Censorship

Censorship

“Do you think music videos should be censored?”

1.       Censorship law OFCOM

Ofcom is the communications regulator for a whole range of different media sectors, some of which being radio sectors, fixed line telecoms, TV, mobiles, postal services and airwaves waves which wireless devices operate from. They makes sure that consumers are getting the best from their communication services and are protected from any type of sharp practices and scams.; but at the same time ensuring that the competition in the industry can thrive. Ofcom functions under the communication Act 2003, Ofcom don’t act or anything more than they should and what is said in the act. Parliament is also part in advising and involved in some of the settings some of the technical elements of the regulation, implementing and enforcing the law.

    Some of the main duties which the Ofcom do are to ensure, that the UK has a wide range of different electronic communication services, including high speed service for example broadband. Some of the others are making sure that television and radio services are all provided by a whole range of different companies. Another is to protect the consumers who watch the TV and who listen to the radio from offensive material, as well as protecting people from being treated unfairly in television and radio programmes, and their privacy invaded. Also another one being the radio spectrum (the airwaves used by everyone from taxi firms and boat owner, to mobile-phone companies and broadcasters) is used in the most effective way. These are just a few of the things which the Ofcom do to support the multimedia which is in the UK.

    There are also things which the Ofcom don’t do, some of these things are; settling disputes between the user and their telecom provider, the content of television and radio adverts, complaints about accuracy in BBC programs and the BBC TV licence fee are just some of the disputes which Ofcom don’t deal with and have nothing to do with.

 

2.       Detailed examples from music videos

A good example of where there has been a large controversy was over the song S&M by Rihanna. This video caused a stir when it got released because of both the content of the lyrics and the nature of the video. When it first came out it was viewed on a few channels, but then when the controversy got worse this video was not allowed to be played on any music channel. Bearing this in mind the song was not written off all together as when it hit the charts it still got its mention but the video was just not viewed. This song was then not allowed to be viewed on music channels for example MTV, and KISS, but this was just for TV the song was also banned from some multimedia internet devices for example you tube, users were not allowed to watch the video unless they were over 18 and they had a you tube account, this was the only way for people to watch this video online.

But the song was not banned from being played on the radio, as most radio stations still played the song, although it was not the original version of the song, it was an edited radio cut version, each radio had a slightly different version of the song which slurred out some of the lyrics others covered it with other instruments, and some just the some of the lyrics out all together this was in order for the song to be played through radio services. Then of course the song was available to download from various sites for example ITunes. An example of why this was so explicit was because in the video Rihanna had men with dog leashes around there necks on all fours, and some of her lyrics are “'Cause I may be bad, but I'm perfectly good at it Sex in the air, I don't care, I love the smell of it Sticks and stones may break my bones But chains and whips excite me” I think that this examples then makes it more obvious why these lyrics were seen to be explicit and this was one of the reasons why this song was so strongly censored.

    Another music video which got censored was, Skepta s*x all over the house this song never even made it onto the TV or the radio stations. There were a lot of issues with this music video when it came out as well the lyrics and the intension of the song. This was one of those videos which everyone heard about through word of mouth, and then watches the video after, but people had to try and find the video to watch it as it was so explicit it was not to be viewed anywhere. This video couldn’t even be seen on you tube, and was not played on the radio either; even other music websites didn’t play the song. There were only actually one website which the video could be viewed from, but then even this video was then blocked after a certain amount of time soon after the songs release. This song can currently be downloaded but is unable to be watched, one of the reasons being that this video was considered to be so bad is because it was considered to be just as bad as pornographic videos and was therefore considered inappropriate. An example from this video which displays why this film is explicit would be where during this video there is a couple doing inappropriate sexual things in the kitchen. This then makes it quite self expiatory why this music video couldn’t be shown on music channels.

3.       Specific artists from the music industry

One artists which has been through a lot of controversy would be Lady Gaga, as she was actually denied the permit to perform her concert in Indonesia after the Islamic conservatives protested, due to the type of clothing and her choice dancing after claims that they are too ‘sexy’ and would corrupt the country’s youth. They didn’t want her in the country to the point where they were prepared to use physical force to prevent mother monster from coming into the county, this also would have been Lady Gaga’s biggest tour on the Asian leg of her ‘Born This Way Ball’ tour. For which the tour which would have been performed on the 3^rd June 2012.          

