Too Much Show at the Super Bowl

Re “Tuned In, Turned Off and Put Out,” Feb. 3: Yes! George W. and Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael K. Powell have finally redeemed themselves. They really are “restoring integrity to the White House” and to the national airwaves.

After sending us headlong into war, our fearless leader has now decided to investigate all those phony claims he made about weapons of mass destruction. Best of all, so that Americans can trust their president again, he’s going to handpick all his inquisitors himself.

Not to be outdone, after hand-tailoring the new media ownership guidelines for his good friends Viacom and Fox, our now “outraged” FCC chairman has decided to launch an immediate investigation into that halftime (peep) show produced by his pal Viacom’s wayward children, MTV and CBS. And I thought Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Justice Antonin Scalia were the only Republicans who knew how to get to the bottom of things.

Paul Padilla

San Gabriel

*

A split-second, remote shot of a woman’s breast is not obscene. What’s obscene is that the media largely talked about nothing else but this. If Powell wastes a dime of taxpayer money to investigate this incident, he should be fired.

Ken Lanxner

San Clemente

*

I suppose Powell has no problem with the scantily clad cheerleaders that are just as much a part of the National Football League as the halftime show. The indecency here isn’t the form of the nude body, which has been celebrated for centuries in art and culture. Rather, it’s the objectification that reduces women in our society to the status of eye candy that is deplorable.

Tom Tillotson

Riverside

*

Crispin Sartwell’s “Halftime Was One Big Rip-Off” (Commentary, Feb. 3), on the Super Bowl halftime show, was right on the mark. Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake can’t sing, play an instrument or write a memorable song. The so-called dancing doesn’t remind me of Fred Astaire or Gene Kelly either. So what exactly do they do? Perhaps that is why they pull stunts such as this. With all the great music and musicians we have in America, this is the drivel the suits choose to showcase to the world? Shameful at best.

Steven Behm

Burbank

*

Once again, we have it all wrong, our indignation focused on a nanosecond glimpse of a naked breast, rather than on lyrics sung by Jackson, Timberlake, Nelly and Kid Rock.

Miriam Z. Silver

Beverly Hills

*

Oh, come on now. My kids sat through commercials for two erectile dysfunction products, a dog apparently trained to grab male crotches and an explosion caused by equine flatulence causing a bad hair day. Then the FCC gets upset by a two-second display of a relatively beautiful breast. I would rather my kids see the latter. Maybe corporate America needs to clean up its act.

Bill Mosier

Hermosa Beach

*

Children are starving in downtown Los Angeles, and the FCC wants to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars investigating the display of Jackson’s breast.

Brian Bard

Glendale

*

The opening ceremonies for the Super Bowl were so moving and beautifully executed. All of the viewers in our home were in tears. The loss of those wonderful astronauts was tragic.

The game was great. Everyone agreed it was one of the best Super Bowls we’ve ever seen. But it was all ruined by the trashy MTV halftime show. It is sad that people will remember that scummy performance more than the beautiful opening tribute. The bottom line: Anything for publicity!

Robert L. West

Calabasas