To Bare is Human

Ok, so I’m sure you’ve all heard just about enough of this whole Terrell Owens-Desperate Housewives thing from Monday Night Football, right? Well too bad. I’m giving you more.

Like most of you, I didn’t actually see the promo before Monday’s game, because I was at work. The MNF telecast begins here on the west coast at 6pm, a full hour before I am released from my shackles at the Hyde Park Gulag for the night, so the better part of yesterday afternoon and this morning trying to hunt down a clear, uncut and eh-hem clean copy of the clip. Well I just saw it here on iFilm and I gotta say: what the fuck is the hubbub, bub?

First off, I have yet to see an episode of Desperate Housewives so I can’t exactly call myself an expert on the talents of Ms. Nicolette Sheridan (though IMDB was kind enough to point out to me that she was married to Harry Hamlin from LA Law, played Paige Matheson on Knot’s Landing, and that her half brother Nick is Telly Savalas’ son…does this chick have “I ♥ the 80’s” tattooed on her ass or what?). I can only assume that Ms. Sheridan plays the mysterious and kinky widow next door to Teri Hatcher’s new-to-the-neighborhood protag, the Kim Catrall to her Sara Jessica Parker, if you will (am I close?) So she’s a slut, yadda yadda, and she’s in the locker room trying to seduce T.O. into skipping the game and screwing her instead. You know the story from here: he walks away, she drops the towel, his eyes bug out like he’s never seen a naked white girl before, he says “guess they’re gonna have to win without me” and she jumps in his arms before we cut to Teri “Lois” Hatcher and Felicity “I coulda been on The West Wing if I’d kept my damn trap shut” Huffman watching the promo on their own TV and disparaging the bad taste before switching to the much more palatable MNF, leaving the viewer to ask himself: “was that Paige Matheson from Knot’s Landing?” and “I thought sex before games weakens the legs?”

So now there’s this big brouhaha from the NFL and the FCC complaining about the spot, and here’s Michael “my daddy needs a job” Powell railing against ABC for allowing such “inappropriate and unsuitable” material on the air when children could be watching. Powell even went so far as to quip "I wonder if Walt Disney would be proud" during an interview with CNBC, referring to Disney’s corporate ownership of the network (You may remember similar rhetoric from Powell when one of the Jackson Two was freed by Justin Timberlake during the Super Bowl last year). This apparently came on the heels of a public outcry to ABC affiliates and the NFL from irate and puritanical fans that simply cannot BELIEVE that a television network would have the gall to air a woman’s bare back and ankles on TV throughout the country and the world.

Here’s the thing. I’ve watched this thing a couple of times now, and I’ve checked numerous times to see if there is anything else that’s shown that shouldn’t have been shown or said that shouldn’t have been said or whatever. I got nothing. Trust me, I’ve studied the tape extensively. Nothing. Actually, I should be more specific. There is the sexually charged atmosphere of the entire spot; the implied nudity by Ms. Sheridan; the bare back, shoulders, calves and ankles on display as the towel drops; the implication of intercourse. So no, this isn’t The Plucky Little Toaster Saves the Circus or anything, but…

…Was anything shown, seen, said or implied during that promo any worse than your typical NFL telecast on the weekend? Minimally attired cheerleaders, bimbo sideline reporters, sustained and encouraged violence on a massive scale, beer commercials featuring chicks wrestling in a fountain, bikini girls playing volleyball, hot girls partying all night…oh, and those twins. And need I remind you that, here on the left coast, these harbingers of our society’s moral decay begin bright and early at 10 o’clock on a Sunday morning, right after the Capitol Gang and Meet the Press wrap up and before must of “God’s people” are back from church. So unless the moralists are too busy a-prayin’ to waste their Sunday’s on this barbaric display, instead preferring to wait ‘til Monday, there must be something else.

I riddle you this, dear reader: Had the object of Ms. Sheridan’s affection been Tom Brady or Peyton Manning or Kurt Warner, or Curt Schilling or Roger Clemens or any other premiere white athlete, would there be this kind of public outrage at the MNF promo? Would the virtuous Middle Americans have been up in arms at this tawdry display of sexual wantonness had the athlete in question not been a brash, trash-talking, superior black athlete?

Did it strike anyone else as strange that in the wake of the Super Bowl wardrobe malfunction (I eschew quotes in this case as the incident and its excuse has clearly moved beyond the ironic and into our lexicon) it was the offending appendage of Ms. Jackson that was the focus of the public and subsequently the FCC’s ire, and not Mr. Timberlake, the actual offender.

We as a country have a come a long way from the Jim Crow south, and while those laws limiting minority involvement in society have been struck down, the mindset persists. It’s time for America, if you’ll excuse the derogatory pun, to call a spade a spade and to realize that a double standard for morality and virtue is counterproductive, hypocritical and harmful to the furthering of a just and equitable society. It discredits the moralizer far more than the moralized. And most detrimentally, it prevents network television from airing (without a 5-second delay) any quality nipple slips, f-bombs or beaver shots that could help mold and develop an impressionable young mind into a soulless heathen like yours truly.