For those of you who haven't heard:
Football, "Housewives" Don't Mix
ABC Sports was apologizing Tuesday over a filmed bit on Monday Night Football in which Sheridan, as her vampy Desperate Housewives character, removed a towel and showed off her assets to Philadelphia Eagles star Terrell Owens in the locker room.
The segment, aired at the beginning of the broadcast seen at 9 p.m. on the East Coast, and even earlier in other time zones, closed with the ostensibly naked Sheridan leaping into Owens' arms, and the ostensibly distracted Owens vowing to sit out the game. ("Aw, hell, the team's going to have to win without me," said a thespian-challenged Owens.)
Unlike Jackson, whose wardrobe malfunction prompted a Super Bowl-sized controversy, Sheridan didn't flash the camera--only her bare back was shown on screen. But enough flesh was bared to leave ABC red-faced.
"The placement of last night's Monday Night Football opening segment was inappropriate. We apologize," ABC Sports said Tuesday.
Still smarting over Janet Jackson, the National Football League sounded testy about seeing its teams in bed with Desperate Housewives.
"ABC's opening was inappropriate and unsuitable for our Monday Night Football audience," a league spokesman said in a statement. "While ABC may have gained attention for one of its other shows, the NFL and its fans lost."
The Federal Communications Commission (news - web sites), currently sorting through objections over last week's unedited rebroadcast of Saving Private Ryan on ABC, acknowledged Tuesday it had received calls from viewers about the Monday Night Football segment. FCC (news - web sites) spokeswoman Rosemary Kimball said it wasn't known how many calls had been received, or if they were calls of complaint.
The sports pages, at least, weren't filled with words of praise for the Sheridan-Owens sketch.
"I think ABC Sports should be absolutely, positively ashamed of itself," Sports Illustrated writer Peter King wrote on CNNSI.com on Tuesday.
In the Philadelphia Daily News, deputy sports editor Doug Darroch put it succinctly: "Nice job, ABC."
My one question - the one that doesn't seem to have been asked so far: would there be as much an uproar if she was de-toweling in front of a White football player?
We see far worse than this ALL THE TIME on commericals for crying out loud! We could spend the next two hours going over all the examples that are far more RISQUE'!! So really what is all the fuss over? I've got to wonder...
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Bryan
White, black, green, yellow, I don't think it mattered in this case. The FCC is starting to put its foot down and this commercial was simply unacceptable for the time frame. Hell, it was an unacceptable commercial period.
2 - alethinos59
I have to disagree with you as far as the FCC. It wasn't the FCC that jumped on this but people calling ABC AND the FCC.
As I said - far more risque' material is shown CONSTANTLY on network television... All this is - is the beginning of mob (holier-than-thou) rule.
3 - boomcrashbaby
I just want to know how long before one ball player can no longer give another a hearty ass slap.
4 - Temple A. Stark
Me too boom, me too. Wait, no I don't.
I missed this commercial but saw the game. Damn. :) Wish I could reverse that situation as it was a terrible game.
5 - Temple A. Stark
In a reversal of your question - are you saying if it had been Jessica Simpson's boob, there would have been no complaints?
(Not from me in either case).
6 - alethinos59
Temple... What boob? I saw only a lovely back... And a towel probably bought at Target... But yah, I imagine had it been Chad Lewis, the Eagles TE this wouldn't have been nearly so controversial...
7 - Truth Minister
I think that the NFL should be held accountable as much or more so than the networks, Janet Jackson and other stars.
After the so called wardrobe malfunction the NFL said it was ashamed, yet they're in the middle of more controversey.
8 - alethinos59
Yes... Let's march the entire NFL organization out and have them horse-whipped. Afterward they can be read to from the Bible endlessly for months until the relent and become mindless drones.
"How can individual freedom in America be preserved if we don't all blindly follow our leaders!"
M*A*S*H - Maj. Frank Burns
9 - The Dude
I don't get it. So a woman's bareback is not okay, but cracking heads and breaking bones are okay? How fucked up is that?
10 - D.B.Cooper
Controversy breeds ratings. Let's wake up and smell the jock straps people! In one shameless moment of bad taste, ABC boosted the ratings for both Monday Night Football AND Desperate Housewives. Desperate Housewives airs at 8 pm, as does MNF. What's the big frigging deal? A bare back is a bare back. The main problem is a white bare back touched by black bare hands. Pretty risque for a crappy football game.
11 - Lono
What a bunch of crap. This is the suckiest controversy EVER. There was a woman's naked back? If that is porn, then I must wonder what it is I am looking at in the other three Firefox browser windows. I think the real scare was a hot nekkid white woman jumping on a black man.
There it is, I said it - this controversy is strictly about racism... and possibly ratings. If that commercial was too racy for TV, I really need to pony up for Skinamax... because I didn't feel even remotely tingly watching it.
12 - Anonymous
I think some of the calls made to the FCC may have been motivated by the race aspect of the commercial, I mean let's face it, some people are still racists. However, I feel the FCC acted appropriately. The commercial was way too racy for the MNF audience.
13 - alethinos59
I think it was a bit racy too... However I just do not trust the motives of these people. FIRST Priv. Ryan now this - in two weeks!
