50 Most Memorable Super Bowl Moments, No. 19: Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction

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By Jay Busbee January 12, 2016 1:51 AM Shutdown Corner

As the NFL approaches its highly anticipated golden anniversary Super Bowl, Yahoo Sports takes a look back at some of the most memorable moments in the game's history.

In our rankings, the moments go beyond the great scores and plays. We also take a look at entertainment performances, scandals/controversies and other events associated with corresponding Super Bowls.

Here's a look at moment No. 19:

Wardrobe Malfunction

The reaction was instant and universal: Did you see that? Did that just happen? And in half a second, Justin Timberlake changed the face of the Super Bowl halftime show – indeed, changed all of popular culture – for years to come. That half-second, of course, was the infamous Janet Jackson Wardrobe Malfunction of Super Bowl XXXVIII, marking the moment when a halftime show became a centerpiece, when shrill debate about the coarsening of popular culture spread far wider than any story about the game itself. (The New England Patriots beat the Carolina Panthers, and if you knew that without looking, congratulations and seek help.)
To set the stage – pardon the pun – this was a 2004 performance by Jackson, one of the 1990s most popular performers and one of a growing line of huge names performing at halftime of the Super Bowl. The days of "Up With People" and Carol Channing were long gone; the entertainment industry had decided to stake its claim to a share of the most popular show on television.
During the show, Jackson performed a sequence of her greatest hits, then brought on stage Timberlake – who rose to popularity as a member of *NSYNC – to sing Timberlake's "Rock Your Body." The song isn't exactly a church hymn; Jackson and Timberlake performed ever-more-salacious moves as the song moved toward its climax. Then, right about the time that parents decided it was time to send the kids to bed, the song wrapped up with the line "gonna have you naked by the end of this song." Timberlake reached over, pulled off a piece of Jackson's bustier, and exposed her breast for an instant. Jackson appeared shocked, and the performance ended immediately thereafter. But the blowback was immediate and unrelenting.
Jackson's people said that the tearaway chunk of the bustier was supposed to reveal Jackson's bra, hence the creation of the Orwellian term "wardrobe malfunction." MTV, which had staged the show, released a statement throwing Jackson and Timberlake under the bus: "The tearing of Janet Jackson's costume was unrehearsed, unplanned, completely unintentional and was inconsistent with assurances we had about the content of the performance. MTV regrets this incident occurred and we apologize to anyone who was offended by it."

That did nothing to calm an enraged CBS, which immediately banned MTV from any further halftime performances. The FCC hit CBS with a $550,000 fine, and while CBS appealed the fine, it would take more than eight years for the case to come to a final close. The case traveled all the way to the Supreme Court, and eventually ended with courts ruling in CBS' favor and voiding the fine.

So what real impact did the Wardrobe Malfunction have? While the Internet was already a societal force, social media wasn't yet a viable means of communication. When millions of people sought out the video, they searched Jackson's name more than any term in Internet history, and in so doing helped foster the creation of a comprehensive site dedicated exclusively to video: a little outlet known as YouTube.

The resulting outcry led to crackdowns on, and cancellations of, perceived "crude" television and radio shows, as executives feared gargantuan federal fines for their violations as well. But even at the time, many commentators thought the outcry over a brief exposure was overblown, an opportunity for grandstanding in the guise of "protecting public morality." Indeed, a decade after the incident, then-FCC chairman Michael Powell admitted that the reaction was overblown, and that he himself had contributed to that: "I think we've been removed from this long enough for me to tell you that I had to put my best version of outrage on that I could put on. Part of it was surreal, right? Look, I think it was dumb to happen, and they knew the rules and were flirting with them, and my job is to enforce the rules, but, you know, really? This is what we're gonna do?"

Today, when the most popular program on television shows human beings being devoured alive, the idea of a single nipple flash causing such an outcry seems positively quaint. But the NFL is so dedicated to protecting the perceived family-friendliness of its halftime show – which, to be fair, is the most-viewed entertainment program every year – that it selects deliberately inoffensive performers and cracks down harshly on any violators. (The rapper M.I.A. was hit with a multi-million-dollar lawsuit after flipping the bird during Madonna's performance a few years after Jackson.)

Jackson's career never really recovered after the Wardrobe Malfunction, which is a shame, particularly given the fact that Timberlake – who, let us not forget, was directly responsible for the "malfunction" – has seen his star grow exponentially larger.

It'll be a long time before we see anything like the Wardrobe Malfunction on a Super Bowl halftime show. When we do, it'll likely be part of the performance, and your grandchildren will think you're old and out-of-touch if you're surprised.