Her appearance on the Grammy Awards in 2009 when she was about 8½ months pregnant was one of the more beautiful live televised performances of recent memory. M.I.A.'s bird-flipping, expletive-teasing stint in last night's Super Bowl half-time show, however, is being blasted as the ugliest stunt by a pop star since The Great Boob-Baring Escapade of 2004 (Janet Jackson's).
NBC and the NFL immediately went into apology mode today, with NBC pointing out that the NFL was in charge of booking the musicians (a proverbial "wuzn't me!"). M.I.A. herself hasn't offered up any kind of reaction yet, nor has her hostess in this case, Madonna.
Looking back at the clip – posted below – the S-bomb that M.I.A. supposedly dropped was pretty clearly defused. Of course, you know what she intends to say, but you don't actually hear it. It's as clean as any radio edit that the FCC would approve, and it's arguably no worse than when you see but don't hear an NFL player or coach screaming an F-bomb over a botched call or whatever. Telecasters love to reshow those cussing reactions.
The blazing middle finger, on the other hand, is pretty blatant and egregious. But then, what do you expect? M.I.A. is no N.W.A., but she's a provocative hip-hop artist with a mean streak. Her new single, after all, is titled "Bad Girls" (the video coolly seems to be the Sri Lankan-born rapper's nod to women's rights in Muslim countries). This doesn't make her stunt OK. In fact, it was quite trite. No doubt, she was probably just looking for attention. Which is pretty much what you get when you book an act like her.
If NBC and the NFL want a safe half-time show, they should just go ahead and rebook the Black Eyed Peas for next year. Or at least NBC should work on its edit-button skills.
