Janet Jackson’s infamous Super Bowl halftime show wasn’t hers alone, but she sure took the blame. We rewrite history on what really happened with Janet and draw the connection to how Black women and girls’ bodies are still policed, especially through dress codes in school. And then, we talk with Dr. Monique Couvson, a scholar and expert on school pushout, about how Janet’s treatment mirrors what happens to Black girls in schools all across the country.
Janet Jackson’s infamous Super Bowl halftime show wasn’t hers alone, but she sure took the blame. We rewrite history on what really happened with Janet and draw the connection to how Black women and girls’ bodies are still policed, especially through dress codes in school. And then, we talk with Dr. Monique Couvson, a scholar and expert on school pushout, about how Janet’s treatment mirrors what happens to Black girls in schools all across the country.
Check out Grantmakers for Girls of Color here: https://g4gc.org/
Learn more about Dr. Couvson and her work here: https://drmoniquecouvson.com/
NWLC’s Dress Coded reports can be found here:
https://nwlc.org/resource/dresscoded/
Jessica:
Hi, I'm Jessica.
Hilary:
I'm Hilary.
Lark:
And I'm Lark. Welcome to Hearsay where we deep dive into cultural moments that live rep free in our heads and probably yours too. Today I'm declaring myself the biggest op against Justin Timberlake. We are talking about the infamous 2004 Super Bowl halftime performance. I feel like we casually bring this up often and talk about it all the time. And when we are brainstorming for the show, this was the thing we anchored everything on. It was a topic that everyone remembers or has thoughts about and connects so much to our work. If you're listening and you don't know what we're talking about, we'll give a little background. It was in fact 2004, super Bowl 38,
Announcers:
The Carolina Panthers and the New England Patriots.
Lark:
The halftime performance show starts out with marching bands from University of Houston, from Texas Southern. Then Janet comes on and does like a medley thing with Diddy and Nelly, and then Kid Rock is there and they do like a medley. And then Justin Timberlake comes out.
Lark:
Literally, just sing's Rock Your Body and the moment happens, the last line they say is, I'm gonna have you naked by the end of this song. And when he does that, he rips the top part of Janet's like corset bustier thing off, and her whole pierced nipple is exposed. We later find out that was not how that was supposed to happen. Obviously madness ensued. People lost their minds. Yeah. I mean, to this day people still talk about it all the time. It was the most rewatched moment in TiVo history because that was like prime TiVo time.
Hilary:
I still have a TiVo. Oh my
Lark:
God, my God.
Hilary:
But we really anchored it in time when we say it's TiVo time.
Lark:
Yeah, that's how you know it's TiVo time. And like CBS MTV, like lied, threw her under the bus, said that Janet orchestrated this herself and no one else secret knew secret. Yeah. Yeah. And just like she was trying to do this to sell music and like get attention, um, I think CBS made Janet like lie basically and publicly apologize and give a video saying all that, that she did that on her own.
Janet apology clip:
My decision to change the Super Bowl performance was actually made after the final rehearsal. MTV, CBS, the NFL had no knowledge of this whatsoever, and
Lark:
Um, and that's not true. Her and Justin and MTV planned to do that. Her whole breast was not supposed to be exposed. She was supposed to be wearing like a red lacy bra thing. The whole outfit was designed by Alexander McQueen. I learned.
Jessica:
Oh, shoot. Yes.
Lark:
Um, and so it truly was a wardrobe malfunction,
Hilary:
The introduction of the term wardrobe malfunction.
Lark:
Yes. Truly. And I think it's just absurd. And of course the black woman gets blamed for it. Mm-Hmm. . She gets sexualized, gets shamed, body shamed.
