I don’t think I’m a prude, but was Ms. Knowles dressed appropriately for a family event? Add the ode to her self-described “bootylicious” body, and I’m thinking that she and the NFL could have made some better choices in staging the halftime show. And I say that as someone who thinks Knowles is both very beautiful and very talented. This just wasn’t the moment to dress so scantily.
For what it is worth, my children were focused on the music sounding so fake.
So let me get this straight. You let them watch a game between a team with a guy who probably killed someone on it and a team with a homophobe on it in which players regularly receive serious injuries for sport but you’re worried about Beyonce showing too much skin?
Now Josh, I’m sure you could tell the difference between allowing my children to watch those men play football and, say, listening to them describe their views and experiences. Without knowing anything about Lewis’ history or the 49er player’s views on homosexuality, I’m sure the children were unaffected.
Now the point about the morality of watching a violent sport in which men (can) suffer injury to their brains (and thus to their faculties of reason) is a more serious one. However, I think the lessons of watching men behave in a manly fashion matches or exceeds any negative effects.
And btw, I’m open to the notion that the argument I’ve seen applied to purchasing porn might be relevant to football. Namely, one should not incentivize (via the purchase of a ticket/watching the game on tv) a behavior that is inconsistent with human flourishing. However, there is a huge collective action problem involved that means that the games will still occur and only I will suffer not watching them. On the other hand, perhaps the virtuous man abstains from participating in the market for something inconsistent with human thriving even if the impact on that market is basically zero. The problem with that is that there are some positive effects of playing/watching the sport that aren’t simply entertainment.
Knowles would be about 1 million times more beautiful if she left something (anything) to the imagination. Her current wardrobe just looks trashy.
When I watch NFL football, I am acutely aware that many of those men are going to suffer from horrific effects on their brains. I am watching dudes perform a particularly gruesome form of suicide. That’s why I only watched the Super Bowl this year. Why did I even watch the SB? Akrasia.
It wasn’t that long ago that her routine would not be appropriate in any public setting outside a strip club. Now it is on national TV. The sad thing is how many people are not even bothered by how coarse and sexualized the public sphere has become. Sure, we can fast forward or turn it off. But wouldn’t it be more fun to have a musical show that focused on music, rather than being so brazenly slutty.
[...] been thinking about my colleague Grover Cleveland’s short post on Beyonce’s wardrobe (or, rather, lack thereof) at the Super Bowl. He started about by saying, [...]
Grover, I think that Justin McCabe has you dead to rights.
The incidence of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) is extremely high in NFL players and it leads to far higher-than-normal rates of ALS, Alzheimer’s, suicide, and an average life expectancy of 57 for those who have careers of a normal length.
These are extremely severe harms by any normal definition.
By contrast, the harm that comes from unintentional viewing of the common body parts of Beyonce Knowles is arguably non-existent.
To repeat: when you watch men play football, you’re watching them maim and cause potentially fatal harm to each other. When you watch the half-time show, you’re watching something classless but without any objectively harmful effects.