Boviosity!

Jonah Goldberg circles around my take on the Janet Jackson Boob Drop:

This episode demonstrates how much the professional counterculture is played out. For more than a century now, the art world has increasingly thrived on its ability to "shock" the middle class. Some of this art was good, some of it was bad, but sticking it to the bourgeois was, for many, a higher value than aesthetics itself.

Think of the more outrageous art controversies of the recent past. Karen Finley covers herself in faux feces to say something "shocking" about capitalism or something. Robert Mapplethorpe did "new" and "exciting" (translation: proctological) things with inanimate objects. In other words, truth and beauty long ago took a backseat to shock and titillation.

Predictably, this idea eventually trickled down from high culture to popular culture. And, for a while, some of it was legitimately both shocking and creative. But at the end of the day, shock is neither a high artistic value nor is it easy to maintain.

Jackson's sickening non-apology apology ("I am really sorry if I offended anyone. That was truly not my intention.") is the kicker for me: this whole thing was obviously intentional. That said, I watched the entire half-time show with my 10-year-old. I kibbitzed the whole time, mocking the crotch-grabbing and the ugliness of the whole scene and the music, trying to subvert the message that was being sent. But that final second was an arrow straight into my heart: no parent who let his child watch that half-time show has any business complaining about Janet Jackson's breast. And I include myself in that number.

PS I wonder if that metal thing on her nipple left a mark when it hit the floor? (Meow!)