too accessible in my opinion). I recently heard someone describe porn as the current "opiate of the masses). To be sure, no-one has any way of knowing what the future holds, but since porn has evidentially been around for tens of thousands of years, and across multiple cultures, it is far more likely than not to continue to exist in one form or another for the immediate future.
The cave paintings or scribes into the wall of paleolithic caves and Egyptian wall hieroglyphics are in dispute, and the pornographic meaning can have much more spiritual meaning than pure pornography.
It could be a result of ecstatic spiritual experience, and now we have denigrated that experience, because lack of knowledge into a base overt sexual display
I'm not talking about Egyptian religion and the Isis/Osiris creation mythology stuff here Joan. I'm talking about some pretty crude and explicit stuff and it's provenance seems rather solid.
Some is "official" art, some is graffiti by common workers. Regardless of whether or not one reads ritual or spiritual significance into such imagery, it is still pornography and would be treated as such were it presented in this day and age. well ,I suppose anyone could make such a claim about erotic imagery but some of the stuff I've seen in Egyptian art would be a stretch to describe as "spiritual".
Once again I won't provide links, especially as you've already suggested I'm some sort of pervert!
If you must know I am a Christian and I have a life-partner and three lovey young children in my life.
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The image is entitled erotic cave art.
Obviously our ancient ancestors had no less artistic talent than we do.
I have a question for you though. You made the suggestion that the pornography ("Erotic art") of ancient cultures and civilisations could be defended on the grounds that we could be denigrating something expressing "ecstatic spiritual experience", something that may " have much more spiritual meaning than pure pornography." as you so eloquently put it.
So coming back to the Super Bowl half time show, could one not claim the same defense for this performance?
And even if we could use such an excuse, would this change the conclusion that such a performance is too lewd for family viewing?
I wonder how much erotically themed ancient art was viewable by families and children, and whether there was the same controversy then as there is now with sexually charged art and performance?
From you comment
have a question for you though. You made the suggestion that the pornography ("Erotic art") of ancient cultures and civilizations could be defended on the grounds that we could be denigrating something expressing "ecstatic spiritual experience", something that may " have much more spiritual meaning than pure pornography." as you so eloquently put it.
Well, I understand you have children, do you not consider sexual union to create another person, from the union of yourself and your partner...a gift from god.. and not an act of pornography.....A spiritual experience.
My thought.
And to my mind to denigrate that act, and to show overt sexual behavior (on prime time TV with a viewing audience that involves, young adults, or even younger) regardless of what ones does in the privacy of ones own space. It sends the message to young people that anything goes...The post modern era we are now living in now, in fact comparisons can be made in our day age to the collapse, and social upheaval prior to advent of what we call.... Nazi Germany.
My thought.
Interesting and thoughtful perspective.
"to show overt sexual behavior (on prime time TV with a viewing audience that involves, young adults, or even younger) regardless of what ones does in the privacy of ones own space. It sends the message to young people that anything goes..."
I agree with that statement. In fact you'll find many an article on uncensored.co.nz exposing and decrying this very issue.
My partner and I don't broadcast our private moments publicly through media so therefore it isn't pornography.
The difference between social upheaval now, and the advent of Nazi Germany is that Hitler's gang were National Socialist. What we have pushing the world domination agenda today is Global Socialists: Globzis. Postmodernist Globzis!
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I had a discussion with a friend sometime ago regarding the word "Inter". It has two primary meanings, one being "to bury or cover up" and the other being "to go between or translate between" ie "Inter-state" ; "Interrogate"; "interpret".
This came up because my friend insisted "Interpret" meant "to cover up the meaning of". Which is strangely opposite what the true intent of the word is. Surely mis-interpretation!
That is why we need to remove the TV from our lives.
Watched the superbowl with friends, all of whom are broadly liberal, highly educated, not in the least religious. Everyone remarked on how smutty the halftime show was, and not approvingly. Before the show started I joked that I was looking forward to a wardrobe malfunction - after, the joke was that the entire show was a wardrobe malfunction.
This show is just another symptom of the collapse in public morality and the consequent slow motion collapse of society.