Madonna’s music and fashion defined a generation. Her trend-setter status in the 80s has lasted long enough to influence popular artists such as Lady GaGa and Brittney Spears. However, during her Super Bowl performance, the attention was stripped away from her, forcing Americans to focus on artist M.I.A. instead.
The hip hop and world music artist collaborated with Madonna, Nicki Minaj, LMFAO and Cee Lo Green during the XLVI Super Bowl. While the performance altogether was ostentatious enough as planned, M.I.A. decided to improvise by making her own gesture during the show.
Nicki Minaj and M.I.A. came up from the stage dressed as cheerleaders for Madonna’s new single “Gimme All Your Luvin”. M.I.A. was featured in the single with a rap, and during the performance, she flashed her middle finger at the camera.
NBC noticed seconds after and did its best to censor the hand sign but failed. Most viewers noticed yellow lines from the stage appearing all over the screen.
M.I.A.is now currently under the line of fire from critics everywhere, attacking her for her “obscenity”.
While the Super Bowl is a family event, most music these days is slightly inappropriate for a family environment. M.I.A. is an artist, and if she felt the need to convey the mood of her rap physically, she had every right to do so; a good performer sells the song to the crowd and she did put on a indeed good show.
Parents need to understand that their kids will inevitably see vulgar symbols in everyday life. In addition to merely when stepping into public, children of all ages are frequently exposed to poor language and inappropriate scenarios by the media. Often the parents themselves teach their kids quite a lot by swearing at home, specifically in the throes of ‘road rage’.
In reality, only the producers of NBC who were closely monitoring the show noticed the finger in the air. Many viewers, such as myself, were confused as to what was happening and did not catch the actual finger. If it weren’t for all of the media coverage and producers being overly apologetic, no one would have noticed at all.
America has evolved into a country that includes many genres of music, most most of which with some would call inappropriate lyrics. We are “the land of the free,” and if you can not express yourself in America, then humanity has clearly failed.
Music is meant to serve as a channel to release emotion through. Therefore the artist’s lyrics and dance movements should be included in the protection of artistic expression.
Elizabeth Wilson • Mar 1, 2012 at 7:34 am
While I’m willing to grant that most music today is obscene in one way or another, the “kids will see it anyway so why not here” still does not justify her action. Thus the expression. “two wrongs don’t make a right”.
A television network is considered privately owned property and it is perfectly in a networks rights to restrict the things you can and can’t say. Its not anti-free speech to do that, in fact its part of what having free speech means. You’re free to say anything you want, but if you make that gesture in my house, you’ll be asked to leave and that’s my right. If the networks and critics want to condemn MIA for her obscene gestures, its perfectly within their rights as well. And quite frankly, I think if you can’t express yourself in any other way then by using that gesture, you’re really not that talented. There are over a quarter of a million words in the English language, and its perfectly reasonable for a TV network to ask MIA refrain from using obscene gestures to express herself.