Six years ago, Super Bowl XXXVIII was home to the half-time show that featured the now infamous nip-slip heard ’round the world. Subsequently, the Federal Communications Commission fined CBS for the wardrobe malfunction-littered Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake collaboration, propelling the television network into a world of a-couple-seconds-delayed performances of over-the-hill rock stars. The incident also sent CBS into an era of crazed censorship where nothing was left to afterthought, thus misleading the network into a frenzied judgment on the moral high ground of everything, ever.
Hence the ‘appropriate advocacy’ line drawn for this year’s Super Bowl advertising: CBS has decided to run an anti-abortion advertisement after banning one from the United Church of Christ six years ago on the grounds that the latter took a ‘position on one side of a current controversial issue of public importance.’
The anti-abortion advertisement, being marketed by Focus on the Family as a pro-family ad, features college football star Tim Tebow and his mother who chose to go against her doctor’s orders and carry a potentially problematic pregnancy to term. Apparently CBS doesn’t consider the anti-abortion view to be a controversial stance on an issue of importance, while the UCC’s ad, which touted a welcoming church for all and caused such a stir with its acceptance of the gay community, was deemed worthy of eradication.
After the Women’s Media Center called on CBS to drop the ad, CBS announced new rules and regulations around ‘appropriate’ advocacy ads, adding that 30-second multimillion-dollar time slots were still available. A genius idea to get meaningful political discourse the attention it deserves, as Americans tune in for the biggest television event of the year? Or a tactless attempt at an ad war to the tune of million of dollars in revenue? The latter seems more plausible.
In focusing on the removal of on-air presentations of over-sexed pop acts, CBS overlooked the hypocrisy of their commercials, essentially banning Britney from berating viewers by bopping around a stage in a bikini top while bypassing the scantly-clad Budweiser girl during commercial breaks. Sure, the line is drawn at nudity and general common sense, but it’s only enforced during showtime. Playing catch-up with makeshift rules about advocacy advertising’s appropriateness is nothing but CBS catering to a right-winged political agenda.