Hilary:
So I was watching this when it happened live, I dunno how many years into my fantasy football career, . Um, but I took it seriously with my friends from college and, you know, we always had a Super Bowl party at the end with the, the championship on the line. Mm-Hmm. and, you know, lots of seven layer dip and just like classic, uh, suburban Super Bowl life. Um, so this was before most of us had kids, but you know, we were all there. It was probably like 15 people. Um, and I remember watching it and sort of feeling like just angry immediately. You just get a flash of her face, but it doesn't, she's not happy. This is pre Twitter, so it's not like we could all just go on Twitter and talk about
Jessica:
Imagine
Lark:
God Twitter. Imagine
Jessica:
If Twitter was a
Lark:
Thing would be ablaze.
Hilary:
My, like ire about it. Really like grew in the days following because the FCC, the Federal Communications Commission at that point, to me was just like this bad guy, right? Mm-Hmm. . And that their goal was to like protect the American public somehow from indecency. And to me, like that concept doesn't even exist. Like, I don't understand how one woman's breast could have like somehow ruined our country. Mm-Hmm. . Especially if you think about all the people you named in the show, like Kid Rock. Right. probably did 50 more offensive things during his performance.
Lark:
Diddy, need we say more? like what the hell?
Hilary:
If we had to make a list of problematic people who appeared on this. Right. And
Lark:
She's at the bottom. Yeah.
Hilary:
MTV itself. A a content creator before we knew what that was. Right. Of
Lark:
Exploitation of shock value. Yeah,
Hilary:
Exactly. Exactly. So the FCC, um, I just remember getting really riled up about it all because it was like broadcast television and that, you know, like it's too pure that, that somehow the Super Bowl is a family show. a halftime show, and it, and all these little children were scarred for life by Janet's breast. No one's talking about the thing that actually mattered, which was she was exposed against her will. Right. And I, I just was so angry because it felt just like a manufactured crisis Mm-Hmm. against a hundred other things that were happening, which I think was a lot of what Janet said in response too. She wasn't supposed to say that she was supposed to be contrite and take all the blame, but, you know, there was a lot else happening in 2004 including a war. Yeah. I'm, I'm like getting irate again, just talking about it.
Lark:
I know. I'm sweating. I'm getting flushed.
Hilary:
But I mean, we're not even getting started on the NFL right now, but like, talk about indecent, right? Like it just, it to me, it just so underscored that our priorities in this country are never right. That fake outrage wins and Janet was the easiest target.
Jessica:
Distracts. It's just prevailed for so long. And I feel like that was kind of one of the first things I ever knew about her. I was three when the Super Bowl, when that Super Bowl happened.
Hilary:
Baby Jessica,
Jessica:
baby baby me, you know, toddling around in my little suburban house. I don't even know if my family was watching it, but, um, obviously like heard jokes about it my whole life. And then as I got older and like was on the internet and like, you know, every year at the Super Bowl would happen Mm-Hmm. Like, people would be like, this is a reminder of this thing that happened. I don't think I fully realized what that did to her career in general and how it shouldn't have done that. And like grew up with a soaring Justin Timberlake career. And so looking at it now, or even like the past few years, I was like, that's disgusting.
Jessica:
Like that whole thing is so gross and a lot of people don't even know, or like, aren't even willing to accept that a woman would not initiate that or a man could be at fault. This was clearly meant to embarrass her and it'll always be her scandal. Right. Like when we were doing the research for this, um, it was saying to call it like “Janetgate”, but it removes him from the name Right. Entirely, it removes Justin Timberlake entirely from the situation. Even if she had wanted to do something like that, which she didn't, his involvement is totally removed. Yeah. And her career was the one that suffered. Mm-Hmm. . And I think it just is an example of that and, and also an example of how black women's bodies are policed Mm-Hmm. and criticized and regulated in such a way that white women and men will never understand.
Jessica:
Um, as a black woman, I experienced it not even to a full degree in which I could have, like I've seen a lot of discourse of people talking about, oh, like when my uncle came over, I had to like put on a real shirt and not a tank top because I couldn't Yeah. So bad. I couldn't look like that. And it's like you're at your house. Mm-Hmm. like why are we so worried about like family Mm-Hmm. Instead of being worried about like a creepy male person in my house. Right. Like that is so crazy.
Lark:
But Again, taking the blame and on black girls and not on the male perpetrator.
