MIA Could Face Breach Of Contract Action Over Super Bowl Gesture

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Stupidity is often a harmless thing. Sometimes, it becomes hi-damn-larious.

It quits being funny when it lands asses in slings right alongside the individual who committed whatever poorly thought-out act.

M.I.A. looking right into a camera and giving millions watching the Super Bowl XLVI halftime show Sunday around the world the finger might just land her a breach of contract suit, Yahoo! Sports reports. Who knows? Whether or not she faces civil consequences might just depend on into how bad a mood backlash from the Parents Television Council puts NFL and NBC representatives.

NFL spokesman Greg Aiello explained that halftime performers sign a conduct agreement barring conduct like indecent or worse "obscene" gestures and language during live broadcasts - delay for censoring or not.

"Obscene" is in quotations for a reason. Legally speaking, it's a loaded word, loosely but commonly considered the point at which racy publicly broadcast content crosses a line and into territory in which Federal Communications Commission licensees face penalties after letting certain words or images loose amid the airwaves. In 1973's landmark Supreme Court free-speech case Miller v. California, a three-pronged test was devised that would theoretically determine whether a work could be considered "obscene":

1. Whether the average person, applying contemporary community standards (not national standards, despite what other tests previously asked), would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest;

2. Whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct or excretory functions specifically defined by applicable state law; and

3. Whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.

So, the good news: the show overall being pretty tame, M.I.A., the NFL and NBC are probably out of the woods on what would legally be deemed "obscenity" by that test. Then there's the bad news: by the 1978-upheld FCC v. Pacifica Foundation decision regarding airing George Carlin's "Filthy Words" routine during an afternoon radio broadcast (finding the material "indecent but not obscene"), the Court ruled that the FCC's interest in keeping unwanted language out of American homes gave the FCC the right to lay the smack down on parties that can't keep it clean.

Aiello declined telling Yahoo! Sports whether or not the league would seek action against M.I.A. She's remained publicly mum about the incident, though once source supposedly close to her told British tabloid The Sun that she was "incredibly sorry." Madonna had personally invited her to perform with her, and was reportedly furious after the incident, feeling it distracted from her own performance.

"I understand it's punk rock and everything, but to me there was such a feeling of love and good energy and positivity," Madonna said during a recent radio chat with Ryan Seacrest. "It seemed negative . . . It's such a teenager, irrelevant thing to do. There was such a feeling of love and unity there. What was the point? It was just out of place."

For the NFL and NBC's respective parts, the hot potato of blame is bound to hit somebody between the eyes, the way the two have thrown it around.

No one knows right now whether NBC faces a financial penalty over airing the bird, and Yahoo! Sports claims FCC representatives declined issuing a statement. An NBC spokesman emailed Yahoo! and admitted that the network's missed blurring the finger completely by probably less than a second. The representative also apologized for airing it at all. Still, the representative took what sounds like a swipe at the NFL's negligence.

"The NFL hired the talent and produced the halftime show," the representative told Yahoo!. "Our system was late to obscure the inappropriate gesture and we apologize to viewers."

The NFL, of course, had its own equal-but-opposite take.

"We produce the show, the network televises it, and the system is supposed to work to make sure nothing is shown of this kind. It clearly wasn't part of the plan," Aiello said.

Meanwhile, as the two groups play catch with a terrified Mr. Potato-Head over the "Mea culpa," the Parents Television Council has gone so far as claiming that the NFL out-and-out lied about producing a clean show, especially in the wake of Janet Jackson's lovely lady lump saying "howdy" in 2004 and the halftime show including a parade of family-friendly Rock and Roll Hall of Famers like Paul McCartney, Prince, Bruce Springsteen and the Rolling Stones up until the 2011 game.

"NBC fumbled and the NFL lied because a performer known as M.I.A. felt it necessary to flip off millions of families," PTC president Tim Winter wrote in a released statement. "It is unfortunate that a spectacular sporting event was overshadowed once again by broadcasting the selfish acts of a desperate performer."

Ouch. He called her "desperate."

"Last week the NFL formally told the PTC - and the American public - that the Super Bowl halftime show would be 'appropriate'," Winter's statement continued. "Most families would agree that the middle finger aimed directly at them is not appropriate, especially during the most watched television event of the year."

