So M.I.A. gave the middle finger in public in front of millions of people, and so what? She is that kind of person, using big corporate events like this one (and probably being paid a great deal of money) and saying a big fuck you to the whole world, exactly like when she declared herself a terrorist and used the best Beverly Hills hospital to give birth, or when she reclaimed her Sri-Lanka origins, playing the guerrillero while living in luxury.
NME is reporting that MIA will have ‘to personally pay any fines imposed on US broadcaster NBC as a result of her giving the middle finger gesture’
According to TMZ, M.I.A. had ‘signed a contract with the National Football League in which she agreed to compensate them for any fines they might have to pay if the Federal Communications Commission backed any complaints about the broadcast.’
The NFLand NBC have already issued some flat apologies after M.I.A.’s bad finger move, stammering that their system was too slow to obscure the obscenity on time.
When you look at it, it is so funny and sad how such a minuscule moment during the whole high budget episode can attract the attention of the whole blogosphere, Pitchfork thinks she is an asshole! I will reprint their own words: ‘being an asshole is forever’. Really? America can now be upset for a middle finger? If this is all you have to do to outrage people these days, it ain’t much! After all we see on TV and everywhere, after all this violence, this insanity, Pitchfork is offended? Personally I am much more offended by any Rick Santorum’s apparition on TV than anything M.I.A. has ever done on TV, but that’s just me.