   

Another artist which has suffered from the censorship battle would be; M.I.A, as her single from 2007 was censored by MTV as well as ‘Late Night With Dave Letterman’ because of the use of the gunshots which were in the rhythm track. As these music stations didn’t want to have this sort of music exposed to its listeners.  This song was actually made in response to the US government denying her visa back in 2006. But this was not the only time that M.I.A music video has been censored, as it then happened again in 2010 with the release of the song ‘Born Free’ which entailed a video about red headed young people being rounded up and then being brutally murdered. Due to this, the video was rejected from being played on YouTube due to the content being too violent. But this didn’t stop the video spreading over the internet anyway even if it wasn’t through YouTube. 

    Another artist which it has happened to which is slightly older in the industry now would be; Garth Brooks. As in 1991 he brought out a video about domestic violence for his song ‘The Thunder Rolls’ even though the clip had the support of women’s shelters from the outset, some TV networks such as CMT and TNN banned the video from their airwaves. But then the song did end up at the top of the charts and went on to win the coveted CMA video of the year award.

   






One of the most famous names in the music industry has also been censored for some of their videos. Madonna being my prime example here, back in the 1990 Madonna liked making titillating music videos which she hoped would excite her audience. But this was not always the case as sometimes this actually offended her viewers/ audience instead. To this day her most outrageous music video, and her biggest piece of eye candy would be; ‘Justify My Love’ this was so raunchy that it would even make Lady Gaga look like Mother Theresa. This video is completely in black and white and the duration of the video and it shows Madonna in various different states of where she is with men (and maybe women) engaging in naughty activities. There are also women and a few scantily-clad people of which had very questionable genders. MTV was spouse to premiere this song and the video but banned the song outright from the first time they saw it. But all of this controversy about the clip only created a further interest of the clip thus 260,000 VHS copies of the video were sold, as well as the song then spending two weeks at the top of the billboard of the hot 100 chart.

Having analysed the lyrics of the song which I am looking to base my music video on I have found that it doesn’t really have anything offensive in the song. This is because there is no swearing, abusive, sexual, or inappropriate language or connotations within the lyrics of the song therefore I didn’t think that there would be an issue with ofcom as the lyrics of the song are okay. If there had been issues with the lyrics of the song which I had chosen I would then have to look into if there would be issues about where I could be able to distribute the music video but luckily that is not the case here.     

 

4.       Eminem debate

Eminem is a well established and controversial rapper, he’s the first white rapper to come onto the scene since the Beastie Boys and has been a big success from day one, and hit a large amount of top ten hits and some of the most record breaking hits on YouTube is a well respected artist.    

    Eminem is an artist who is well known for having his music video and his lyrics censored. His arguments lies with Eminem’s argument to this is that he is expressing what he feels and telling a story about the experiences which he has been through and talking about hoe he has got to where he is today. He feels that is nothing wrong with the music which he produces and that this shouldn’t affect the people that listen to his music, further portraying the idea that what he sings about shouldn’t really encourage people to do violent things or and pick up violent language.

    But the augment which is then posed against this would be that young people which listen to his music do pick up the band language, and that the content which is on the screen may be too much for its audience to handle and just to be on TV generally. As it’s wrong for people to watch this sort of behaviour on the TV as it can attract and encourage the wrong type of audience and encourage bad behaviour.       

 

5.       Provide both sides of the debate

Every person will have a different predicament about what is right, and what is wrong, as well as what should be view on TV and radios and so on, and what shouldn’t. This is everyone who has any time of interest in music and about what they think should be showed and what shouldn’t, for example;  parents, children, the audience, the producer, the record label, the music channels, the radio stations, and of course the artist themselves. I will be discussing all of these different views in order to see what all these different people think and how they think it affect the industry and fans.   

