Monday morning’s discussion in my 11th-grade American history class veered briefly toward the Super Bowl. Rather than commenting on the game, however, my students quickly moved toward a review of the commercials. Their hands-down favorite was the Bud Light one featuring the flatulent horse. Surprisingly, few even mentioned Janet Jackson’s “flesh flash,” an event that apparently barely registered on their teen radar.
The repudiation of Jackson’s “costume reveal” by the Federal Communications Commission and many Super Bowl viewers was swift, yet no one demonstrated an equally vocal concern that the beer commercials were successfully reaching an audience well under the legal drinking age.
According to statistics compiled by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 3,827 young people aged 15 to 20 were killed in alcohol-related motor vehicle crashes nationwide in 2002. As far as I know, the brief glimpse of a mostly bare breast has never led to a single fatality. Though the FCC and Super Bowl viewers should be outraged, that outrage is sadly misplaced.