Jessica:
Exactly. And as you know, like I said, I've seen a lot, I've been regulated a lot by like mainly my family, like and society more so than I feel like my peers. Yeah. And I got to college, it was one of the first times when I realized how different bodies were accepted and how having a black body is not a crime or a fault.
Lark:
novel concept. Yeah. Right. Yeah.
Jessica:
It's like crazy. Like, and it can just exist, but it can also do so many great things. Mm-Hmm. . It's like how dare she have a body
Lark:
Right, right.
Hilary:
. Right. Well we wanted Janet's body in a very specific way. Yeah. She could be sexy. Yeah. And she can dance and she can sing. Mm-Hmm. . But she's not in control of it. It's for us.
Lark:
No. Well, and even like control, like the whole, it's from, she's had that since her dad. Like, she had to come out with a whole album and song and rebrand herself completely for people to see her the way she wanted to be seen. And even then, like that was in the eighties and we still today we see it all the time. Like
Jessica:
We see it all the time. And like when we were talking about this, I immediately started thinking about Keke Palmer. Yes. Um, basically when she went to Usher's residency and her baby daddy went on Twitter talking about her outfit. Um, and we also later found out that she, um, had been abused by him. Mm-Hmm. . Which is, so there's a whole other layer of that, but Control. Yeah. Control. Yeah, exactly. And it's like he was trying to embarrass her on Twitter, but luckily Twitter was not really having it at least. No. The majority, obviously there were like incels and people that were on in his mentions like, go get your woman, like da da da. Right. Yeah. But most people were like, you are broke and unemployed. Yes. And you work for her. Yeah. So what are you even talking about? Right. But again, it was just her body being policed. Like she wanted to dress up and go out with her friends to an usher concert. But again, it was an issue around, because she is a mother, because she is a black woman, you can't, you can't do that. And that's just ridiculous. And so many people face this in the workplace and Mm-Hmm. just social gatherings and let alone being a celebrity and having it blown up to such proportion.
Lark:
Yeah. And I think that's like what I didn't understand until I got here. Like my parents are huge Janet Jackson stans, they've both seen her in concert a bunch of times. I remember watching it, but we didn't get like a lot of the shaming of Janet in my house. I, again, I was pretty young so I wasn't partaking in the media a lot like Jessica. But like you said, Justin continued to rise. And then I realized similarly the punchline of every joke, there's rap lyrics, every like sitcom one liner is about things like this, like you said, the namesake for a wardrobe malfunction. And I just, I didn't understand that that was systematic. Right. Like, and even similar to Jessica being taught implicitly and explicitly how to act and appear in certain places in school, in interviews, you know, how to wear your hair, how to dress.
Lark:
Like I can't wear the short shorts from Hollister that everyone else is wearing, you know, because I'm not white and how is that gonna be perceived? And that is all stuff that Black women and Black girls hold all the time. And to see that someone as famous as Janet Jackson being levied fines from the FCC Right. Being literally sidelined for her whole career. Sued. Yes. And we immediately thought of our work and the dress coded reports where we dive into and talk about how dress codes are racist and sexist and that they're levied at Black girls at a disproportionate rate. Black girls are much more likely to be over disciplined, to be put in detention suspension, like literally pushed out of school because of what they're wearing or how their hair is. And we obviously wanted to talk to Dr. Monique Couvson, who is just, I think the preeminent scholar on like dress coded and push out work.
Hilary:
I'm so glad she exists.
Lark:
I know, I know. So we're like, just can't wait to get Dr. Monique's thoughts on all of that. I mean, she is like the stuff I'm sure she has seen in her scholarship, but also in her personal life. Yeah. You know, and like where was she during the 2004 Super Bowl? Did she watch it? You know, what did she think about it being someone so pivotal in this work and does she think we're like in for good hopeful times? Are we stagnating? Yeah. Are we, you know, what would happen if the Super Bowl happened today in this moment? You know, I'm can't wait.