    The first view which I will be discussing will be from the view of a ten year old fan. “I don’t think that there is anything wrong with the music which Eminem produces. I look at him as a role model as someone who I can look up to, I think that I have a lot of valid reasons for why I think that this is a good idea, the first being that Eminem proves that it is still possible to make it, and be successful even when the odd are stacked up against someone as he still made it even given that he only had his mum, and because he had to deal with the suicide of his uncle who he saw as a dad, and living a life where he was constantly travelling and further ended up dropping out of school he still managed to make it big, and get through the worst which life could possible throw at him and still become a success. For examples of where he has done this would be in songs such as ‘Stan’, ‘toy soldier’.As these are two examples which are related to the life of Eminem, as he sings about the relationship between him and if fans and well as the discussing the loss of one of his closest friend and sings about how this has affected him and the impact this has now had on his life. One of the impacts being that he now feels that he has grown as a person this is evident as he sings about all the loses he has experienced throughout his whole life up until that stage in his music career and he raps about how he has made it through all of that and how this had made him feel as if he is now able to achieve more as now he feels stronger. All that Eminem is doing is singing about his life and if people thing that, that should be censored it is also like saying that his life should be censored because that’s all he’s doing is singing about his like and not superficial things which have never happened to the artist. I think if that’s not a reason to look up to someone then I don’t know what is. I would even ask the question is it better to look up to someone who has had everything handed to them on a plate and hasn’t had to work for anything in their lives? I would that be a way to learn the value of money or how not to take things for granted is it better that young people looked up to someone like that? I think that yes maybe it can be debating the type of language which has been used through his videos, but then again no one said that it has to be played on TV? That should just be the personal choice of the listener if they want to listen to that or not these are my reasons for supporting Eminem and showing that he’s not doing anything wrong by expressing the way he feels”

    My second view is now from ‘Kiss’ the music channel “as Kiss we appeal to a large audience and play a whole variety of music. So it is important that we strongly consider the matter of censoring in terms of who may get offended by certain music videos. For example it may be better to not play an Eminem video and lose a few viewers and offend the minority than offending the majority by playing the video as there would be a bigger lose in views and may affect the reputation of the channel which may then lead to bad publicity thus effecting the view that the channel would get. So as you can see we are better off losing a few views then a lot, rather than the channel having to try and live through the knock on effects that one video can do to the channel. Examples of song of the songs which could be considered to be ‘spacebound’ and ‘Kim’ these are just of the videos where the channel has had to think twice about viewing. For some of the reasons being because of compliments from parents. But then on the other hand it is hard to please everyone as Eminem has such a large fan base, the channel is at risk of losing a lot of view, but then we have to think in comparisons about the figures in views and what would be the biggest loss.” 

    The third opinion which I will be looking at is ‘Radio One’ “the way we look at it is that we are a radio station which plays a whole range of different diverse music and we try to appeal to a whole range of different target audiences. This is why we have decided to play Eminem’s songs but then we also do try and respect what all of our listeners like to listen to. So bearing this in mind we do play Eminem’s music, but for the content which can be seen as being really bad is where we decide to just radio edit the song, so that this way it will appeal to our entire listener so that they can listen to music without having to worry what type of music the radio is playing. We find that this then puts parents and so on at rest as then they don’t have to worry so much about what their kids are listening to as they will know that it is not that bad because the swearing and harmful language would be taken out. We also believe that each artist has a different way of expressing themselves and this shouldn’t be discouraged just because it is a little bit different. Although it can be argued that this could mean that some artists do take it too far to the point of where it does become inappropriate like the lyrics of ‘Stan’ for example, “I'm in the car right now. I'm doing 90 on the freeway.
Hey Slim, I drank a fifth of vodka. You dare me to drive? “And “Shut up, slut! I'm tryin' to talk! Hey Slim, that's my girlfriend screamin' in the trunk, but I didn't slit her throat. I just tied her up. See I ain't like you cause if she suffocates she'll suffer more, then she'll die too.” This is the clean version of the song ‘Stan’ and although this I still bad as well this song would have also need to be changed so that it can be played on the radio and although this could be said to be taking things too far there are ways of getting around it, as we don’t believe it to be fair that people should miss out on good music because of a few lines in a song which can be sorted out so that the song is able to be listened to by everyone.”

