In an example of the anti-nipple phenomenon, Canadian actress Pamela Anderson complained that network censors ordered her nipples be 'taped down' during filming of her new TV series, Stacked, so as not to offend prime-time audiences. (Louis Lanzano, The Canadian Press)
This really says it all. The influence of the wingnuts on contemporary culture is out of control.
Considering all the heat Kos is getting out of Pie fight ad, here's a good bookend piece from the news.
TV execs that used to have Suzanne Somers and Farrah Fawcett bouncing around in full flower on TV in the 70s must have found Jeebus and want to protect you from the boobies.
Sixteen months after the Super Bowl's tempest in a C-cup, war has been declared on women's breasts. From Desperate House-wives' deployment of digital nipple-erasers to Victoria's Secret's nipple-negating bras, a campaign is under way to conceal one of the natural features of the female breast.
The producers of TV's Desperate Housewives have reportedly spent thousands of dollars digitally removing the nipples from on-screen images of actresses Teri Hatcher and Nicolette Sheridan. In discussing the show's "nipple problem," series creator Marc Cherry tells the Philadelphia Daily News: "Certain actresses really don't like to wear bras. And we try to accommodate them as much as humanly possible. ... So we've done a lot of blurring."
Jeff Jarvis, founder of buzzmachine.com and creator of Entertainment Weekly, jokingly calls it "the nipple clause." As in, "I have the right to have them, you have the right to airbrush them." A similar situation exists on Canadian actress Pamela Anderson's new TV series, Stacked. In an April interview on Howard Stern's radio show, the actress complained that network censors ordered her nipples be "taped down" during filming so as not to offend prime-time audiences.
"What we have are media executives coming around trying to suggest they should protect us from this, because they're trying to protect themselves," says Mr. Jarvis. "Is there really going to be an outcry? In fact, shouldn't the person who causes that outcry be embarrassed?"
...Gary Grizzle, an associate professor of sociology at Florida's Barry University, says the trend represents a shift from a way of thinking in which a woman's ambition, not her sexuality, was considered the greater menace.
"For most of the '80s and '90s, the real threat, as far as women go, had to do with their career aspirations," he recalls. "Normally, we assume that when the focus is on women, they'll be very sexual and very submissive. It's the ones in the three-piece suits that scare the hell out of us."
Mr. Grizzle says current anti-nipple sentiments are steeped in the same notions that cause some religions to keep women covered up and out of holy places because a woman's "sexuality disrupts everything that men try to accomplish."
(Cross-posted at Pam's House Blend)