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I've decided to pull the info from a few other posts and centralize it into a single place....
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So, Janet and Justin also had a little pseudo-nudity during their halftime act that I just completely missed. Probably because I was more listening than watching. It's kind of sad when you have to do pull those kind of stunts to get sales.
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Drudge reports that the whole Jackson thing was pre-planned and CBS knew about it in advance. If this is true, then I'm just shocked -- shocked I say!! -- that this happened. Of course, it is Drudge, so take it with a grain of salt.
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The FCC is investigating the Jackson incident for indecency.
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BlogCritics has lots and lots of coverage about Janet and her, um, Super Bowl publicity stunt here. Note that some articles have been cross-posted both here and there.
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RAIN reports that MTV absolutely knew what was going to happen:
Last week, the headline on the [VH1] press release read, "Janet Jackson's Super Bowl Show Promises 'Shocking Moments.'" The executives at all of the responsible corporations (Viacom, CBS, AOL, the NFL) must have known that was how the event was being promoted.
Supposedly those executives, or their subordinates, were watching rehearsals. There are only two possibilities: Either (A) they saw nothing "shocking," in which case they should have known the press release was a lie, or (B) they were assured that there would be at least one "shocking" element in the actual performance. (Perhaps, to assure themselves of a post-event claim of plausible deniability, they didn't want to know precise details on what the shock would be. But still yet.)
The current alibi as of this morning -- "At the time of this report, MTV thought that the 'shock' was going to be the as-yet-unannounced appearance of Justin Timberlake as part of Janet's performance" -- does not hold water: The appearance of a guest performer could be described as a "surprise," but the word "shock" doesn't fit.
If one believes that the Viacom crowd speaks English as their first language, Justin's appearance can't be what they were alluding to! There had to be some kind of "shock," in the contemporary American English sense of the word, planned.
It just beggars the belief that Viacom would think that anyone would buy this denial. Come on, guys, I know that "you will never go broke underestimating the American public," but this is ridiculous. To make matter worse, the brillilant geniuses at Viacom have tried to cover their tracks:
---------------------------Yesterday, if you tried to access the "Shocking Moments" press release on the VH1 website , you got a "Page Not Found" error and the message, "Due to the recent redesign of our site, the page you are requesting has been moved or is no longer available" (pictured). (Fortunately, as I mentioned earlier, Google saves cached versions of web pages, so it's still available to the whole world if you simply access it through Google.)
When Justin Timberlake tore at Janet Jackson's leather outfit, TiVo users took notice.
Then they took notice again and again, using the digital video recorder to replay the event and to pause at the crucial moment in order to discern just what it was that Jackson had revealed to a billion people worldwide.
TiVo said that particular halftime stunt was the most replayed moment not only of the Super Bowl but of all TV moments that the young company has ever measured.
TiVo said it used its technology to measure audience behavior among 20,000 users during the Super Bowl. The exercise revealed a 180% spike in viewership at the time of the -- as Timberlake refers to it -- "wardrobe malfunction."
While it doesn't particularly surprise me that this extra-special moment in small screen history would be played over and over again (particularly since the Super Bowl's demographic skews so heavily towards younger males), it's a bit disturbing that TiVo tracks the activities of their users that closely....
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Today's NY Times takes some stabs at everyone involved. CBS gets a poke
The beauty of the Janet Jackson to-do is that it could well be the one case in which CBS is telling the truth, and like the little network that cried wolf, nobody is listening.
as does Janet
Even trussed as she was in a shiny "Matrix"/dominatrix outfit, Janet Jackson, 37, has never had much luck being taken seriously as a sex symbol, and it is unlikely that her Super Bowl surprise will be of much help there. But if her aim was to grab all the attention, as Madonna did when she kissed Britney Spears at the MTV Video Music Awards, then she did herself proud. And if she wanted to distract attention from her older, more famous and now more infamous brother Michael, then she achieved even that for a moment.
I'm sure the indiganation over this whole fiascso is only just starting...
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MTV now claims they "...were punk'd by Janet Jackson." Come on, guys. This doesn't even pass the laugh test.