Lark:
I am so pleased to be joined with Dr. Monique Couvson. She's the author of the book Pushout The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools. She's the co-founder of the National Black Women's Justice Institute. And presently the president and CEO of Grant makers for girls of Color, who we at the National Women's Law Center have the privilege to work with so closely. Thank you so much for joining us, Dr. Couvson.
Dr. Monique Couvson:
Well, thank you. I'm so glad to be here. Thanks for having me.
Lark:
Of course. Well, I mean, today we're talking about Black women being shamed, reduced, sexualized, erased, all of the above because of their appearance, things out of their control. We're specifically kind of looking at this through the lens of the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show with Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson. I'm wondering if you remember or had any initial thoughts or experiences around watching that performance or the aftermath that happened after?
Dr. Monique Couvson:
Yeah, many memories, . So full transparency, I'm, I haven't been a Justin Timberlake fan, and I remember being surprised that Janet and he were performing together. And then I was like, okay, this is interesting. And then when, uh, he ripped off her breast covering and they showed the nipple, I thought I was imagining things . I was like, there's no way that this just happened on tv. And instantly started to talk with the people around me. Like, did we really just see that? Did this just happen? And then I remember an almost immediate backlash against Janet and an immediate discussion, um, and really a moral panic around the display of her body at a family event, you know, that is full of violence . Right. And there was a lot of discussion about who was at fault and what it is that we actually saw or didn't see. You know, as someone who had already been part of a, a community that was looking at what happens with, you know, Black women and girls in public spaces. It was honestly very much in keeping with some of the ways that we were hearing people talk about Black girls' bodies and treating Black women's bodies in other spaces. So it was very consistent and also a, a moment to have some other kinds of conversations about whether it was a big deal or not.
Lark:
Your body of work and a lot of your career has been focused on what we call being dress coded, kind of dealing with the adultification without even knowing that there was a word for that type of discrimination. And for so many of us, we've been kind of victims of that and been put in those boxes. I'm wondering if you could tell us a little bit about what brought you to this work.
Dr. Monique Couvson:
Yeah, I would, you know, I would say a lifetime of experience really brought me to this work. And it was one of those things where for many of us, there's been a longing for language or a way to capture what our experiences are, to have a rigorous body of scholarship that can in some ways help us name and add rigor to analyses about our experiences such that they don't get tossed to the side or considered niche. Um, I, I spent several years, um, engaged in conversations about young people in general who were impacted by, uh, the juvenile court system. And in those spaces, anytime we would bring up girls, they would just say, oh, well their numbers are so small. Um, it's really a niche issue. And I had come from doing some work at the national level with what they called serious violent and chronic juvenile offenders.
Dr. Monique Couvson:
And one of the populations that was considered a special population, I'll put that in quotes, A special population was, uh, girls Girls. And what they called at the time, minority youth, I don't use the term minority, but they were talking about, um, you know, young people of color and disproportionately Black and Latino, uh, and indigenous youth that they called minority youth and girls as if girls didn't include young people of color. And so there were spaces where I was finding myself trying to reconcile common understandings about identity, that informed policy. The more we started to talk about policy and practice around how juvenile court systems were responding to these populations, the more I realized that we needed to do more work to help improve our own understanding of what these conditions are, what leads to young people being incarcerated, why we have carceral system for young people in the first place, and also, you know, what we can do to keep them out of these systems. And so a long answer to what brought me to this work, but it really is, you know, a a lot of different aspects of my life coming together to lead me into what I call, you know, implementing my divine assignment.
Lark:
Oh, I love that. And I think it's, it's poignant that there is a long answer, right? There's, it's not a shortcut, it's not a quick fix issue. And I think getting into the root of why do we have these things? How did we get here? And going deeper than that, I think a lot of people just kind of, this is how it's always been. This is what I'm used to, this is what I know. And a lot of times you can't solve problems unless you get into that route. And I, I think especially when we get into school discipline and specifically disciplining of Black and brown girls, not a lot of people know about this body of work. And we've seen a, a little bit of an uptick in overwhelmingly broad strokes. I'm using quotes here, school safety, um, when it comes to the increase in mass shootings in schools since the start of the pandemic of overreaching policies that are targeted or billed as school safety, playing on the fears of a lot of parents and students and administrators that end up being harmful in a lot of ways. And I mean, you're not new to this, you're true to this as we say. You have been doing this for a long time. And I'm wondering if there's one thing in your work or research about black girls in schools and dress codes that kind of still surprises you?
