The Super Bowl Halftime Show: No Longer a Family Affair

In case you missed it, Sunday's Super Bowl halftime show starred the iconic Madonna. And while Madge pulled off her portion of the show without a hitch (okay, there was one small stumble that probably made Elton John and David Furnish's night), one of her on-stage collaborators decided to challenge the FCC.

If you blinked you may have missed rapper MIA's middle finger flipping. What you may not have missed was her bleeped expletive, which wasn't hard to decipher. Either way, it's just another example of a pop star using the Super Bowl stage as a forum to cause controversy, thus resulting in plenty of attention. Because any press is good press.

The NFL wasted no time in responding to MIA's bird flipping. According to the Associated Press, NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy said, "The obscene gesture in the performance was completely inappropriate, very disappointing and we apologize to our fans."

Didn't anyone tell MIA that the Super Bowl is a family show?

Of course, the British rapper is in good company when it comes to Super Bowl halftime show scandals.

Janet Jackson's 2004 "wardrobe malfunction" had her nipple exposed to the world for a nanosecond, while Prince's 2007 half time show had some crying "Penis-Gate," due to the phallic-looking imagery used during his "Purple Rain" guitar solo.

But while Jackson claimed her nip slip was an accident and Prince's guitar groping may have just been our dirty minds playing tricks on us, MIA's middle finger flip was in-our-face blatant.

Of the Jackson incident, which resulted in a hefty fine for CBS, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael Powell said, "We all as a society have a responsibility as to what the images and messages our children hear when they're likely to be watching television," according to CNN.

The Super Bowl is an American family affair, an event for which even fair-weather fans tune in. The halftime show came on before 8:30 p.m. ET, a time at which even young kids were still awake and watching.

And while no one is suggesting that Barney or Dora the Explorer headline the Super Bowl halftime show, MIA's gesture was unnecessary and an unabashed ploy to get us to all Google her name this morning. (It worked.)

She gave no thought to the younger children who would be watching the show - and it was disrespectful to viewers and to the NFL.

Speaking of kids, perhaps some of these attention-needing pop stars need a halftime-out.