Has Super Bowl Become Super Hypocritical?
There is always obsessive discussion of the halftime show after every Super Bowl game. In addition to the performances, the fancy pyrotechnics, acrobatic feats and technology wizardry are fodder for tweeting and water cooler talks, but the conversation about Adam Levine’s chiseled and naked stomach were priority. Why? Not because we want to call his trainer or his extremely busy tattoo artist. What we need to discuss, analyze and decry are the double standards applied to behavior — when done by men vs. women. We must highlight the reaction to Adam’s purposeful behavior vs. Janet’s wardrobe malfunction 15 years earlier that drew hostile and vehement negative reactions that are emblematic of our larger societal problems.
Full disclosure, I haven’t been on any phone calls with Adam Levine’s manager, nor do I know anyone remotely connected with the band, but I would hazard a guess that his contract with The Voice isn’t at risk, nor will his band endure scrutiny for 10 years. He will likely continue to write songs, perform and carry on — which is fine and reasonable — except when you compare it to Nipplegate.
Do people even remember what happened to Janet, child star, a legendary performer, Grammy winner, actress, and a member of one of music’s royal families after her nipple was exposed for 9/16ths of a second. Les Moonves, at that point the seemingly invincible head of CBS, made it his personal mission to “take her down.” Try to digest the irony of an accused sexual predator passing judgement on the event infamously known as “wardrobe malfunction.” And his animus was squarely focused on Janet, not Janet and Justin.
While they both apologized publicly, Moonves was quoted as saying that he didn’t think Janet was “sufficiently repentant” about the incident. Every organization and person involved tried to make sure they weren’t caught in the crossfire while the FCC received hundreds of thousands of complaints. And Moonves’ personal vendetta continued: CBS enacted revenge on Jackson for losing them all further halftime shows by essentially blacklisting her, keeping her music off MTV, VH1, and all radio stations under their umbrella. Soon, non-Viacom media entities followed suit.
And the hypocrisy continued. Janet’s invitation to present at the Grammys was rescinded while Justin was able to apologize in his acceptance speech that year. Janet’s albums didn’t sell as well as they had prior to Nipplegate, while Justin’s career skyrocketed. And just last year, Justin headlined the 2018 Super Bowl halftime show while one bet you could win for sure is that Janet is not on anyone’s short list. And I don’t have any bone to pick with Justin Timberlake (although he didn’t do much to help Janet or soften the reaction she received). He — like many other men — receive different, better and respectful treatment while women are vilified for being in the same position.
Quite frankly, I wish I was surprised. I wish that “wardrobe malfunctions” were an outlier in terms of how women and men are treated disparately — in many aspects of our everyday lives. The disparate treatment is consistent with the challenges that many other entrepreneurs in female health, including myself, have faced and continue to face. When I was building a female sexual health business, my business partner and I contacted more than 100 media outlets network TV, cable TV, radio, web — and 90% of them refused to take money to place our ads for our safe, clinically-proven product. Let me say that again — THEY WOULD NOT TAKE OUR MONEY TO BUY ADVERTISING. It became crystal clear that we would not — under any circumstances — get access to advertise our product in places, channels and outlets where our targets might be looking — despite the clear need or desire for the products. At that same moment in time, the erectile dysfunction commercials for Viagra, Levitra and Cialis had and continue to have free reign — and appeared on major networks during major programming, including the Super Bowl.
This has happened time and time again over the last 10 years. I am not talking ancient history, but current experience. In the last few months, MTA that oversees subway advertising in New York City once again demonstrated is comfort with applying disparate standards to provide advertising real estate to male health focused products vs. women’s. Dame Products — makers of award-winning sex toys — was told recently (as were Thinx and Unbound before them) that they can’t advertise products of a sexual nature. Interestingly, this ruling didn’t apply to hims, a direct to consumer company that delivers hair loss tagline, “hard made easy.”
So maybe let’s use the next weeks and months to keep the conversation going about equity, continuing to shine a light on these blatant inequities. Let us (men and women) go to our proverbial windows like Peter Finch in “Network” and declare “I’m mad as hell and I am not going to take this anymore!.