Shakira and Jennifer Lopez’s Super Bowl Halftime Show Sparks 1,300 FCC Complaints With Outraged Viewers

Shakira and Jennifer Lopez may have widely been considered to have put on the best Super Bowl halftime show in years as the San Francisco 49ers and Kansas City Chiefs went head-to-head on Feb. 2, but for the 1,300 viewers who filed a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission after the show, the performance was far from family viewing.

With 102 million total viewers, according to Nielsen, the Super Bowl complaints received account for one-thousandth of all viewers, which WFAA received from the government agency through the Freedom of Information Act. The news agency shared redacted versions of these filings with readers, including one Wyoming viewer who wrote. “The show was not appropriate for a general audience. It was sexually explicit and would have been considered soft porn not many years ago.”

Another viewer from Spring Hill, Tennessee said of the show, which included clothed pole dancing and nude colored costumes, “I do not subscribe to The Playboy Channel, we do not buy porn for $20 a flick, we simply wanted to sit down as a family and watch the Super Bowl. God forbid we expected to watch football and a quick concert but instead had our eyes molested.”

Of the 50 U.S. states, 49 were represented in the complains, with Vermont being the only state with zero filings. Texas, meanwhile had nearly 140 complaints, the most of all the states.

“As a father of 2 teen girls I feel obligated, at this point, to file a complaint as I am at my wits end,” a Maine resident complained. “That ‘show’ should have been reserved for late night cable TV … As a society we are talking out of both sides of our mouths and confusing kids. We need to do better, much MUCH better. Please help put a stop this disgraceful type of behavior being pushed on our children.”

Photo credit: Kevin Mazur / Contributor, Getty