Super-Cooled Sports Dirt

Abstract

This study provides a select thick reading of how the moral contagion that followed the exposure of Janet Jackson's breast during the broadcast of the 2004 Super Bowl moved into the commercial realm. It is framed by an assessment of how the Super Bowl was “super-cooled” by the “moral panic” that followed the Jackson incident. Super Bowl commercials, usually “celebrated” in postmortems of the broadcast, came under closer moral interrogation. To understand the cultural fallout and “cooled environment” that ensued, a critical approach that blends concerns over “communicative dirt,” the characterized reader, and ethical criticism is used in the analysis of four commercials that were “banned” from the 2005 Super Bowl broadcast. Conclusions focus on dynamics of moral contagion in the Jackson incident and its likely impact on moral contours of the public sphere in light of changed notions of “banned” texts in the internet era and selectivity in processes that lead to cooling.