Winter's brow-beating added "The mechanism NBC had in place to catch this type of material completely failed, and the network cannot say it was caught off-guard . . . They chose a lineup full of performers who have based their careers on shock, profanity and titillation. Instead of preventing indecent material, they enabled it. M.I.A. used  a middle finger shamelessly to bring controversial attention to herself, while effectively telling an audience filled with children, 'F*** you.'"

Though NBC surely had some input, someone clearly needs a fact-check on the statements here. It doesn't look like it would favor Winter, though. Since both Aiello's and NBC's statements line up that the NFL gave Madonna, M.I.A. and others the final nod, it doesn't look like NBC "hired" anybody.

Putting that aside, the PTC is overreacting like a hyperactive chihuahua to a doorbell. Yes, the gesture aired, but it aired very, very briefly. Dennis Franz's naked butt received more screen time than M.I.A.'s digit. For that matter, the gesture's time on the screen pre-blur was probably about the same as that of Jackson's nipple in 2004.

That being said, welcome to a game of "Why We Can't Have Nice Things." For the second year running, the NFL felt it had cleared the Nipplegate fallout enough to gradually phase in some more contemporary acts after years trotting out beloved but often (Prince and Springsteen aside) somewhat boring icons. Sure, the Black Eyed Peas' show was poorly produced badness that probably ripped a black hole open somewhere, but it wasn't "indecent."

Stop laughing. You know how I meant "indecent." We can discuss "Pump It" some other time.

Yet, this is what happens when stupid goes "nuclear." One moment in a vacuum of sense later, the s***-storm has woken and we can hope the halftime show hasn't been so set back the eight years it just spent putting Nipplegate behind it that we're entertained next year by Wayne Newton with special guest Justin Bieber.

Let this bake your ziti a moment: consider who else was on the stage. Madonna published an all-nude coffee-table book called Sex, and was previously dropped like a bad habit by Pepsi when the cola purveyor saw her make out with a black saint and singing against a burning-crosses backdrop. Nicki Minaj recently joined the fairly small list of artists to actually have a video deemed too explicit by BET - though admittedly, it'll be a while before kids and parents are exactly sing "Stupid Hoe" on cross-country road trips to see Grandma in Florida.

And both behaved themselves, M.I.A. Of the three, you were the one who delivered what's been deemed a "spontaneous gesture" and set this off. And there goes that Nicki Minaj chorus in my head again . . .

There's not necessarily even anything wrong with "indecent" or "obscene" content in art. If it's the artist's personal vision, then whether anyone else thinks the "obscenity" or "indecency" - both strictly in the eye of the beholder(s) and definitions that serve almost solely the word of law's purpose - has any merit is usually fairly irrelevant. Sometimes, things are "obscene" or "profane" or "indecent" with a good reason behind it.

Consider another landmark Supreme Court case, Cohen v. California in 1971. Paul Robert Cohen wore a jacket bearing the words "Fuck The Draft" outside the Los Angeles courthouse and convicted, basically, of inciting to disturb the peace. The Supreme Court nixed that and decided that in this instance, the profanity had no sexual context and instead was an expression of the passionate extent of his convictions toward the Vietnam War.

Now, ask this: exactly what purpose did this bint flipping off the camera serve, in itself? This wasn't Sinead O'Connor ripping up the Pope's picture on "Saturday Night Live." It wasn't even Michael Portnoy dancing around shirtless next to Bob Dylan with "Soy Bomb" written on his torso. It added nothing, and the only purpose it served was pissing off pretty much everybody around her. You're an artist that's not exactly terribly well known, but you've managed to earn the respect of one of the most famous, successful, respected female artists in music history. You've just been invited to perform alongside her during the biggest televised event of the year.

You are pretty much the career fry-cook who's been given a gig working alongside Wolfgang Puck.

You respond by doing something with no significant reward at stake, no significant message to get across, and the very real consequence of possibly pissing off powerful people that gave you this gig.

There is no other way to say it. M.I.A., my dear, by the power vested in me by myself, I declare you Takei'd: