Beyoncé is a "slut." She "gyrated her pelvis," "humping the air for 13 minutes." She "dressed like a stripper" dancing in "erotica fashion." Her "breasts protruded out, her butt almost completely showed." She "showed her vaginal area to all the world." Some people had very different reactions to the Super Bowl than the rest of us.
If you get enough Americans in one place, it's a guarantee that some of them will find something to be offended about. We saw it last year, as viewers bombarded the FCC with complaint after complaint about the halftime show, which featured M.I.A giving the camera the middle finger. Would would this year bring, in a strange Super Bowl that saw an extended blackout, Joe Flacco dropping an F-bomb, and Beyoncé? To find out, Deadspin has obtained viewers' complaints via a FOIA request.
An estimated 108.7 million people tuned in to watch the Ravens beat the 49ers. According to Arthur Scrutchins of the Federal Communications Commission, which handles viewer complaints, the FCC received "thousands of letters." The vast majority of those, however, were part of an organized letter-writing campaign. Outraged by Flacco's profanity being picked up on the broadcast, the Parents Television Council, a conservative advocacy group, urged its followers to complain.
We did not receive those, because they are essentially identical form letters. But we do have 48 individual complaints from Americans frustrated with, by and large, the sexualized commercials and the sexualized Beyoncé. All complaints can be found in the PDF at the bottom of this post. We'll pull out some of our favorites:
Here is the entire collection of complaints we received from the FCC, including, for the demographically minded, the hometown of each offended viewer: