Real Men Don't Like Sex
This Is Rich:
It was the most disgraceful thing I've ever seen," Pittsburgh Steelers owner Dan Rooney said in a telephone interview yesterday. "It's on at 9 o'clock. Kids are watching, and everyone starts to think this is the NFL. I've written a letter to the commissioner [Paul Tagliabue], and I don't think he can be very happy about it, either. We can't allow that kind of thing to happen."
In a prepared statement, ABC, which is owned by the Walt Disney Company, said, "We have heard from many of our viewers about last night's 'Monday Night Football' opening segment and we agree that the placement was inappropriate. We apologize."
The segment opened with actress Nicollette Sheridan, clad in only a towel, standing near Owens in the Eagles' locker room. On ABC's new hit series, Sheridan plays a character named Edie Britt, a multiple divorcee who has had a number of sexual conquests in her fictional neighborhood.
Sheridan: "My house burned down and I need to take a long, hot shower. . . . So where are you off to looking so pretty?"
Owens: "Baby, it's 'Monday Night Football.' Game starts in 10 minutes."
Sheridan: "Oh, you and your little games. . . . I've got a game we can play."
Later, with her back to the camera, Sheridan dropped the towel and Owens said, "Aw, hell, the team's going to have to win one without me."
At that point, she jumped into his arms, and the scene cuts to two other "Desperate Housewives" actresses, Felicity Huffman and Teri Hatcher, who uttered MNF's signature slogan: "Are you ready for some football?"
My Gawd, those NFL fans must have felt so dirty.
Here's another example of all those Hollywood elites forcing this awful deviant culture on Real America. Still, it is kind of interesting that Neilson reports that while 12 million people tuned in to Monday Night football last week, 24 million watched "Desperate Housewives" the night before.
Needless to say, all the people watching "Housewives" in Real America were gay tourists from San Francisco.
pdate: Reader jjt mentions something that I missed but that is probably significant:
I wonder if what has gotten some people upset on Monday night is not Nicollette Sheridan's naked back but that she ends up in the arms of a black athlete.
Never underestimate the ability of racists to rationalize their bigotry with calls to morality. It's an old dodge. A hostile reaction to a scene like that is part of the lizard brain of too many Americans.
I'm also enjoying the moralizing on Fox News today about this story. They are very concerned about this terrible association between sex and sports. Which is why they hire experts like this (warning at work) on Fox Sports. Another of these professional sportscasters appeared earlier and showed one of her modeling sessions for Maxim as an example of what she wouldn't do on Monday Night Football. It was very instructive, I'm sure.
Also a correction: The "Desperate Housewives" numbers were from the previous week. It was pre-empted last Sunday.