14 - Goober Gulch
I don't think you have to be racist to be disturbed by something like that. With a pairing like that you've got what amounts to a gorilla paired with the fairest of the fair, a white blonde woman. And knowing something about Terrel Owens makes it worse. If it had been Donovan McNabb I don't think it would have been as big a deal. They couldn't have picked a better person to make the whole thing controversial. I think they knew what they were doing.
15 - bhw
Wow, Goober. What an appropriate name.
The commercial was way too racy for the MNF audience.
I didn't see the commercial [is it available on the web anywhere?], but from what has been described, it doesn't sound racy at all. This type of scene is played out *repeatedly* every afternoon on daytime soaps, for god's sake. I was watching that type of thing when I was 15. If stay-at-home moms, retirees, high school girls can handle it, why can't the MNF crowd?
And where is the MNF crowd's outrage over the ridiculously sexist and racy beer commercials, like the ones with scantily clad, big breasted, young, mudwrestling women who ask each other to make out?
Puhleeze. Such bullshit. It's got to be the race [and not racy] issue.
16 - Goober Again
I was mildly kidding-but only mildly. Owens is to football what Barry Bonds is to baseball: a spoiled self-centered baby who places himself ahead of the team. He's also racist, which makes the whole charge of racism a joke. Oh, yeah. He's black so he can't be racist. I forgot that line of reasoning that so many self-righteous liberals seem to accept. Leaving aside the viewers who were watching (and I'm sure there were quite a few families who felt uncomfortable about the whole thing regardless of race), could they have picked a bigger jerk for a promotion like that? Aesthetically, the pairing of those two was just grotesque to me.
17 - Goober
I like that beer commercial you mentioned, though I know there have been complaints about that one, too. So it's all in the eye of the beholder. Subjectivity will always be involved. Had the player been white I don't think there would have been such a hubbub, but I still think it would have been inappropriate. There's a big difference between MNF and the shows you mentioned. Some parents actually do try to keep an eye on what their kids watch, hard as that is to believe.
18 - bhw
With a pairing like that you've got what amounts to a gorilla paired with the fairest of the fair, a white blonde woman.
and
Aesthetically, the pairing of those two was just grotesque to me.
Goober, I have no idea whether or not Terrell Owens is a racist. He very well may be. But let's deflect the issue onto Terrell's view of humanity. Your descriptions of him are obviously racist.
And I think many of the people who called to complain shared your point of view because that commerical was not too sexually charged by any stretch of the imagination.
19 - bhw
"But let's deflect the issue onto Terrell's view of humanity."
Make that, "let's NOT deflect...."
20 - bhw
The MNF crowd is made up mostly of MEN. The daytime soap crowd is made up of mostly women and teenage girls.
Why can't the men handle a scene where a woman drops her towel and jumps into a man's arms, when it's shown from the back? Seriously -- that barely registers on the racy scale.
The race scale is another story.
21 - Goober
It was pretty sexually charged. YOu've got a woman throwing herself at an athlete in the locker room, which itself is sleazy. I like Desperate Housewives and know that the whole thing isn't as bad when you understand the kind of character Sheridan plays, but a lot of the people who saw the promo wouldn't have a clue about that. It was just a bad decision and heads should roll.
22 - boomcrashbaby
it wasn't near as sexually charged as the daytime soaps that kids see.
23 - Mac Diva
Goober said:
I don't think you have to be racist to be disturbed by something like that. With a pairing like that you've got what amounts to a gorilla paired with the fairest of the fair, a white blonde woman.
Eric Olsen may come along and tell you that Goober isn't a racist. That he is just being 'good-natured,' like y'all know who. That when another of his friends, a former participant in Gene Expression, accused Bill Maher of having "jungle fever" he was just being 'clever.' Or that it doesn't matter a third one brought David Yeagley over here to spout bigotry. He was just kidding. But, thinking like what Goober is saying is blatant racism. To declare one 'race' animals and the another the 'fairest of the fair' leaves no doubt.
And, yes, I am aware that Goober may be one of the regular posters using a made-up name. He need not bother. His behavior will be approved of.
24 - bhw
Here's a take on the commercial that I hadn't thought of. Some see it as the reinforement of an old racial stereotype of black men as sexual predators of white women. Tony Dungy, the coach of the Indianaopolis Colts, raised that issue in a comment to the media.
You really can't ignore race in this commercial.
25 - Mac Diva
I did not see the commercial. But, if the woman is coming on to the man, I don't see how that would fit into the stereotype Chadiha says Dungy is citing.
Dungy had that part right when he talked about the Owens segment reinforcing the racial stereotype of a black sexual predator being chased by a fawning white woman.
That thought doesn't make sense. If the woman is chasing the man, he is hardly being predatory.
I did see the episode in which a desperate housewife ended up locked outdoors naked. (Her towel snagged on her ex'es car as he drove off.) Why weren't there any protests over the actresses back, and later, legs up to the thigh at least, being visible? Incidentally, the actress and an actor who saw her naked in the shrubs were white.
Interestingly, what I noticed with the pairing in the football show commercial is the age difference. Terrell is pretty young, I think. Here's hoping it didn't give Liza Minelli ideas.