The Bird's The Word: Obligatory Post About MIA Flipping Off Global Audience During Super Bowl Half-Time Show
It wasn't a wardrobe malfunction but it's close enough, especially given that there's really nothing else going on in the world or the country right now.
The singer in question, M.I.A., is British-born and of Tamil descent, and the NFL and NBC have apologized and tried to blame each other.
"The obscene gesture in the performance was completely inappropriate, very disappointing and we apologize to our fans," said Brian McCarthy, spokesman for the NFL, which produced Madonna's halftime show. He said that M.I.A. had not done anything similar during rehearsals and the league had no reason to believe she would pull something like that during the actual show.
The risque moment came during the biggest TV event of the year. The screen briefly went blurred after M.I.A.'s gesture in what was a late attempt — by less than a second — to cut out the camera shot.
"The NFL hired the talent and produced the halftime show," NBC spokesman Christopher McCloskey said. "Our system was late to obscure the inappropriate gesture and we apologize to our viewers."
Isn't it about time we cut ties with England anyway?
It was an excellent Super Bowl game and the only thing that worries me about all this is that the Supreme Court will be ruling on the FCC's ability to police the broadcast airwaves this session. Given that part of the current cycle of fear of fleeting expletives and nipple slips stems from Janet Jackson's and Justin Timberlake's half-time show from what frankly seems like a thousand years ago, this probably ain't good for that.
Rather than building on already onerous content regulations and ultimately arbitrary speech restrictions ("fleeting expletives" have no place in a world filled ExtenZe ads featuring Jimmy Johnson, right?), can we just agree that next year, the Super Bowl will carry a warning sticker noting that despite high-level of play, some viewers may be disturbed by on-field activities? That should solve it.