Explicit Music Censorship example essay topic

Not only has music censorship been used as's religious or political vehicle to deny knowledge, but it has also been a means of protecting the public from potentially harmful material. It began in the mid-fifties with Elvis Presley; the Ed Sullivan show only filmed the musician from the waist up in order to block out his hip movements. During this time the American society was relatively conservative, with the emergence of the nuclear family. However, it was at this time that teenagers began to purchase their own music, eliminating the opportunity for parents to censor what their children listened to before they bought it.

This also encouraged the music industry to produce music that would appeal to youth, as opposed to the adult-oriented music that had previously dominated the industry. Various churches deemed controversial music a sort of spawn of the devil looking to corrupt their children, and high schools banned rock 'n' roll. The sixties saw the calming of the American music rage, but also gave rise to the British one. The Beatles and the Rolling Stones were among the most controversial; in some parishes of the deep South anyone found in possession of a Beatles album was threatened with excommunication. Furthermore, John Lennon added fuel to the fire by declaring in 1966 that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus.

During this era, Bob Dylan and other protesters also emerged. Now, music was seeping into the political scene and supposedly causing more dissent in America. Because of the wide audience range, that music which made political statements was powerfully effective, and seen as a threat to many politicians in a country amidst the Vietnam War. The hippies also encouraged music advocating illegal drug use and "free love", issues which horrified traditional conservatives. As political issues died down, social ones gained momentum. Punk invaded the air waves through groups such as the Sex Pistols, provoking explicit music censorship as such bands were dropped by their record labels if their lyrics were found potentially offensive.

This created the sub-issue of music censorship versus band censorship; both the Sex Pistols and the Buzzcocks had difficulty finding a record label that would produce music such as the latter's B-side "Oh S Punk eventually dissolved its aggression in the early eighties, giving way to the pop scene. It was during the eighties, however, that the Parents' Music Resource Center (PMRC), headed by Tipper Gore, was formed. In an series of Senate hearings in 1985, Mr. Frank Zappa commented that "taken as a whole, the complete list of PMRC demands reads like an instruct in manual for some sinister kind of toilet training program to house-break all composers and performers because of hte lyrics of a few". After much pressure from the PMRC the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) introduced the "Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics" labelling system in 1990. However, this system is much less effective than it seems; it is strictly voluntary for a band to decide whether or not to put the label on their album, and the criteria of "explicit lyrics" is obscure and vague. Furthermore, companies have only chosen to label selected rock and rap albums, excluding country music, opera, and musical comedy, all of which may contain objectionable content.

Barbara Wyatt of the PMRC speculates that the RIAA's labeling move was merely their way of succumbing to the PMRC's pressure while circumventing a resort to mandatory legislation. Rap now began to emerge with groups such as Public Enemy, NWA, and the Beastie Boys, whose music often contained objectionable lyrics. The Beastie Boys' video for "You Gotta Fight For Your Right" was banned by Top Of The Pops because it was supposedly too suggestive, containing scenes of a drunken orgy. All the while, many pro-censorship organizations and individuals pushed for further limitation on the sale of objectionable music. The early 1990's saw Ice T's single "Cop Killer", which emerged during the L.A. riots of 1992, and was put under much scrutiny for advocating violence against police. The following quote from the song was cited in a brochure distributed by the PMRC: "Cop Killer...

I've got my 12-gauge sawed off. I got my headlights turned off... Cop Killer... it's better you than me. Cop Killer... f -- - brutality". In 1992 in the state of Washington, the "Erotic Music Bill" proposed to put an "adults only" label on that music which the judge found to be of a sexual content or theme, and made it illegal to sell such an album to anyone under the age of 18. A few months after the law was passed, however, it was declared unconstitutional by a state court and thereby revoked.

In February 1997, the proposed House Bill 377 in Pennsylvania stated that both the seller and buyer of a labeled album must both be at least 18 years old. Under this bill, if a minor gets caught purchasing such an album, they would consequentially be required to serve 25 hours of community service. In South Carolina, the proposed Senate Bill 127 would make only the seller face fines of up to $2000 and five years in jail. A similar bill has also been proposed in Montana, the House Bill 83, which would increase the fine to $50,000 and the jail time to ten years. Today, many bands are being persecuted not only for their use of explicit lyrics, but parents are also fighting their concerts. They say that young children shouldn't be exposed to the violent themes encouraged by these artists, and propose either an age limit or an explicit warning in concert advertisements.

On April 13th, 1997, Rage Against the Machine's Saturday Night Live performance was cut short. Rage Against the Machine's lead singer, Zack de la Rocha, has taken an active stand against music censorship and has made quite a few statements on the subject, as well as their guitarist, Tom Morello. In response to the SNL incident, Morello said that during one of their rehearsals, SNL's producers "demanded that we take the flags down. They said the sponsors would be upset, and that because Steve Forbes was on, they had to run a 'tighter's how". SNL producers also told the band it would mute objectionable lyrics in "Bullet In The Head", and insisted that the song also be muted in the studio because Forbes had friends and family there. Morello responded to the whole incident as follows: "SNL censored Rage, period.

They could not have sucked up to the billionaire more. The thing that's ironic is SNL is supposedly this cutting edge show, but they proved they " re bootlickers to their corporate masters when it comes down to it. They " re cowards. It should come to no surprise that GE, which owns NBC, would find 'Bullet' particularly offensive. GE is a major manufacturer of US planes used to commit war crimes in the Gulf War, and bombs from those jets destroyed hydroelectric dams which killed thousands of civilians in Iraq".

Morello noted that members of the Saturday Night Live cast and crew, whom he declined to name, "expressed solidarity with our actions, and a sense of shame that their show had censored the performance. [The inverted flags represented] our contention that American democracy is inverted when what passes for democracy is an electoral choice between two representatives of the privileged class. America's freedom of expression is inverted when you " re free to say anything you want to say until it upsets a corporate sponsor. Finally, this was our way of expressing our opinion of the show's host, Steve Forbes".

In September, 1997, a sheriff in Ephrata, Washington tried to stop Rage from performing at the Gorge Amphitheater, but permission was denied by a Grant County judge. In November, 1997, Senators Samuel Brownback (R-Kan.) and Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.) held hearings to condemn alleged "shock-rockers" like Marilyn Manson, avid customer of Victoria's Secret notorious for his controversial music and concerts. One of key witnesses of the hearing was Raymond Kuntz of Burlington, N.D., whose 15-year-old son, Richard, shot himself while listening to Manson's album Antichrist Superstar. Manson has faced much opposition to his extreme lyrics and concert theatrics. Blatant opponents include the PMRC and the American Family Association (AFA), as well as other family and Christian organizations, who fear his violent and Satanistic themes. Many rap and hip-hop groups are also facing opposition, such as the Wu-Tang Clan, for lyrics that graphically describe sex and street violence.

One of rap's well-known opponents is C. DeLores Tucker, a black woman who is working with various politicians to fight those lyrics which advocate violence and degradation of women. She claims that "in a society that is rife with random violence, sexual promiscuity and abuse of women, these lyrics are reinforcing and intensifying hte se problems. They are saying to children that it's acceptable to settle disputes wiht bullet to the temple, and are creating role models who count only three kinds of women = "ho's,"b -- -- es" and "sluts". ... it seems too many record executives are suffering from First Amendment-itis, a chronic syndrome that blinds the [afflicted] to their responsibilities and leads them to confuse liberty with license.".