     The fourth opinion that I will be looking at is the music channel ‘AKA’ “we are a channel which is designed and caters for a niche market and therefore we don’t really have a problem with showing Eminem’s music won our music channels as the niche audience that we cater for is that of which would listen to this sort of music. Bearing this in mind if we didn’t’ play this music then where else would they hear it and they would be confused as to why it is not being played as music such as Eminem’s is being played all of the time so why should this be seen as any problem? What we are trying to say is that we wouldn’t be catering for our market if we didn’t play this music and as we play music like this all the time playing songs such as ‘lose yourself, we don’t give a f*ck, we made you, verbal suicide, pills’ and so on are just a few of Eminem’s songs which we play. But at the end of the day this is a rap channel and this will obviously play song likes this. But yes it can be argued that the lyrics and the videos are taken to far sometime, but if that is what the artist which in this case is Eminem has chosen to do then so be it. When the content of a song really does get that bad then of course it is edited slightly, but otherwise it is kept the same. For example swear words would be taken out of the song for obvious reasons one of which being because of the water shed and it is important that children don’t hear that sort of language. But if there parents are letting them watch certain stuff like this after 9:00pm then there is not much that the channel can then do”        

    The fifth opinion which I will be looking into is MTV “being MTV we think it is important to make sure that we are censoring the right videos where they need to be censored in order to make sure that they are not promoting harmful behaviour has they don’t want to be seen as a channel which is partly responsible for the promotion of this, or as a channel which thinks that it is okay and agrees with it. this is why we believe that it is important not to show videos which we think would be considered harmful in some way. Songs such as ‘The way I am’ would be a good example of a video which may have been censored as the video has Eminem jumping off a roof, and smashing mirrors in this can be seen as harmful and encourages harmful behaviour, this isn’t the sort of activities which we want to promote. We feel that it is wrong and that it might make people think that, oh if Eminem can do it then why can’t we? And then do the actions themselves. As we have such a large audience and such a popular channel we feel that it is important that we are playing appropriate types of music. As by showing our audience videos such as ‘Stan and lose yourself’ that this could just the one thing that might just push a member of the audience to do the wrong thing. We also thing that by playing these songs then this would almost we a way of saying yes this behaviour is fine and that it is okay to be tolerated. We think that unless the audience is aware that these videos are wrong then they might think that this is normal behaviour and we don’t want them to think that we want them to see that this type of behaviour is wrong. Although it can then be argued that if you want the audience to see that it is wrong then maybe they should show the video or even just a little bit of it just to show that it is wrong, or how will they ever know that it is wrong if they don’t ever see it. but then the audience may not have even been aware of behaviour like this and playing it might then start to put thoughts into their minds such as videos like ‘spacebound’ This is because in this music video there is a scene where Eminem shoots himself in the head and the whole shot of this is in the music video. The actual bullet is shown going through his head with the blood at the blood after the bullet, the gun and him falling to the ground. This is quite a graphic image to watch, and can be seen as a bad influence. This is just one reason why we don’t play this type of music, using Eminem as an example”.

    The sixth point of view which I will be discussing is the view of the parents for the Eminem videos. “we feel that this type of music which is being produced by Eminem isn’t all bad, as all it is, is him talking about real life and what it was like for him growing up and how he deals with life today and the problems he’s had, he is just talking about really life and surely that is better than listening to superficial artists which don’t speak any truth. We think that in terms of the language which is being used is it is all stuff they are going to hear anywhere if it not be through music videos. Also in terms of the content of the videos, again he is not telling them about anything that they won’t be hearing elsewhere or anything that they won’t be finding out about themselves in some ways shape or form. Not all of what he sings is bad some of it has good intensions as he looks at the mistakes which he has made and talks about how he should have gone about certain situations differently. Just because he swears don’t mean that what he is saying is bad, it just shows that he may be emotionally connected to that situation and that is one of way of expressing it, this is language which children will end up hearing anyway, so what difference would it really make if they hear it through a song which talks truth, or if they hear it in the playground at school or just amongst people in general it really doesn’t make a different because if they know not to swear then they won’t. Eminem also takes situations which everyone says jokes about and just makes them into a song and makes them a little funny. For example ‘just lose it, and we made you’ with the whole Michael Jackson and his nose, and Amy Winehouse, and Jessica Simpson and so on. He is just playing with the sort of content which gets talked and discussed about in the media and turns it into a song so really he’s not doing that much wrong when this is what the media is doing every day.”