Dr. Monique Couvson:
You know, it's interesting because my first interaction with girls who were behind bars was in New York when I was, uh, working on my master's in 1995. And I wrote my master's thesis and I called it Planning Hell. And it was about residential juvenile correctional facilities and their impact on community development. And at the time, I was one of a few folks who was in the academy very much focused on the growth of the carceral system as it impacted young people, and as it was starting to regulate young people's bodies. And I went into, uh, a facility that is now closed, thank God, um, in the Bronx, and talked to girls who were locked up there. And one of the things that, um, I realized then, which is why I called my thesis Planning Hell, that still remains true for me today, is that we plan for this. We are creating these systems, which means that if we are planning for this, there is some thought behind who is gonna be locked up for what offenses, how we're going to start treating people, how we're going to create a culture of criminalization to facilitate, um, this this industry and a growth in this industry. And it's surprising to me that, um, you know, we continue to operate in conversation in some ways as if we're not responsible, we're creating these systems and that we don't have other systems available to us.
Lark:
Yeah. And I think they are not surprised by this, right? Black girls are going into schools, they're going into spaces knowing it's been planned for them to be disciplined, incarcerated, publicly ridiculed and shamed.
Dr. Monique Couvson:
Yeah. That's the piece, you know, that is, um, remains hurtful when I ask young people to describe their school for so many years they've been saying, my school feels like a prison. And that was always interesting to me because many of the young people have never been to prison. They've never been incarcerated or in custody . Right. But what they're responding to and what they're experiencing is the surveillance, the way in which they lack an ability to feel agency, and the specific way that they are treated as if they are prone to criminal behaviors in these schools. And so when I talk to girls about what they need to feel safe often, you know, what they elevate for me is the need for us to even expand our definition around what safety looks like, right? So safety for girls is often emotional safety, intellectual safety, cultural safety that involve them feeling like they can walk through spaces without the surveillance, without somebody looking at their bodies arriving at school in what they chose to wear that day without them being immediately read as provocative, immediately read as disruptive.
Dr. Monique Couvson:
All those kinds of things that, you know, really have been around for a very long time. And we just didn't really engage it because our conversations even about risk in schools and safety in schools and how we create spaces in schools that feel like a sanctuary, quote unquote, didn't have girls in mind , it didn't have girls at the center of really helping us co-construct what this institution needs to be. Um, and so I'm excited because for the past, you know, 10 years or so, we have been elevating girls, um, as an opportunity for us to not just think of what happens with girls as a niche issue, quote unquote, going back to what they used to tell me about girls in the system. Um, you know, for me that was always an invitation. Like, okay, well if you think girls are a niche issue, then let's work with our niche issue to see what works with our niche issue in order to expand it out to other spaces.
Dr. Monique Couvson:
So either way, we're gonna work with Girls , right? And either way, what we find with girls, we'll have a benefit on everyone else's experience. It will be of benefit to all. Because when you take the group that has been most marginalized, that means you're working with the population that can help us understand what it is to do what Kimberly Crenshaw invited us to do, which is to map the margins and to actually truly be intersectional in our work, not just in our language, right? Like so many, um, institutions, educational and otherwise will say we're building out an intersectional approach, or we want to study intersectionality and folks wanna just emphasize the naming of different identities rather than thinking about how those identities are working together to inform a person's experience with policy practice and, and other spaces. And so, um, I think it is, uh, an opportunity for us to think about what we want, um, our learning spaces to be, but most importantly what girls want their experiences to be.
