Prince's cigar

It seems the United States has something of an image problem. No, it’s true. According to a study conducted by the BBC, 51 percent of people across 27 countries believe the US has a negative influence on the world. To put that in perspective, only 48 percent have the same perception of North Korea. Now I won’t claim the U.S. is perfect, or even reasonably acceptable, but we only intentionally starve our population during hurricanes. Of course these statistics don’t mean anything; on their own, the events of the last six years can’t possibly negate the historically positive impact America has had. \nThat things aren’t always as they seem is a lesson that needs to be explained, very slowly, to Super Bowl viewers who filed petitions with the Federal Communications Commission about Prince’s halftime show. The complaints obtained by The Smoking Gun, a Web site dedicated to publicizing otherwise unknown documents, were filed by viewers who consider a 50-foot silhouette of Prince fingering a guitar with conspicuously phallic dimensions particularly offensive.\n Unfortunately, I can’t possibly give the scene justice, but one complaint beautifully encapsulates what everyone was thinking as Prince’s shadow plucked out “Purple Rain:” “… there seemed to be a shadow puppet of his (penis). The sheet … seemed to be (stained?) with something (semen?).” OK, maybe that’s not exactly how you saw it, but you don’t have kids. “My children were watching,” the complaint continues, “Now I have to explain to them what a wet spot is on a cum covered sheet.” \nThe majority of the complaints express their indignation through typos and exaggerated punctuation. Some are so far removed from rational thought that one has to wonder if the supposedly outraged fans aren’t just playing games with a government agency renown for its stern, joyless censors. One viewer was apparently so overwhelmed by “Prince stroking, manipulating and fondling” his mammoth member that it made him “feel small, and unable to perform.” Another said his devastated child had “hoped to be a quarterback and now he will turn out gay. I am actually considering to check him for HIV.”\n“CSI’s” head investigator Gil Grissom cleared Prince of any wrongdoing. “The DNA evidence collected from the wet spot does not match the sample collected from Prince,” he said last week. The network is still investigating how a single man could create such a huge stain or transmit a disease he doesn’t have through a cable box, though sources close to the investigation admit Prince is capable of extraordinary things. \nSharon Jenkins begs the question: why was Janet Jackson’s 2004 “wardrobe malfunction” labeled indecent if “a long drawn out show of simulated masturbation is OK??!!!” An NFL spokesperson responded to Jenkins’ query by explaining that simulated masturbation won the Halftime Theme Contest, easily rubbing out the competing theme, simulated sodomy.\nThey say people see what they want to, but sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Regardless of what Prince’s engorged guitar shaft might have looked like, it was still just a guitar.