Monday Night Football Controversy

[JSngry]

Damn, I didn't realize that I was that close!

Hey, I gotta got to work myself. Manana, ok?

[Jazzmoose]

Oh, come on; with just 13 posts to go????

[Man with the Golden Arm]

Hank Williams Jr. is pornography.

[Dave James]

Just some poor decision making on the part of whomever green lighted this for ABC. I did hear yesterday, though, that the network had screened the ad for the NFL and gotten their OK. If that's really the case, then you could certainly characterize the NFL's post-game reaction as being a bit hypocritical.

I don't think there's any doubt that people are overreacting to this. It's one of those situations where it's hard to find anyone who will say they they, personally, were offended, but they know people who were. The other issue that has raised its ugly head is racism. This line of reasoning goes as follows: if it had been Beyonce Knowles jumping into the arms of say, Brett Favre, it wouldn't have been as controversial. The fact that it's a white woman jumping into a black man's arms is what is underlying the intensity of the reaction. That, of course, is absurd, but probably not in some areas that tend to be identified with the color red.

I guess if I have any issue with this, it's just the timing. I live on the West Coast, where the game started at 6:00. Lots of kids were certainly watching and I'm sure their parents were completely blindsided by the opening. It's almost like they should have run one of those "...the following program contains..." warnings before they went on the air.

Outside of that, a tempest in a teapot.

With regard to T.O. he's the quintessential "if he's on your team you love him, if he's not, you hate him" kind of guy. He about sent me around the bend when he was a Niner. Now that he's an Eagle, I'm jiggy with his whole act. The bottom line is this: even those who can't stand the guy can say he doesn't back it up.

Up over and out.

[take5]

Never mind the "decency" angle, it's an insult to our intelligence to think that the only way to entertain us is by titillating our hormones.

I guess the people don't mind getting their intelligence insulted.

Though you reject the "giving the people what they want" argument, it does play a part. Or, to be specific, the people aren't rejecting what they claim they don't want.

Prime time TV and the puritan reactions to it allow people to enjoy racy programing filled with sex & violence while at the same time making themselves feel morally superior by decrying it. Then they buy the products that use these supposedly terrible techniques to market their inferior products.

If the population were genuinely concerned over this, the ratings for Desperate Houswives should drop. But we all know that won't happen. And if racy beer commercials bother the people, why do Miller and Bud sell? The people should by Sam Adams, which doesn't use any of that (their commercials are either boring or quite clever, like the two guys who are offered a huge menu offering the "best beers in the world" and they pick Adams without looking through it) and is a better beer, too.

This all plays to the same mindset of gossiper: comdemn others while hypocratically practicing similar behavior.

If people genuinely cared about decency in programming, than PBS would be taking the ratings.

I'm glad that the world we live in is so great and there are no major problems that people can afford to give a shit about this.

[pryan]

People freaked and I guess it was a little vulgar; probably not needed either. However, people should lighten up a bit, it's just a naked woman after all. Kids looking at porn on the net is much more of a problem, IMO.

The "race issue" shouldn't even be discussed as far as I'm concerned. So what if it wasn't two people of the same color. There's interracial relationships everywhere nowadays. I just don't understand racism, I guess. It's stupid.

[RDK]

It's ridiculous. Are we going back to Puritanism in this country? Or are people upset because a white woman went after a black man?

You can show a dead rat being thrown into a blender and turned into a liquid which someone drinks on Fear Factor, but a naked woman jumping into a man's arms is offensive?

What the fuck is wrong with this country?

Need I remind you, Jim, that you're the one who closed the Babes Thread?

[Jazzmoose]

I just don't understand racism, I guess. It's stupid.

Sounds like you understand it to me...

[Bright Moments]

It's ridiculous.  Are we going back to Puritanism in this country?  Or are people upset because a white woman went after a black man?

You can show a dead rat being thrown into a blender and turned into a liquid which someone drinks on Fear Factor, but a naked woman jumping into a man's arms is offensive?

What the fuck is wrong with this country?

Need I remind you, Jim, that you're the one who closed the Babes Thread?

[Dr. Rat]

It's ridiculous. Are we going back to Puritanism in this country? Or are people upset because a white woman went after a black man?

You can show a dead rat being thrown into a blender and turned into a liquid which someone drinks on Fear Factor, but a naked woman jumping into a man's arms is offensive?

What the fuck is wrong with this country?

Drinking rats! What's wrong with you people!

--eric

[Leeway]

I mostly agree with what JSngry had to say about it. Most of this smutty, salacious commercialized hype is so brain-dead, it's insulting.

I think the problem with the MNF skit is that it imported something that viewers of "Desperate Housewives" expect, but not the viewers of MNF. That is, if you tune into "DH" than you should expect this kind of "sexy" programming. When you tune into a football game, you expect football (at least I do).

The race angle is more interesting. I think it is pretty interesting that the bit involved interracial sex. 20 years ago, interracial marriage was against the law in many states (I think these are all red states ) . White segregationists would have been venting. I mean, this would have been a very radical thing to do. Now, it SEEMS that these feelings are no longer in play (although I wonder about that). In that sense, the skit indicated a rather significant degree of progress in mattes of race.

OTOH, criticism has come from the African-American community. I think they see it as a sort of "Mandingo" thing, where the black stud spends a lot of his time lusting after white women. Would it have been more radical to have a white football player and a black female? One has to wonder just how calculated the skit's use of interracial sex was? was it designed to titillate? Was it designed to revive old stereotypes? Hard to say until we know more about the writers, their intent, etc.

In America, race is always an issue.

[7/4]

I guess there wasn't enough violence in the clip.

[Jim Alfredson]

It's ridiculous.  Are we going back to Puritanism in this country?  Or are people upset because a white woman went after a black man?

You can show a dead rat being thrown into a blender and turned into a liquid which someone drinks on Fear Factor, but a naked woman jumping into a man's arms is offensive?

What the fuck is wrong with this country?

Need I remind you, Jim, that you're the one who closed the Babes Thread?

What's your point?

[7/4]

[Big Al]

If the FCC looks into this, I would hope they would also look into all the crap that airs on the FOX Network.

Yeah, right.....