Lark:
Yeah. Centering girls is, is so important. And I think why so much of your work has been so impactful and beautifully done, obviously, is because you are talking to the people affected and centering them in these solutions. And we're getting a little bit more of the spotlight on this work. People are kind of starting to understand. But you know, Jessica and I, we talked about, um, as Black women growing up, kind of the belief systems and structures that we were told and taught, you know, from our parents and our grandparents of here's how you have to present yourself, here's what the school's gonna think of you, here's what you know, the people in your town are gonna think of you. And the ways kind of those, um, belief systems you said that we plan for, it's a little bit respectability politics, but are you still coming up against, I'm thinking especially culturally some, uh, pushback on how we are training up and raising up our girls?
Dr. Monique Couvson:
Yeah, I think, you know, there are many ways to be a girl. There are many ways to be a Black girl, many ways to be a girl who identifies as a person of color, a young person who identifies as a girl. So there are all kinds of ways to talk about this. Um, and I do think that the tropes and stereotypes that have informed how we read girls bodies and behaviors, um, remain. So we do still have some work to do to continue to, you know, fight against some of the, um, embedded ideas about, uh, what constitutes a good girl. And, you know, I used to say spend less time on the respectability politics and more time just actually respecting people. My invitation has always been and will remain, you know, before you try to tell her what to wear and how to dress, make sure you know how to pronounce her name.
Dr. Monique Couvson:
You know, we, we spend a lot of time, um, and a lot of resources, uh, policing bodies, policing behaviors, and we could spend so much more actually responding to the root causes of disruption or disruptive behaviors. So much more responding to young people who arrive to school ready to learn rather than, you know, figuring out what they have on their bodies that day, rather than saying that a young person is being provocative just because, you know, her bra strap is showing all these things that are silly in my opinion, but that, um, lead to harm and that are the focus unfortunately, of so much practice, but also policy. Education is a very local issue as is function and practice of criminalization. Those are very local issues. So, you know, where one community might be doing a stellar job of maintaining, uh, a healthy learning space for young people. Another community might be leaning even more heavily into, uh, some of the things that we know to cause harm.
Lark:
Hard agree, the bar is low, we'll take our wins where we can get them. We'll take the positive, um, kind of improvements where we can. I'm wondering if there are any kind of policymakers, organizers at the state, national level that really stuck out to you, that have positively intervened to try and change and improve this trajectory for Black girls in the past couple years?
Dr. Monique Couvson:
Absolutely. Ayanna Pressley is top of mind. She, you know, co-authored and sponsored the ending Pushout act, which we still hopefully, you know, will see life in at some point. But, um, you know, there's an effort to really explore what it means to have schools that are responsive to trauma, what it means to have schools that can be locations for healing when young people are disruptive. Um, you know, one of the things that I remind folks of are the young people who are disruptive are the young people who have been disrupted. So if we deal with the root causes of the harms, then we get to deal with the whole student and we get to find out who she is outside of her response to trauma. It is, you know, I think an opportunity for us to, um, elevate some of the policies that she has moved forward at the local level in Boston, uh, in partnership with the National Black Women's Justice Institute, as well as how she has engaged what she calls policy as her love language, um, and moving forward, um, different federal legislation to propose remedies in schools and to move federal dollars to be in alignment with that.
Dr. Monique Couvson:
I also think, you know, that under this, um, department of Education, uh, or this particular administration, there are opportunities to explore how, um, girls are uniquely impacted by some of the conditions. Uh, the latest data that, um, was released by the OCR, the Office of Civil Rights in the Department of Ed show, um, even during Covid , right, there were still these examples of girls, um, being criminalized or experiencing unnecessary harsh treatment, um, because they didn't complete a homework assignment or, um, you know, had their camera off or other activities that we know are not criminal offenses, but that, um, were made criminal. I think all the legislators who have been behind the Crown Act, um, are also, um, to be elevated here because at the state and national levels, having conversations that, um, really are about us being able to wear our hair and its natural state without it being grounds for dismissal, either from work or from school, is critical.
