{"id":515,"date":"2004-02-04T10:16:41","date_gmt":"2004-02-04T18:16:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp\/2004\/02\/barebreasted_fame\/"},"modified":"2004-02-04T10:16:41","modified_gmt":"2004-02-04T18:16:41","slug":"barebreasted_fame","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/2004\/02\/barebreasted_fame.html","title":{"rendered":"BARE-BREASTED FAME"},"content":{"rendered":"

My favorite Australian-born TV critic<\/FONT><\/EM><\/B><\/A> once wrote: “What
\nthe junk journalist doesn’t realise — or does realise, and waxes more aggressive so as to shout
\ndown his vestigial conscience — is that he’s not really a party to the star’s fame, which is based on
\nsolid appreciation and would still be there even if the tabloid press disappeared overnight.” But
\nthat was in 1981, and he was writing about his admiration for Billie Jean King, who was being
\nouted as a lesbian.<\/P>
\n

Nevertheless, is what that critic said still true? (Hell, was it true then?) Is there a junk
\njournalist alive today who even has a vestigial conscience? Is there still such a thing as solid
\nappreciation as opposed to, say, leering fandom<\/FONT><\/EM><\/B><\/A>? For that matter, is there a star alive
\nwho hasn’t been marketed, not to say manufactured, by the the most powerful instrument of the
\ntabloid press: television? <\/P>
\n

One way of looking at all those questions is to point out that Janet Jackson’s new
\nsingle, “Just a Little While,”<\/FONT><\/EM><\/B><\/A> has been rushed to radio stations<\/FONT><\/EM><\/B><\/A>, to make the
\nmost of the fuss about her bared breast. Another is to note that the Federal Communications
\nCommission chief, an indignant Michael Powell, has been beating his breast in outrage<\/FONT><\/EM><\/B><\/A> about her bared
\nbreast. Still another is that the entire U.S. population — make that 99 percent, according to an
\nunscientific poll — is either amused or bemused by the spectacle of both her bared breast and a
\ngovernment investigation into her bared breast.<\/P>
\n

For maximum exposure, Mr. Powell: Bring back Ken Starr.<\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My favorite Australian-born TV critic once wrote: “What the junk journalist doesn’t realise — or does realise, and waxes more aggressive so as to shout down his vestigial conscience — is that he’s not really a party to the star’s fame, which is based on solid appreciation and would still be there even if the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-515","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbvgEs-8j","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}