This, in all sincerity, is what I expect in return for my taxes: a five-year-long absurdist theater performance about a magically, awesomely, mesmerizingly powerful nipple that was revealed for less than one second to millions of half-drunk spectators on a Sunday afternoon in 2004. The budget: Millions of dollars and rising. Starring: the FCC, the highest court in the United States, major media companies, and a cast of thousands of lawyers. Script: A 12-foot-high stack incomprehensible legal documents. I hope the show never ends. Bravo!
The commission also reasserted that the reveal was off limits for broadcast TV between the hours of 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. "[The FCC] reasonably determined in this case that the graphic and shocking, albeit brief, exposure of Janet Jackson's bare right breast to a nationwide audience composed of millions of children and adults was indecent," the FCC said.
Back in June, the court asked for new briefs in the case after the Supreme Court's May 4 decision to vacate the Third Circuit's ruling that the Jackson fine was arbitrary and capricious.
The FCC relied heavily on the Fox decision in its brief, saying that "as the Fox Courts interpretation of the pertinent regulatory history now makes clear, the repetition requirement that exempted fleeting expletives from enforcement has no logical application to images."
We have always been at war with the one-second glimpse of Janet Jackson's nipple
