FX and Hulu announced on Monday that Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake’s 2004 Super Bowl halftime scandal will be the subject of a new documentary.
As Deadline reports, the streaming platform and cable channel will host the latest doc in the New York Times Presents series, and it’ll be entitled Malfunction: The Dressing Down of Janet Jackson. Due to arrive later this month on Nov. 19, the documentary promises to feature previously unseen footage and interviews with people involved with the production of the infamous halftime show.
Directed by Jodi Gomes, who previously helmed A+E’s docuseries focused on the Jackson family, the doc is a follow-up to the previous NYT Presents docs, Framing Britney Spears and Controlling Britney Spears. Focusing on the moment in which JT briefly caused a wardrobe malfunction that resulted in the exposure of Janet Jackson’s breast to live audiences around the country, Malfunction will also explore the racial and gender politics at play in the response to the moment.
JT—who was just embarking on his solo career and about to enter his FutureSex/LoveSounds era—was hardly impacted negatively by the performance. The incident, however, has been viewed as something that negatively impacted Jackson’s career. She earned two No. 1 albums and two No. 2 albums on the Billboard 200 following the incident. After the fact, MTV also enforced a blacklist of Jackson’s music videos.
While her 2001 album All for You saw a chart-topper in its lead single, every album that followed the incident failed to score a song within the top 20 of the Hot 100. Sales aside, Jackson’s legacy still stands tall—and she even earned three Grammy nods in the years that followed the performance.
Timberlake apologized for his role in the incident earlier this year, following the release of the Framing Britney Spears documentary, as he shared that he was “deeply sorry for the times in my life where my actions contributed to the problem, where I spoke out of turn, or did not speak up for what was right.”
“I understand that I fell short in these moments and in many others and benefited from a system that condones misogyny and racism,” he wrote. “I specifically want to apologize to Britney Spears and Janet Jackson both individually, because I care for and respect these women and I know I failed. I also feel compelled to respond, in part, because everyone involved deserves better and most importantly, because this is a larger conversation that I wholeheartedly want to be a part of and grow from.”
Among those due to appear in the documentary are numerous NFL and MTV executives, other music industry insiders, and members of the Jackson family.
