Nine Sixteenths – Pleasance Theatre, London

Writer: Paula Varjack

Co-devisers: Julienne Doko, Endy McKay and Pauline Meyers

In February 2004, at the end of the halftime show of Super Bowl XXXVIII, Justin Timberlake, who had just been duetting with the show’s headline act Janet Jackson, tore away part of Jackson’s Alexander McQueen-designed costume. For nine-sixteenths of a second, her right breast was exposed, the nipple protected by a sun-shaped shield.

The reaction to that incident and the ensuing media circus led to a blackballing of Jackson, all but ending a career that had been meteoric and putting paid to Jackson’s status as a role model for young black women.

One of those young women was Paula Varjack. Growing up with Jackson as an idol, Varjack considers her own life as well as Jackson’s in a show that, while being a little too scrappy in places, raises fundamental questions about how those in charge of the media – overwhelmingly pale, stale and male – actively hamper the career development of black women.

Varjack’s work mixes dance and mime, including a slow-motion recreation of the incident, with personal memoir, excerpts from complainants’ emails, and stories of some of the media moguls concerned. Assisted by co-devisers Julienne Doko, Endy McKay, and Pauline Meyers, we hear how a struggling video-sharing site called YouTube started to gain traction only when it became a place where people could rewatch the incident. The men behind the site became billionaires a few months later when the site was sold to Google, a sharp contrast to the fate of the woman whose wardrobe malfunction had made their name.

There is also a lip-sync to an excruciating interview in which late-night talk show host David Letterman keeps badgering Jackson about the incident despite her repeated pleas to talk about something else. That moment sums up America’s attitude to the whole, brief wardrobe malfunction: outrage and titillation go hand in hand, both chastising the event and refusing to let it fade away.

Throughout the aftermath, Varjack’s company focuses on the lack of agency Jackson is afforded. Up until that moment, she had been the embodiment of confident womanhood; in nine-sixteenths of a second, she became property. CBS, which produced the halftime show, blackballed her. CBS’ parent company, Viacom, banned her from their MTV and VH1 music channels and prevented her music from being broadcast on any of their radio stations across America.

Timberlake, on the other hand, came out relatively unscathed. The difference, Varjack strongly suggests, is that while both performers made public apologies, Jackson declined to give a personal one to CBS chairman Les Moonves, who then pursued a personal vendetta against the star.

But while the story of Jackson’s post-Super Bowl career is interesting and not a little heartbreaking, the impact it had on Varjack is a more compelling side to this piece. While the performer may not quite deliver the connection, the prospect of the singer’s downfall mirroring the struggles of other black women struggling to stay in an industry that finds it easy to reject them is notable.

In a world where the term “emerging artist” is often yoked to a requirement that said artist be below the age of 25, the frustration and determination of Varjack and her co-devisers – all black women over 40, all still in the process of emergence – form the real heart of the piece.

Dwelling on the half a second of breast exposure in 2004 itself is something that too many people who talk about Janet Jackson do. Varjack acknowledges that Nine Sixteenths is complicit in that. But in its scrappy, occasionally chaotic efforts to use it as a springboard for discussion about black women’s role in the arts, Varjack’s work allows for the reclamation of the pride and power that Jackson held, and which should never have been taken away from her.

Continues until 16 November 2024