‘Affront or Alarm’: Performance, the Law and the ‘Female Breast’ from Janet Jackson to Crazy Girls

A momentary glimpse of Janet Jackson's breast on American television precipitated an earnest debate on the overstepping of marks (and recording-breaking TiVo replays) – while in many states, most notably Nevada, explicitly sexual performance is a respected contributor to the local economy. In this paper, Jeffrey D. Mason finds a way through the maze of state legislation and Supreme Court decision-making on the subject, exploring the interpretations of a constitutional right to self-exposure in conflict with the perceived need for protection against it; and he assesses the performance of Crazy Girls, a typical Las Vegas revue of the more ‘acceptable’ kind. He argues that the law, ‘constituting a text analogous to a playscript in its delineation of roles, actions, interactions, and even costume choices, attempts to impose taste with a special precision by addressing display, intent, and effect; and serves as both an expression of disapprobation and an instrument to censor performance’. Jeffrey D. Mason is Professor of Theatre Arts and Head of the Department of Theatre Arts in the University of Oregon. A shorter version of this article was delivered as a plenary session paper at the annual conference of the American Society for Theatre Research at the Riviera Hotel in Las Vegas, on 20 November 2004.