SB Halftime show fallout

The Super Bowl was almost exactly a month ago, and I'll bet most people have already forgotten about it; what the final score was, and who was playing in it ("What? Carolina has a football team now?"). Can't say the same for the halftime show, which even if you happened to miss it (like me) you no doubt heard about it from the endless discussion the day after (and the day after, and the day after). FCC officials called it a 'new low for prime-time television' and conservative watchdog groups said it was just one more sign about the eroding moral values in America.

Ironically, though, the stunt (planned or not) may have been a blessing in disguise for those (like me) who feel standards on TV have been in steep decline for more than a decade. (This, as in many, many thing is brilliantly satirized on the Simpsons: "Wow, Fox became a hard-core sex channel SO gradually, no one noticed!") Let's look at some of the fallout from the 'wardrobe malfunction':

-->MTV is under tremendous scrutiny, which has already affected programming decisions.
-->Many televised events such as the Grammys switched to a five second delay, to make sure things are clean.
-->Howard Stern radio show was recently booted for 'indecent content'

Is the media actually becoming 'cleaner' as a result of the halftime hijinx? There is a logical explanation, in fact. It's human nature to become accustomed to gradual changes that don't call attention to themselves, until something BIG happens, when the process of regret, repentance, and change starts. An example is a new driver who drives very conservatively at first, and then gradually over time starts taking more and more chances, driving more and more recklessly. Then, one day, that driver get in an accident (or narrowly avoids one) and then as a natural reaction, starts driving more conservatively again. A person with a bad temper may find his anger increasing gradually over time until one particular tantrum embarrasses him and his family enough that he starts paying closer attention, and in the end becomes less ill-tempered than he was before the 'incident'. MTV (and other TV stations) had been getting away with the 'gradual' lowering of standards for years, but this incident in a sense went 'too far', and now as a reaction, the media in general are being more conservative (call it the 'repentance' period). Sometimes, it takes a 'serious' incident to call attention to the degrading process that might have gone unnoticed otherwise.

What's the bad news, though? It's only temporary.

Oh, it doesn't have to be...but it almost certainly will be temporary. There will be a period of 'repentance and regret', until the public's collective memory of the incident fades, and then it will be business as usual. The problem is most people won't stand up and actively oppose the small degradations of moral standards; only the big ones. It's the small ones, though, that add up over time and that really contribute to the level of indecency on television. Just like the frog who allows himself to be boiled alive when the heat is raised ever so slightly over time, most people just don't have the will to fight against indecency when only little things happen ("It's not that big a deal..."). So, most likely, after the 'grace period', media standards will start going into the gutter again little by little, until who knows, maybe partial nudity will be commonplace in Super Bowl halftime shows without anyone noticing or caring...