The First Breast of America
What does it take to shock a nation? World conflict doesn't seem to get much attention until a Boeing 767 does a three-pointer into your eighty-third floor inbox. Rape doesn't matter unless a black man with a pituitary condition allegedly plays a bit of "one-on-one" with a pint-sized white woman in Colorado, and corporate greed is only a misprint on the bottom-line until America's favourite embodiment of Mary Richards meets Donald Trump chokes herself on more than an errant strand of yarn.
But show a breast on national television...well, folks, it's time to stop the presses.
America apparently saw its very first human mammary last week. Yes, Americans actually have breasts, particularly female Americans, which was demonstrated most amply by none other than Janet Jackson, she of the most famous, well-adjusted family this side of Buckingham Palace.
The land of the chaste, the home of the pure, where children suckle well-concealed cows instead of mothers, and men swear that they really did hear about the rhythm method before pretending that the triplets on their doorstep are some sort of Barnum and Bailey refugees, went into apoplectic seizure at the sight of one C-cup breast.
That split-second moment of exposure has had just about everyone other than Jerry Falwell overheating their VCRs trying to isolate the singular photographic frame in question, and has become the most sought-after image in internet history, topping any and all searches for Paris Hilton pics, or when and where Bill Clinton achieved more than a good draw on a Cuban cigar.
Our American friends need to get out more.
Now, while it would draw some serious publicity this side of the forty-ninth should Ann Murray do more than bare her belly button, I'd like to think that the fact Janet Jackson not only has a breast, but that it flops worse than an overripe papaya would come as no surprise to anyone over the age of thirty.
One can only assume the poor woman goes to the same plastic surgeon as her brother Michael.
Yet people really wanted to cover up the whole incident; it was a mistake, they really didn't mean it, Justin Timberlake was snorting too much Clorox. The fact that the song was called "Rock Your Body (have you "nekkid" by the end of this song)" didn't seem to register on pundits still mesmerized by the first areole they'd seen since they were weaned. And the only interesting thing from Super Bowl XXXVIII's halftime, aside from how exactly they embalm Steven Tyler year after year, was excused and swept under the Astroturf harder than three tons of Iraqi Anthrax.
My God...you can have a television ad where a man gets his crotch renovated by an obedient canine, but one floppy breast with a medallion clamped around its nipple is news?
This got more play in Canadian media than a Newfoundlander being blown up by an Afghani!
Not taking any chances, CBS and the NFL have begun "Operation Nipple Hide" on all fronts, by not only introducing a five-minute tape delay during Sunday's Grammy Awards broadcast, with the concern that Justin Timberlake might get it in his head to do another on-the-spot tailoring job that would need a quick dose of digital "massaging," but also the preventative step of cancelling JC Chasez's appearance during Pro Bowl halftime because some of his lyrics contained the words "horny" and "naughty."
Facing the possibility of having an all-out re-enactment of "Deep Throat" on their hands, the NFL prudently stuck with a cadre of smiling hula dancers with triple-reinforced grass skirts, fearing one of Mr. Timberlake's many alleged body doubles might get past the NFL's crack team of security that allowed a streaker on the playing field only the week before.
But with the puritan pride of America at stake, one can only guess that future shows will feature the likes of Tony Bennett with hosts Tony Dow and Jerry Mathers (as the Beaver), while the Grammys will insist that Shania Twain wear nothing but full-length farm dresses and wear her hair in a bun, because obviously the problems of America stem from too much cleavage and too much sex, where the road to hell is paved with the latest underwire creations from Victoria's Secret, and moral ruin is only a nipple pierce away.
And to think I thought they were just tits.