 

 

    The seventh opinion which I will be looking at is from the view of the parents against letting their children watching these sorts of videos “we that that children look up to their idols the most and they play a major role in their lives as children want to be just like them and want everything they have and just love everything they do, now we don’t think that this would be okay with any artist but we think that some artist can be more dangerous than others. We think that this may be the case for Eminem as he is so violent and raps some very aggressive and full on direct lyrics about his life. We think that this would be a major impact on out children’s lives as they would then feel encouraged to pick up the same behaviour and the same language. We think that this would then be a bad thing because there are a lot of harsh lyrics in his songs as well as a large amount of swearing and had aggressive and violent videos, we feel that this would then put ideas into the young children’s minds about music videos and this could encourage them to be violent as they might think of if Eminem is doing it then why can’t we? It can also be argued that on the other hand by taking this away from them, and changes his songs to much you will then be changing the type of person he is and the things that make him, him. And would probably be changing the main things which the kid would like about his artist as soon as the artist starts to be changed they are no longer themselves anymore and they start to lose the shine which they would have started with which would have made them the good artist which they are and the reason why kids would have liked them so much and why they would have such a large fan base. And also it is probably wrong for an artist to change who they are just because a percentage of parents don’t agree with the content of the song, as the whole point of the music is to express themselves what they are feeling and their emotions and life experience based on their lives and that shouldn’t be changed because a certain amount of parents don’t like it. But we still think that if Eminem is producing music which he knows will appeal to young target audience then he should at least consider clean versions, and maybe being a little less harsh with the lyrics. As at the end of the day this will have an impact of the younger listeners.”  

    The eighth view which I will be looking at is the view of the fans for Eminem “we think that there if nothing wrong with Eminem’s music as it is just expressive of the person he is and subjective to the person he has become, and how he has a success. We think that this should just been seen the freedom of speech which at the end of the day should just be seen as a human right and something which everyone is entitled to do so why should Eminem’s freedom of speech be censored, surely this is wrong. We do understand that yes he swear s a lot and some of his language may be seen as being quite bad and offensive, but even then I think that this just a way of conveying to the audience just how much he has been through and he has still managed to come out the other side and be a success, he is a real person just expressing the way he feels and speaking strongly about his experiences “hi kids, do you wants to see me stick nine inch needles in my eyes?” This could be seen as something quite bad and something which could corrupt the mind of young kids. This could also be bad as they could out up the bad language which young people could start to pick up and use them. This could also persuade young kids to think that it is okay to behave like this if they think that their idol is behaving like this. Yes it can be challenged that subjects of this nature maybe a bit much for listeners, but then again at the end of the day it is down to that person about what they decide to listen to and what they can handle. We also believe that there are people out their which are much worse than Eminem and they aren’t given this much grief? We think Eminem is good and don’t think he should be censored, it is clear that he doing well in order for him to last this long in the industry and be the big sell out and success which he is today. If people start censoring his videos then people are taking away what is good about Eminem and what makes him the person he is today.

    The ninth person which I will be looking at the view of the fans who are for Eminem but think that the content of the songs maybe be a bit too much “yes we are fans for Eminem and we like his music but we do think that sometimes his lyrics can be a bit over the top and be considered as offensive. We as fans do understand the concerns which people would have and how this may influence young listeners we do understand this, and we do agree that to some extend that some of his stuff should be censored but then we do think that this could potentially then be changing the image which he currently up holds this then could mean the loss of fans which wouldn’t be good. But we do think that there are ways of getting around this, some of which being, to just edit some of the songs for the TV and the radio and then if people want to buy the album then they are then able to hear the full version of the song. We also think that there should be the option for the user to buy a clean version or the full unedited version we think that this is just one way in which this issue would be tackled, I think there other ways this this issue can be sorted but this is just an example of one of them. But at the end of the day we still enjoy Eminem’s music”

