By Chris Cosci

A lot of people are talking about the Super Bowl. For some, the discussion revolves around how the game was actually interesting this year - a huge mistake that I'm sure will be fixed by next year's game. But what's really been getting the most attention is the halftime show. Specifically, people are talking about the surprise appearance by Janet Jackson's right breast.

In case you haven't heard, the finale of the Super Bowl halftime show featured Janet singing with Justin Timberlake. At the end of the performance, Justin popped off a part of Janet's outfit, exposing her to a stadium packed with football fans - and a television audience of millions. It was a slap in the face to all those viewers who tuned in for the usually wholesome production of an MTV-sponsored event.

The cameras pulled away from the incident immediately. It happened so quickly that most people probably weren't even sure if they saw what they think they saw. Also, the camera was pretty far back, so it couldn't be very clear - unless you were watching the show on a six-foot, high-definition screen.

But thanks to modern technology, that really doesn't matter. The media was able to take the split second that aired, pause it, enlarge it, and broadcast it hundreds of times. Then the newspapers took those images and printed them on the front page. What probably would have just slipped past the public's consciousness has been brought center stage and blown typically out of proportion.

What followed was the usual batch of apologies, from CBS, MTV, and Janet and Justin themselves. The incident was blamed on what they were calling a "wardrobe malfunction." I always thought a malfunction meant something broke down, like a car or a toaster. Does this mean that Janet's clothes just stopped working? There must have been a short circuit.

Still, by focusing on this exposure issue, people are ignoring the real problem with the halftime show: it was awful. NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue called it "offensive, embarrassing to us and our fans, and inappropriate." And he was certainly referring to the entire show, not just the breast-exposing part. Coming from the head of a sport that's usually associated with beer-chugging fans and scantily clad cheerleaders, that's saying a lot.

I think the show's producers are trying to pull a fast one over on us. At some point, somebody realized that the halftime show was about as entertaining as being bludgeoned to death. So they set up this "surprise" ending to divert our attention. Now, everybody's talking about how inappropriate the ending was. Somehow, they managed to sweep their pile of manure under a carpet of controversy.

So what does this teach us? If something is going horribly wrong, do something shocking that will make people forget what they were suffering through. Maybe I can test this theory by having a wardrobe malfunction of my own while writing this last paragraph. Then again, let's just forget the whole thing.