@%*# Censorship!

Don't butcher the beauty of music by bleeping or scratching out a phrase; it’s ridiculous. “Censorship of music removes suggestive material from music on public broadcasts.” But isn't that the point of "suggestive"? Censorship is based on moral, not universal, opinions. Who's to say what others can't enjoy? It’s an art, is it not? Music should not be censored on public broadcasts to protect children from corruption.

Some might say that censorship corrupts our children. Kids these days love to rebel. They love to go against what their parents tell them to do. Who's to say they wouldn't rock out to their favorite bands talking about taking pills so much that they vomit nonstop? It shouldn't be the responsibility of the networks to censor the things that go onto the air. If parents can't plug the ears of their children while they listen to their CD collection, why would they even bother listening? It's insane the way The Sopranos aren't censored, but when Eminem talks about his friends being killed, he gets censored. Though one may argue that “Eminem is a problem to the children of American society, and should be stopped from being aired publicly for their own safety,” it is not what the basis of this land was built on. The society we now live in is too "moral" to enjoy good music because the artist drops the f-bomb now and then. And though it is easily done on the radio and television, censorship is hard to impose on advanced forms of communication. On the internet, for example, it is basically impossible because some privately-owned websites allow their members to blog, or keep journals. With these blogs, even the most ignorant people can corrupt, but it's the way a fool would take care of it--- to try to "censor" it. The Internet is changing the terms of debate about freedom of speech and of the press. Censorship challenges the freedom of people's minds, and their minds have the right to explore whatever they have strong feelings on. What kind of rebellion could spur from the forced containment of these feelings? There's no sane person who could take away the only outlet the children have. As for rebellions, many have lashed out at the Music Television Network for being too moral just to date. MTV has no right to keep modern children close-minded. “How dare those sick bastards tell their viewers what to listen to and what’s ‘not hot’? That is such bullsh*t.” The Music Television Network can't keep butchering the sounds of modern artists. And this hasn't just been going on recently. Many music videos have been banned for presenting questionable material. Artists like Madonna, System of a Down, The Used, My Chemical Romance, Weezer, Alkaline Trio, Tool, Michael Jackson, Marilyn Manson, Sir Mix-A-Lot, Motion City Soundtrack, and many others have been silenced to "protect children from corruption". It's absurd. But it's not only the music videos--- its shows have been banned as well. “MTV has come under critical fire for being too politically correct.” It's not very unreasonable to hear about people revolting against having their rights taken away. Teachers across America have also picketed against censorship. Go figure. But it's not just MTV and other music networks like Fuse that have been censoring their products like madmen.

Radio programs such a KIIS FM have been censoring music for years, and some could say that it’s been the best choice studios have made since making ratings to censor movies. These people are probably the same ones who complain about traditions being broken; the same people who plug their ears and scream at the top of their lungs about how rock ‘n’ roll is the devil’s music. “Radio editing is the remix of a musical performance to make it more suitable for public broadcasts.” Though there is no way to rip censorship from public broadcasting, it's still nice to know there's unedited radio that can be bought. But it's simply too much to grasp that our first amendment right has to be bought in order to be in service. Back to public radio, the corporations use editing programs for more than just removing bad language from a song. Censorship on the radio shortens beautiful pieces of music to change it into a more traditional pop structure. But isn't that insulting? This is America, not a communist country. The founding fathers (Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, Adams, Madison, Hamilton, and Jay, among others) of our country gave these United States of America and its people the right to free speech. If that means that the people must follow a certain structure to express feelings, then there is nothing free to be seen here. This is exactly what Zappa was fighting for: freedom. It can’t be said that he was just as influential as Martin Luther King or Susan B. Anthony, but he was a visionary, just like these two. If he saw what was being done after his efforts were disintegrated, he’d die all over again.

And without freedom there is no reason to be intelligent. The government may as well run the lives of all its people. The U.S. is a free country, and it should be assumed after reading the Bill of Rights. “The first right someone has as an American is the right to free speech…. It id the right of all United States Citizens to live as a free people.” Free does not mean limited in any form, so why start with the media? Immigrants from all over the world come to the U.S. every day to live a free life. Their country’s own censorship has led them here, though their native land censored much more than music. It is what they are trying to escape in their third-world birth country that we exhibit every day. They come because it is the guaranteed right of every American that they can say exactly what they think, no matter how much it may irritate some one else. This country isn’t living up to what it was built to do. And according to research, censorship is defined as “the restriction of intellectual, literary, or artistic material in any format.” Censorship suppresses intellectual expansion! And it restricts not only that. It basically restrains a person from being an individual. Isn’t individuality a person’s metaphoric backbone? What would everyone be without being themselves? Yet the sticklers that support censorship claim that it protects the community. It is shameful for the people to think that by blocking the voice of the intellects they can be protected. American society has long supported a tradition of social protest as one of the first amendment liberties. Another definition of censorship is the suppression or deletion of objectionable information. And, typically, censorship is done by a nation's government, religious and secular groups, corporations, or the mass media. Again, MTV controls what the nation is conditioned to like.

There is moral censorship, and there is government censorship. Some may say a communist country has a better control over its people, therefore the country must be a better place to live in. Though it can’t be denied that communism keeps inhabitants on their toes far better than democracy, can it really be argued that democracy is much better in the sense of being able to voice personal opinions? When rebels revolt against an evil dictatorship, they are executed in order to "keep order" amongst their peers. Is it not the discord that signals something going terribly wrong? What ever happened to the right of Americans to speak out against their own government? It may not be the smartest thing to do, but it damn well gets people thinking. Maybe it's just what the government wants. It just as well could be that the government would gladly silence Michael Moore and others to keep the majority of America under government control. But, come on. Who wants to think when the thinking can be done for you? Also, “after the September 11th tragedies, many songs were banned by the government from being aired, for fear that the American people might get upset or offended by the lyrics or disgusting irony of the songs, including Jerry Lee Lewis’s ‘Great Balls of Fire.’” Yet there is more to this than children and government.

Musicians spend their entire careers working on compositions and lyrics that offer that soul to be captured by the sounds and spirits of their jigs. People who are not musicians can’t understand how it feels to create a work of art that can most likely inspire at least half of the country. These people have stated that musicians can censor themselves, and very well should to protect children that aren’t their own(who would never appreciate this kind of overshadowing of culture). But how dare anyone try to limit their talents? Is it truly moral to cut verses from a song to make it suitable for others to hear? Is it truly moral to refuse an album's spin time on the radio because it has the word "gun" in it? It is not. In music videos, especially, there has always been tension among those who say something is art and those who declare that same thing the work of the demented. It's hypocritical to say that a music video shouldn't feature interracial dating while there is nothing wrong with the idea. That was the precise reason Madonna's "Like a Prayer" was banned from airing on MTV after its premiere. The ridicule this ban created may have started a rebellion. It would have been just that simple.

Kids control their parents, and that's basically true. If they want to listen to their favorite artist that their parents found unsuitable, they'll find a way to listen to them. And how is MTV going to stop people from listening to an Anthrax CD? It would only make them angrier to find that their favorite song has been scratched or bleeped. Who is responsible for making people pay for freedom, anyway? That's insane! This is America, not Iraq. Musicians also should be liberated from the cage they're being kept in. This cage leads them to throwing hissy fits, and no one wants that. There won't ever be a way to censor the arts from those who "should" be protected, so why even bother? It's not the freedom that corrupts people. It is the need for more independence that corrupts them. Give them their freedom. Music shouldn’t be censored because parents aren’t able to do what they’re supposed to do. Cover your own kid's ears.