    The tenth opinion which I will be looking at is; the record label “as we work of Eminem we think that it is important that we encourage and support Eminem in the decisions which he makes about his music and help to guide him in his choices in order for him to remain a success. We believe that he has done well to get to where he is now and it is 100% up to him about what he decides to produce. We don’t think we should change what Eminem is producing as it has done well to get him where he is not, so we would be stupid to change that. This is the reason why he is one of the most successful artists of his time and in this decade. He sells successful music and has a very large fan base he has broken records and writes real music, and why should we discourage this, when he is making this much money like he is, he must be doing something right. As the saying goes if it’s not broke then why fix it, we believe that this is the case with Eminem he has done so well up until now some of the songs which have prompted the success which he is a part of now is, ‘Stan, Lose Yourself, The Way I Am, Guilty Conscience, Yellow Brick Road, Role Model, Till I Collapse, Rock Bottom, and Sing For The Moment’ These are just some of the songs where the Eminem has discussed his success and how he has come up from nothing and how me how come up from nothing and how he wants to tell people how he has managed get through everything that has happened to him in his life like the death of his close ones, the back stabbing and the loss of some of his friends. Thus conveying the accomplishments which he has achieved and illustrating how he is an inspirational figure of loads of people as he chose the right rout and didn’t go down the wrong rout. These are just some of the songs which have made Eminem the success he is today and we wouldn’t change that. At the end of the day this is Eminem’s record label therefore he is free to do whatever he likes. We think if people don’t like his work then maybe they shouldn’t listen to it, as no one is forcing them to listen to him, Eminem just like any other artist will never be able to please and appeal to everyone therefore why would he need to change, when he knows who his fans are? Therefore we don’t see the need for Eminem to change.

    The last and eleventh opinion which I will be looking into would then of course the view of Eminem the artist himself and what he thinks about all of this censorship over his music. “I think that every artist including myself should get the chance to be able to express themselves in whatever way they find suits them, whether it is through art, music, dance, writing and so on. I have just chosen to express myself using music through singing and song writing as this has helped me to overcome some of the big hurdles which I have overcome in my life. Of course I understand that I will never be able to please everyone with my music, but at the end of the day it is a product of my thoughts and feels and if people like that then great and I’m glad that I can touch people with my music but if I can’t then it’s not the end of the world either everyone had individual taste and no one said that people have to listen to my music. I have people say to me all of the time about if I think my music promotes danger and violence and my answer to this is, if they people are that is that way inclined to committee such offenses and even consider half of the crazy stuff which happens in within music videos (not just mine) then they wouldn’t need my music to be able to committee the crime as they already have it in them and it would b wrong to blame a song for what a person is willing to do off their own back, and at the end of the day it is just a song so they wouldn’t need encouragement from the song as they would already have the motive in themselves to be able to do it. To this date there are no reports that there has been any offense of a song having any sort of influence of any sort of crime or offense. Therefore it would be wrong to just blame a song from the crime which happens in the world when the people that do this would have to have quite a strong agenda and vendetta to be able to do such as thing. Therefore I think that it would be wrong to blame people, I also think that people wouldn’t need lyrics to committee crimes, as artists should be to express their talent without censorship. But that’s just me other artist may think different.” 

 

             

6.       Personal opinion

Personally I think that it’s up to people what they chose to listen to; I understand the argument from both sides completely. I think that what people listen to does have a big impact on their lives especially young people, I also think that they do look up to some artists as role models so how they act, the songs they produce, and the way they behave is important as ultimately people do look up to them and this can influence what people do. But then I do also think artist have the right to behave the way they want and not base their life on other people because they are in the spotlight, and they shouldn’t act fake just to please other people. but then I  also do think that if as artist or just any celebrity if they have committed to becoming a celebrity then they have taken up that role of people wanting to look up to them as role models and therefore they should behave. But at the end of the day I don’t think that any artist would actually be willing to do but, so I just think that they should think a little more about the music which they are producing and the target audience which they are trying to reach and think twice about their lyrics and what messages they are portraying to people. That’s why I think that radio edits are appropriate, and changes to the song for it to be able to be viewed on the TV and the radio stations. Because I don’t think that songs should just be stopped from being played through these devices such as radio stations and the TV and YouTube. I don’t think that an artist talent should be hidden or changed, but I think edits are considerable in order for it to still be enjoyed by fans in public places such as the TV, radio stations and YouTube.