Censorship

Do you think music videos should be censored?

Censorship of music is when the restricting of music is put into work. It can be chosen to be censored due to moral, political, military of religious issues. Most of the time the government will decide the legal side of a piece of music and how it appears in a certain way. Censorship can be when the lyrics of a song are changed or completely taken out of the song this is also known as radio edit. The cover artwork can also be restricted to what can be shown on them. Some artists have even been banned from being on the radio, or music stations on the television, these can be for any reasons explicit language or sexual visuals. Ofcom has many responsibilities as a company, it was set up in 2003 so that they could sensor songs. This is all done to protect certain individuals from watching or listening anything thats classed as unsuitable. Radio stations, for example; Radio 1 and Kiss have a lot of respect for of com and follow the rules of censorship, these particular radio stations use it lot as they play the current songs in the chart, which usually will contain some swearing or unuitable language. In this situation the radio stations usually play a radio edited version of the song or they use a bleeper and blank out any words that they dont want played.

There are many artists that are admired and frowned upon for creating what they class as unsuitable music,  one of the most famous ones is Eminem. This is because in all of his songs he has swear words, inappropriate and violent language such as one of his songs, 'You were supposed to love me Now bleed! b**ch bleed!'. This is Eminem talking about a beating up women. Not only does it contain swear words but also violence such as his song 3am which include lyrics such as 'And make sure I got all of it, wake up naked at McDonald's with blood all over me dead bodies behind the counter, s**t guess I must've just blacked out again, not again'. As an artist Eminem has always been against censorship, not only for himself but for other artists too as he believes that artists should be able to express themselves through their lyrics without them being cut off. He particulary argues that his lyrics are about his past life and events that are important to him so that it actually has meaning to it. Eminem says that his music is offensive to certain individuals whether they be adults, or even children as he says that they will learn about the swear words and violence one day, whether they listen to his music or not. People have said that Eminems fans are so influenced by Eminem that they become violent and commit crimes, however Eminem argues that if any individual is that wrong in the head or unstable then they are going to do it any way regardless or whether they listen to his songs.

A large amount of parents believe that Eminems songs should be censored due to their children hearing these lyrics and even being influenced by what he does in his music videos and what is heard and described in his songs. Many of his lyrics are seen to be violent and influential on children, with lyrics such as 'It's 3 A.M in the morning, put my key in the dorr and bodies laying all over the floor and I dont remember how they got there but I guess I must've killed 'em (Killed 'em)', Here the parents argue that this will influence their children to go and be violent as they look up to Eminem.

Looking at Eminem's music videos, certain music channels, for example MTV will hardly play his music videos during the day time. This is because MTV is such a huge and well known music channel that his has a wide audience and a lot of viewers, therefore they cant play inappropriate music videos for an audience that would be watching during the day which in cases will be younger people and wouldnt be suitable for people of all ages. Due to this they wont play any of Eminem's music video which contain violence, one of these is 3 A.M. shows an image of Eminem unwrapping his hand out of a bandage with a huge deep cut on it, and then followed by an image of a man standing with a knife and blood over all of his hands and the knife. This is why some of his videos arent shown in the day as this can be seen to be influential towards his fans, MTV decided to not show the video at all as they didnt want to lose any viewers as they felt that it was too inappropriate.

A music channel is extremely similar to a Radio station with the idea of censorship. Both of them use censorship when it comes down to lyrics. However the only difference is with music videos on a music channel is that they may contain inappropraite images for children or younger children to watch. A perfect example is Rihanna's S&M as her music video was banned by music channels including one of the most known ones MTV, this is because of the sexual explicit viewing that was in the music video, however to avoid her video not being played at all Rihanna relesase a edited version of the music video so that it is suitable to watch by all viewers.

On the other hand, there are other music channels that support Eminem and do play his music videos and have different views on censorship. One of the music channels that have a different view is Channel AKA. The reason for them for having a different view is because they are a niche channel nd have a niche audience who all like the same artists. Channel AKA is an R&B/rap music channel therefore Eminem fits into the catagory of what the viewers want to see which is Eminems music. Therefore Channel AKA wont want to censor any of his lyrics.



Its hard for radio stations and music channels to choose what parts to censor or whats ok to not censor, this is because they have to protect themselves and make sure what they do is right for their channel or radio station, they have to consider their target audience and what they want to see/hear. If they make the wrong decision for their target audience then it could cost the brand a lot, which could start off with losing viewers and building a negative and bad reputation. In our class we had a debate about censorship with Eminem, and whether we thought it was right or not right. We looked at different peoples opinions including parents. All parents will have a different opinion on censorship of Eminem's songs. Therefore parents that are against censorship of music videos and lyrics would argue that they dont mind whether its censored or not, as they believe that they are in charge of their children and can control what they watch, if the child is watching something that the parent finds inappropriate then they can just turn it off. There are also some opinions that say there shouldnt be so much censorship used on songs, as they are only lyrics and wont affect a child as they wont have any understanding for it.

However there are some parents that are for censorship, this is because they believe that their children are going to find out about swear words and violence regardless of whether they listen to a song on the radio or watch a music video on a music channel. Therefore if the songs already censored then as parents they dont have to worry nearly as much as they would do. Some parents wont want their children watching music videos that contain violence and swear words or inappropriate images as it could influence them to start doing these things, this can become a problem when the child looks up to the artist as a role model.

There are many other artists who are contreversial in the music industry, another example is Miley Cyrus. Miley first became famous through Disney Channel in which she acted in the programme Hannah Montana and sung songs under that persona. At this point in Mileys life she had a y

young audience of girls from the ages from 8 upwards who looked up to Miley/Hannah Montana and want to be like her. On the programme Hannah Montana, Miley acted as her and sung pop songs that were about being a young teenager, and fluffy girly songs, which didnt have any meaning towards them. Therefore parents would if anything encourage their children to watch this programme and didnt mine them being influenced by Miley Cyrus.

As Miley Cyrus started to get older, she decided to stop Hannah Montana as she was growing out of it and wasnt a young girl anymore. The programme ended in 2011, Miley then started to create her own music that as an artist she wanted to create and perform. The music that she started to create was more for her age group as a 19 year old. The problem for parents was that with the change in her choice of music she wanted to perform, her image changed with that. A particular music video which changed peoples views on Miley and saw a very Different Miley to what was seen in the past when she acted in Hannah Montana, this is 'Cant be Tamed'. This music video shows Miley cyrus as a sexual object as she isnt wearng a lot of clothing, she has leather shoes and dances provactivley. This is the reasoning that some of her most recent videos have been censored to only be shown after the watershed time. It is understandable that the change in Miley Cyrus's image has angered parents as their children are her fans still, and want to be like her and as her image changed, they still want to be like her. Parents dont want their children to look up to her and start dressing like her.

Overall I believe and understand that censorship is very important to certain individuals, therefore personally I think that all radio and music station that have a wide audience and have their reputation to think about, they should censor any inappropriate language used by using a bleeper over the lyric. I also believe that if a music video has inappropriate images and has been censored then it should be shown after the watershed. Following this on, in my music video that I'm going to be creating I will follow the censorship law, I wont be using any violence or any inappropriate images in the music video and I wont be including any inappropriate language or swear words. For my music video I will make sure that I respect censorship and make the music video suitable for my target audience.