Scandal of Nipplegate

The scandal of Nipplegate (Portemanteau word formed of English nipple , Nipple, and suffix - spoils , of the Scandale of Watergate) is a media business American which burst on February 1st 2004 at the time of the retransmission of the Super Bowl XXXVIII 2004 on CBS.

During its Duet with Janet Jackson, at the time the half-time, Justin Timberlake, the singer of the group Sync, as envisaged tore off in choreography part of the long-line bra of this one. The device did not function exactly as at the time of the repetitions and, instead of revealing only the red bra of the singer, Timberlake updated the right center of Janet Jackson, decorated of a piercing and a jewel in the star shape.

It followed in the United States of America a media campaign that of aucuns regard as slightly disproportionate compared to the gravity of the facts. In spite of the excuses of Jackson and Timberlake, the business profited from a cover from press more important than the democratic primary educations .

Michael Powell, president of FCC, federal Commission of the communication, and wire of the Secretary of State Colin Powell, due to react. He declared himself “outraged that such a spectacle could be presented to 85 million Americans and their families”. Several religious groups announced “severe consequences” for CBS and MTV, the two Co-producers of the spectacle.

CBS announced that Janet Jackson does not appear on February 8th with the ceremony of the Grammy Awards, it also retransmise by the chain. NFL decided to cancel spectacle Hip-hop envisaged for half-time of Pro Bowl there (the match which marks the end of the season of the American football), Sync having to interpret a song considered to be “too suggestive”.

ABC decided retransmettre the ceremony of the Oscars, on February 29th, with one differed 5 minutes in order to be able to cut any overflow considered to be inappropriate.

February 5th, the NBC cut a scene of the televised series Urgences , in which the center of a 80 year old appeared surreptitiously patient. NBC justified its gesture by “the atmosphere created by the events of the week”.

As for AOL, silent partner of the half-time of the Super Bowl, it asked to be compensated for part of the 10 million US dollars which it had invested.

Some voices rose nevertheless to underline “ridiculous situation”. Among those, one can quote the radio presenter Howard Stern and the leader-writer of the NewYork Times Maureen Dowd.

This incident had immediately an impact on Internet: “Janet Jackson” became the expression being the subject of the greatest number of requests for all the American search engines. Certain observers estimate that the number of generated research was more important than that observed following the events of the September 11th, 2001. This business would have been most required in only one day on Internet since its creation. In the days which followed this emission, 20 % of research on Yahoo related to this event. On Lycos, research on “Janet Jackson” and “Justin Timberlake” were multiplied respectively by 680 and 35. Research on the singer was 80 times more than those on Britney Spears, which is however often at the head keywords of the search engines. A great number of requests seem moved by the research of the video online of this incident.

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