Janet Jackson is trying to move past the 2004 Super Bowl controversy that damaged her career. She would like all of us to do the same.
That is what the pop icon said in her four-part Lifetime and A&E documentary, which began airing on January 28. In the third and most recent part of Janet, Jackson, a notoriously private person, especially on this particular topic, gave what should probably be the final word on what tabloids at the time crudely labeled "Nipplegate."
Jackson said that the whole thing was blown out of proportion. Everyone is looking for someone to blame, and that needs to stop. We will always be very good friends, and we are very good friends. We spoke a few days ago, and he and I have moved on, and it's time for everyone else to do the same.
Jackson fans will likely be against her request. Malfunction: The Dressing Down of Janet Jackson is a documentary about the whole Super Bowl affair, but it doesn't have a single perspective on Janet Jackson. We have the missing piece.
Many looks back on the incident have shined a spotlight on the sexism and racism embedded into the consequences Jackson faced after the incident. In Janet, Jackson states that she was not invited to the Grammys that year. He won two awards. It was rumored that Jackson's music was ruined after the Super Bowl scandal, but she did not confirm it.
While Jackson was left out to dry by not publicly defending her more, Timberlake saw his fame and support from the industry grow. Jackson insisted that people's interpretations and assumptions about what happened were not true. She said he reached out to her at the time to inquire about her comments on the Grammys controversy.
She shared that he said, "I don't know if I should come out and make a statement." I said if I were you, I wouldn't say anything.
The injustice has proved too much for Jackson fans since he returned to perform at the Super Bowl halftime show. They made a campaign to defend her trend around the world. Despite the fact that Jackson appeared to encourage a more compassionate response in 2021, the Super Bowl is still low-key.
Jackson said that the team for the Super Bowl halftime show asked if she would like to perform. She didn't choose to.
It would be nice to be able to perform. She said that the family loves entertaining. It is stretching out the past and reliving something that happened 10 years ago.
Janet is a documentary about the 2004 Super Bowl. The New York Times produced a retrospective that did important work to set the record straight on Jackson's treatment, but her absence from the proceedings is impossible to ignore.
In the first part of Janet, she suggests that this lack of consideration for her own perspective is part of what motivated this new biographical documentary from Lifetime and A&E.
It is something that needs to be done. You have had someone write an unauthorized biography or someone else do it. Jackson said that they will do a movie and it will be candy-coated.
At the end of the day, Janet Jackson is an icon. She is an important cultural figure in entertainment, but too much recent discourse focuses on only one flashpoint in her career. If the goal is to support Janet Jackson, then listening to what she wants and needs in her own words would be a good place to start.
It doesn't mean everyone needs to forgive him.
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The appropriation of Black culture is a valid critique that goes beyond the Jackson incident. After the third part of Janet aired on Saturday, the phrase "Black Twitter" trended on the social networking site, mostly from posts that were not in agreement with her request that fans leave the Man of the Woods singer alone.
Then there is the Brittany Spears of it all. Another famous woman is accused of fanning the flames of their break up to boost his career, as well as being accused of throwing her under to bus. Spears has yet to request anyone leave the man alone for crying his river back in 2003 despite a public apology from Timberlake.
Jackson fans can at least look forward to seeing the fourth and final movie of Janet on February 13.
