If you can equate the controversial with the groundbreaking, then one of the most groundbreaking performances the world – and I literally do mean the world – has ever seen came from Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake at the 2004 Superbowl.
Immortalized as the “Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction,” this performance merits closer study as a premeditated, defining moment for both singers. I unapologetically reject the claim that Timberlake accidentally ripped off part of Jackson’s clothes because of the statement the artists were making through the whole performance, the major stylistic shift from previous performances and because of the long lasting effects of the gesture.
Jackson unfairly took the huge share of the blame, with many critics calling it a publicity stunt to help promote her newest album at the time. I agree that it was a publicity stunt, just not in the same sense. Jackson needed a new public persona, one that would be associated with breaking convention and defying social norms and would stand for the values of independent women. She looked at the culturally accepted and condemned practices and determined she could create a new form of art through an outrageous, but simple gesture. Through her intense costume, Jackson was presenting a more masculine image of herself and her performances than ever before in her earlier work.
Timberlake, who escaped the public’s wrath nearly scot free, was making an equally significant statement to the world viewing the Superbowl. In this performance Timberlake solidified his public image as a grown up artist with a lot to offer independent of *NSYNC and the guts to be outrageous. By collaborating with a powerful and beautiful female singer and showing he could hold his own in front of television’s largest audience of the year, Timberlake established his coming of age, and successfully broke free from *NSYNC’s dead-end teen idol image.
This performance was remarkably different than any previous performances by either artist. Jackson and Timberlake exemplify all the best elements of liveness, defined in this class as that sensational feeling of being wrapped up, bodily, in a musical performance. The show is riveting, from the intensity of Jackson’s costume and style of dancing to Timberlake’s posture toward her. They do a phenomenal job of playing up the sexual tension between them, creating a simple, but powerful narrative through song and dance. Jackson clearly took embodiment – defined in this class as the way a performance involves the body of the performer, audience, and the relationships between them – to a whole new level, and I don’t just mean that as a bad pun. Clearly the wardrobe malfunction involved the body, specifically the bare right breast, but Jackson also makes a statement with the movement of her whole body through her provocative dancing. Going through with the plan for the song all the way to the exposure at the end showed courage (although it wasn’t perceived as that by the world) and follow-through to the extreme. In that moment Jackson took the fullest advantage of the opportunity every live performance offers by presenting herself completely in the raw and unmediated. A similarly rebellious stunt in a studio recording would never have made it past the record company’s censoring.
For Timberlake, the performance was carefully crafted to be a huge turning point in his career. Starting with his casual but mature clothing, everything he did on stage was a way to distance himself from his teenage heartthrob days. The song’s lyrics (Rock Your Body) showed a capacity for moving on beyond the boy band days of lamenting heartbreak and lauding revenge.
This performance greatly impacted both Timberlake and Jackson’s careers. Timberlake successfully reinvented himself, going on to win two Grammy awards that year thanks to his newly created identity. For Jackson, the stunt evoked an unprecedented reaction from the audience (both in stadium and worldwide via the live television coverage and the miracle of YouTube). The sheer force of the public’s reaction presents the question of whether this powerful public statement was appropriately suited to the audience. Obviously the FCC thought not, but I’m talking even more specifically in terms of how well the audience helped Jackson achieve her goals. I would argue that it did not, since the world focused more on finding someone to blame for the blatant disregard for standards in mass communication, rather than on the new persona Jackson had created for herself. While Timberlake has managed to keep himself relevant and stayed in the public’s good graces, Jackson has largely faded out of the public eye, rather than becoming the symbol of women’s liberation and counter-cultural rebellion.
This breakthrough performance provides a great case study for the importance of the worldwide audience’s collaboration for an artist to achieve his or her goals. For Timberlake, the massive audience was the perfect test group for the new JT, but for Jackson, the public outcry nearly negated the effects of her incredibly bold move.
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