Man, oh man, what a halftime show! So, let me guess: is next year’s show going to be a thematic tribute to Jerry Springer, or how about Anna Nicole Smith? After that train wreck of a halftime show, it’s hopeful, at least, that the NFL just might smarten up. For starters, NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue has already issued a public apology stating, “We were extremely disappointed by the MTV-produced halftime show … the show was offensive, inappropriate and embarrassing to us and our fans.” I couldn’t put it any more bluntly than that.

First of all, notice how he said “show,” and not “wardrobe malfunction,” “incident,” or any other term to imply that not every part of that show was bad? Like prime time TV, even the Super Bowl halftime shows have cheapened up and it’s about time that the NFL has acknowledged it. There’s no longer any imagination out there – just a bunch of tight bodies and tabloid faces dancing around on stage. And it’s certainly nothing to be proud of.

When I was a kid, things were totally different. Before I even knew a lot about football, it was exciting for me to watch the Super Bowl halftime show. Not because I wanted to see a bunch of nobodies dancing around, but more because of the creativity and imagination that it took to produce a very fun show, which gave not only tribute to America’s true national pastime, but to things that make Americans proud.

I’m sure a lot of us can remember Super Bowl XXVIII, when Michael Jackson came out on the field and sang “Heal the World” with 3,500 children. During Super Bowl XI, Disney put on the memorably-themed show “It’s a Small World.” Time and time again, the Super Bowl has been used to celebrate not only points of pride, like the history of Film and Rock ‘ Roll, but to remember tragedies like Sept. 11.

With the exception of a very timely pre-game show, this year’s show had none of that. Just like last year’s Super Bowl, this show was one of the least memorable and most idiotic halftime shows in the history of the NFL.

Within three years, we went from a solemn 9-11 remembrance, to a bunch of people humping and grabbing crotches in front of a pyrotechnics backdrop. Americans had nothing to be proud of here – it was merely a sleazy tribute to boisterous American trash-culture.

Coming out in a haze of smoke and pyrotechnics, Kid Rock runs around on the stage, hammering out an already-expired song, with an American flag for a smock. You see, it’s fashionably cool to wrap yourself in the American flag. In fact, you don’t even have to be a responsible citizen. Just wear your loyalty on your shirt or on your arm like a medieval serf. Civic responsibility is so 1960s, dude. Be trendy and wear a made-in-China piece of red, white, and blue cloth around your neck just in case you forget your nationality in the next 20 minutes.

And then there’s that whole Janet Jackson fiasco. Although this didn’t particularly offend me, it’s not impossible to see why some people would be offended. A lot of churches around the country were hosting the Super Bowl as a community event. And, just like me 15 years ago, kids and families were watching. In fact, the Super Bowl had an estimated audience of a billion people. There have to be a few little kids in there somewhere.

Now, can we totally blame Viacom and MTV for this ugly halftime show? Absolutely not! The other major contributor to the problem of television-gone-tasteless is the American viewer.

Americans seem to have run their standards so far into the ground, that these companies have come to expect us not only to find such trash acceptable, but to embrace it. Was America really expecting a clean, wholesome, and even meaningful Halftime Show, when we accept such masterpieces as “Jerry Springer” and “The Simple Life” as part of our TV lineup?

We find nothing wrong with letting an amateur porn star have her own TV show about how cool it is to be completely stupid and codependent. And when movies like “Saving Private Lynch,” and “The Elizabath Smart Story” – stories of young, violated girls – captivate audiences during a sweeps week, what do you expect these media companies to think of us as consumers?

As you read this, a storm is gathering over Jackson’s “malfunction.” Even Justin Timberlake has headed for the moral high ground by whining, “I was completely shocked and appalled, and all I could say was ‘oh my God, oh my God.'”

Little does Timberlake know that he, himself, was an integral part in making the halftime show a failure. A red bra, a breast, what’s the difference? If anything, that single exposure by Jackson was a summation of what to expect if the NFL decides to let McDonald-style profit schemes take over a wholesome tradition like the Super Bowl halftime show.

Mark Ostroff is a Collegian columnist.