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Censorship In Music : Should acts like Eminem and Marilyn Manson be Censored? |
| Date: |
18/08/02 (134 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Perhaps people are far too eager to jump on the ‘civil liberties’ bandwagon – we need a more thoughtful interrogation of the matter in hand. Music, like other art forms, has the power to move, provoke, incite emotions and feelings, to rouse the mind and warm the soul. Censorship exists in other mediums; film, the press and television for example. So why/not music?
Currently I cannot think of any bands or artists that would need to be censored. Swearing is fine – this you could hear anywhere. If you, a parent say, do not wish your child to hear profanity (which they will pick up at junior school anyhow), then there are barriers placed to do so; the watershed on TV, daytime standards on radio & TV and certificated films. Yet there exist other things in music more potent than the f-word here and there. Sentences evoke more than single, or combinatory words. What is said in verse is arguably the most expressive way of expressing anything.
What then, constitutes censorship-worthy verse? Certainly verse is less scrutinized than say a political speech, or newspaper column. Also, it seems, verse is not subject to the same laws as those governing what is said in public e.g. by leaders of religious groups. Should music be any different – inciting racial violence/tension in a BNP polemic is arrestable, yet the same cannot be said of lyrics in a song. Insinuating (and so seemingly encouraging) violence towards establishments controlling society, women and global behemoths is not difficult to find (see Eminem, RATM et al). Can an artist write about beating his wife, raping her, murdering people, committing suicide, the glorification of historical atrocities etc. without reaction, without consequence?
I would argue yes, but not universally. Music is subject to interpretation, but those who choose to make political and social statements should be constricted by the same rules of other art forms. It is certainly ‘civi
l’ to be able to argue that Jews, Blacks, Asylum seekers are the root cause of all evil. Such views are rarely prevalent, but their existence means jointly that we live in a tolerant and intolerant society. So society is ambiguous enough to allow all manner of filth and pestilence into the lyrics of music while the majority shuns it. However, this principle surely (eventually) leads to a merging of the two poles: more controversial trash becomes popular, meaning more trash becomes less controvertible.
Therefore, lines need to be drawn which cannot be crossed. Musicians, like authors, politicians, filmmakers, need to be privy to these. I’m glad that, (as a liberal, not some junked-up, Daily Mail reading moron) music is currently not advancing toward the mysterious ‘lines’. Long may music campaign for equity and change, though bending; not breaking, the law is the way to go about it.
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