So the Grammy Awards aired Sunday night on CBS. Who watched?
Well, The New York Times said about 26.3 million viewers tuned in to the show. But I’m sure the millions who tuned in continuously tuned out as the night progressed. It was not a very exciting night for music. Sure, they gave out a bunch of awards to dead people and Yoko Ono showed a smidgen of emotion, but even with all the big name performers, it was as tame as an airing of “The Kennedy Center Salutes.”
All the celebrities seemed way too polite, the performances were subdued and the acceptance speeches were bland — it was as if they had all been sedated.
But why were our beloved, brash and controversial musicians and performers so boring? Because of a boob.
Yep, Janet Jackson’s breast pops out at the Super Bowl and our entire world turns upside down — everyone from the head of the Federal Communications Commission to little old ladies in Houston, Texas are pissed off. People are suing for emotional stress. No one can say or do anything that may be deemed inappropriate. Everyone’s paranoid. Women are wearing multiple layers of clothes to prevent any “wardrobe malfunctions.” The shock! The horror! The pasties!
Now, it’s as if the entire television industry is under the watchful eye of America.
After the Super Bowl, networks everywhere decided to delay most of their live programming by a few seconds to a few minutes to keep America’s eyes and ears pure. CBS decided to delay the Grammy Awards by a whole five minutes to prevent any unwanted nudity or anything else they could get in trouble for. When Christina Aguilera took the stage and commented on having to watch herself so she wouldn’t spill out of her top, the camera quickly zoomed in so only her face showed up on screen. Phew! That was a close one.
Thankfully, CBS did not have to censure any of the show’s content. But that doesn’t mean the American public didn’t suffer. With a five-minute grace period, couldn’t they have at least edited in something a bit more interesting than Alicia Keys’ longwinded tribute to Luther Vandross? Or that unchoreographed duet between Sting and Sean Paul?
It was rather ironic that CBS, quick to blame everything on MTV, Jackson and Justin Timberlake, used the Super Bowl fiasco as a promotional tool to up ratings for the Grammy broadcast. Before each commercial break, all we heard was, “Stay tuned for Justin!” “Coming up next, Justin Timberlake!”
The same thing can be said for MTV. All weekend before the Super Bowl, MTV’s Web site prepared audiences for its upcoming “shocking” half-time show. Once the boob dropped, they raved about it afterward, milking it (no pun intended, really) for all it was worth but still distancing itself from the negative light.
It’s as if everyone wants the attention it has created, but no one wants the blame. And now, no one wants to piss off anyone.
Who would have known several networks had FCC-unfriendly programming coming up in the weeks after the Super Bowl that they hurried to censor before anyone could yell at them.
“ER” was planning to show a brief breast shot of a patient and “NYPD Blue” planned for a scene with “strong sexual content.”
This hasn’t stopped them before, so why now? One accidental boob and now TV is so PG-rated that a network can air “Nip/Tuck” after “The Teletubbies” and no one would know the difference.
What about all that violence on TV, huh? Yeah, remember the guns, the drugs and the murders that make for a gut-wrenching “To be continued …” on our favorite crime dramas?
Just as long as there are no inappropriate body parts, it’s all good. We’ll all be living our lives with a five-minute delay, just in case anything goes wrong.