Dr. Monique Couvson:
And we see this case emerging now with a, a young man in high school who has locks and his locks violate the school dress code policy. And legislators are putting out whole ads in newspapers to say that that is not in alignment with what they feel is appropriate. Attire and or presentation for school regulation of Black people's hair is, uh, something that has been a political issue for centuries. It is, um, a unique position that Black children find themselves in when their hair becomes the determining factor in whether or not they should be able to learn or participate in educational activities. Because learning is not about what's on your head, it's what's happening in your head, . And so it is wild to me that any educator, any policy maker, anyone, uh, with of sound mind, and maybe that's the issue, uh, of sound mind would really, um, begin to emphasize hair.
Dr. Monique Couvson:
It becomes about policing and social control. We wanna move away from these actions that determine our worth for learning, um, to be determined by what we look like. Wild, that we're still having this conversation in 2024 and that we are still having these conversations in 2024. You know, tells us a lot about the psychology behind what people are actually after when they're looking at young people who is the target of these unfair policies and who then is distracted in their learning space by a feeling of not being wanted or not being welcomed. And so, you know, you see a lot of folks saying, well, we just need, you know, home schools or we just need our own schools. And you know, and I'm like, you know, you have the choice to do that if you have the choice to do that , right? Most people do not have the choice to do that or do not have the option to do that.
Dr. Monique Couvson:
And we want our public institutions that are supported by public dollars, including our money to be of service to us and our children, to create a system and structure that can be accountable to all these distractions. Keep us from focusing on the things that are most important at this time, which is academic performance, which is building relationships in school for young people to feel like they can grow and learn there. And you know, I think it's also distracting to educators, most of whom go into this field because they believe in the promise of children and they want to be in a space where they can help advance the learning of children. Maybe we need some more educators to be policymakers , to help us better understand, uh, what is actually needed in educational policy.
Lark:
Almost like it isn't about education or what's best for students, almost like it's about racism and control. Considering all that we've talked about the progress we've made, the places we still need to go. I'm wondering how you think the 2004 Super Bowl halftime performance would be received today?
Dr. Monique Couvson:
Mm, I don't know if it would be treated the same today, mostly because I think , the degree of exposure to a woman's body has just increased. So by so much social media has shifted what we are socialized to accept as normal, what performers wear on stage. You know, what Janet had on is, you know, quite conservative compared to some of the things that we see today. Um, so I don't know that there'd be the same outrage. There were lots of other things that I found problematic about that performance beyond the display of her nipple that I think would still be interrogated today. Him saying, Imma have you naked by the end of this song. And then ripping that portion of her clothes off suggests a lot of things to folks about the availability of Black women's bodies, um, the sort of public nature of non-consensual or invited stripping of clothing 'cause in the performance, you know, she's not taking it off of herself, but he takes it off of her and almost to her surprise, at least it was presented that way. And so there are lots of things to interrogate about their performance that I think might still be interrogated today, you know, for better or for worse. ,
Lark:
I can't thank you enough, Dr. Couvson, for taking time out of your extremely busy schedule to join us today. I'm personally so grateful for you, your voice, your work, and for this conversation.
CREDITS:
Hearsay is a Wonder Media network production in partnership with the National Women's Law Center. It is hosted and produced by Jessica Baskerville, Lark Lewis and Hilary Woodward. Our producers are Taylor Williamson and Autumn Harris. Jenny Kaplan is our executive producer and Maddy Foley is our editor. production assistance by Luci Jones and show art by Andrea Sumner.
BLOOPER
Hilary:
Did I ever tell you guys I worked at a place with a 24 page PowerPoint dress code? No, no. Uhhuh And some of the things on it included women do not wear s sleeveless shirts or pants with, um, like Capri pants because ankles and arms are distracting to men. Oh, are you serious? A workplace. In a workplace. And this was in the two thousands. Crazy.
Lark:
Oh my God,
Hilary:
This is after Janet.
Jessica:
I can’t tell you how many Capris I went through in middle school because my mom was like, you can't wear shorts and school. You can wear Capris.
Lark:
Capris were a lifeline.
Hilary:
we live in a swamp in DC