By: Bailey A.
On February 1st, 2004, during the halftime show of Super Bowl XXXVIII, Janet Jackson had a devastating and completely accidental wardrobe malfunction which ultimately led to the demise of her career. Justin Timberlake, who was performing with Jackson, was supposed to end their performance by ripping off part of her costume to reveal a red lace bra, but instead accidentally revealed her right breast. This became a tremendously infamous scandal known as “Nipplegate”, and led to her being the most searched term, event, and image in internet history. Unfairly, Jackson’s career met its downfall due to this accident, while Timberlake’s still prospers.
As a result of this scandal, Janet Jackson was uninvited to introduce a tribute at the 2004 Grammy Awards, while Justin Timberlake went on to perform at them. This situation on it’s own is highly unfair, considering the incident was no more the fault of Jackson than it was of Timberlake, or anyone else for that matter. It could have happened to anyone.
At this year’s Super Bowl, the halftime show was performed by the band Maroon 5- a pop rock band who had never performed for a halftime show before. Adam Levine, the band’s lead singer, removed his tank-top during the performance, exposing his chest and yes, nipples. This, unlike Jackson’s incident, was intentional. Since the performance, Levine has been met with women praising him on the internet and men recreating his look. There are several people on the internet, though, that have compared Levine to Jackson, and ask the question: Why is it acceptable for a man to intentionally expose his nipple, when it is considered unacceptable for a woman’s nipple to be exposed, even accidentally?
The criticism of Adam Levine does not stem from the idea of him being shirtless, as it wouldn’t bother most, but the idea that Janet Jackson’s incident could not be brushed off or ignored as well is where the problem lies.
The fact that people still have to talk about this incident (that lasted less than a second) is a problem in it’s own. There are many serious double standards in regards to gender, and the idea of men being able to acceptably go shirtless, even on live television, while a woman cannot is one of them. Another lies in the fact that celebrity women are constantly blamed and ridiculed for wardrobe malfunctions that they have no control of. Until people can learn to get past these gender based double standards our society has set, this problem will live on. For as long as these double standards shall last, there will always be women fighting to be seen as equal.
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