“You saying that you want me. So press record, I’ll let you film me”. Sounds enticing? Well what about “Do you like what you see? You want to video me”? Even better –”What? You want me naked. If you liking this position you can tape it on your video phone.” Beyonce is one of the most popular female artists of the past ten years and has a fan base ranging from scary old men to bubbly young girls. Her allure was that she has a) an incredible voice and b) and incredible body.
She was someone that young girls could aspire to be — confident in her body, an incredible performer and by some crazy power and dedication she has managed to keep her name clean from shady stories in the press. However, her latest boy who murdered his class mate was branded as a “listener of Slipknot” and Slipknot was branded as the type of music no parents should let their kids listen to. Why then are parents letting their sons and daughters watch this Beyonce video, or videos by most other female and male hip-hop artists?
Is the whole thing irrelevant? Do we not take as much from music as the media would have us believe? Under this argument one would argue that it’s just music, and as “critical viewers” we can distinguish between acceptable action and the action that we see on TV. Behaviour could not be linked to what we see. But we all know this is not the case. Any young adult that went out in the time since Katy Perry’s I Kissed a Girl and I Liked It will have been witness to the behaviour that followed the playing of this song in a club or at a party, among “straight” girls. Celebrities and popular music artists help to define what is acceptable for girls and boys to do, yet don’t take the responsibility for it.
So I wonder why then Beyonce felt that her next move on the popular music ladder would be to sell her sex for a video?
That is an interesting observation. I however don’t think censoring music videos is the answer though. Parents perhaps could try and stop their children from watching certain types of media, but I don’t think that would be effective as it is impossible for parents to take complete control over what their children are exposed to. I am not sure what the solution is, but I doubt forbidding the consumption of certain types of media is a viable solution. While there may be links between what people watch, and how they act, certain other factors must surely make some children more susceptible to bad media influences, such as bad parenting or abuse? Although I am by no means an expert, maybe tackling these social issues would be more constructive than proposing control over certain media?
Frankly, if a box on the wall has more influence over a child’s life than their parents do, then the parents are not doing their job. The average child will have seen thousands of murders, sexual encounters and robberies on TV before they are ten years old, but they do not imitate this behaviour, because they have been taught that it is wrong. Likewise, if a well brought up girl sees Beyonce being promiscuous she is unlikely to imitate. In fact, I doubt even unparented kids would mindlessly copy everything they see.
Listening to a certain type of music does not bring out bad qualities in people, rather, they project what they are already feeling into the songs and interpret them in whatever way they choose. I don’t believe for a minute that if Slipknot or Marylin Manson didn’t exist then killings would not occur. The idea of censoring or banning any form of music or art is ludicrous.