Do you think music videos should be censored?

Censorship is the regulation of music and film. The purpose of censorship is to protect the audience. Censorship protects the audience against inappropriate lyrics, connotation messages of violence, drugs, sexual behavior and offensive imagery. Ofcom is the leading association in charge of categorizing what product is available for the audience. Ofcom are liable for any offence taken from the video and therefore are very thorough in what they perceive to be offensive, as the organization cannot risk a product being placed in a position for the audience to complain. For instance not putting a song with repetitive swearing in, like Eamon-F*ck you right back, on a child’s TV channel. Also this song was unable to feature on the radio as if all of the swearing or offensive messages were edited out through the use of a beep the song would not provide a level of satisfaction to the audience and would defeat the purpose of a music video. But if it was left it would have widely offended masses of people, therefore it was agreed that the song wouldn’t be played.

Rihanna –we found love, has also been banned from TV, however unlike the first song mentioned it was banned from adult based TV channels e.g. MTV. To be censorship towards songs appearing on a channel with an older target audience is more lenient than when it is appearing on child’s TV, this is because the audience is expected to be able to cope better with the stresses of offensive material. This suggests how outlandish Rihanna’s video is; there is a strong fixation of drug taking throughout along with sexual behavior. Both the drug taking and sexual suggestions are explicit and the way they are shown and there is a feel that it is fun. This alters the way the audience perceives these actions; it puts a spin of coolness on them- this can be seen as an aspect of hegemony. An argument for the video against censorship is that it does show both sides of the effects when taking drugs, despite its bias view towards taking drugs, (in favor of).

Eminem is an artist that has frequent battles with censorship as his material is seen to be offensive to many people. Eminem’s songs have always been controversial in lyrics or through the music video. Eminem would argue that his music is an expression of his emotions and conveys to his fans the suffering that he has had to overcome to become the person he is today and that. If everybody adheres to censorship requirements, then the audience and fans will be consuming the same product; the only difference will be the artist performing it.  The standardisation of music would erase the purpose of music being a form of personal emotion and art, I think Eminem can side with the idea that when powerful and controlling organisations, like Ofcom, dictate the outcome it can be very restrictive. 

A Fan of Eminem would share the opinion the reason Eminem is so popular is that he talks about topics other artists wouldn’t. This freedom of topic and themes makes him unique and un-controlled, allowing his music to be more exciting and makes the direction of his music less predictable. Less predictability in new releases creates a sense of excitement when he releases new music.  Eminem’s diversity in tackling disturbing topics like ‘Stan” talk about themes of depression, suicide and murder allowing Eminem to establish a Niche in the industry as he knows other artists are unlikely to venture into this style of rap because of the stigma that follows. Fans would also argue that this image of Eminem being insulting towards other artists and society is not all that he does. Songs like Fack, which is a more humorous and vulgar, shows a different side to Eminem’s music style and can, show how he does not expect his music to be taken literally. Fans like that Eminem is not censor abiding, so what he produces is dictated by him therefore the connection made is genuine and not fictitious.

Eminem has mass controversy surrounding his songs with relation to the youth. Eminem never instructs children to commit any crimes if anything his hypothetical characters of the lyrics and videos show children how not to behave.  His style of music is curing but that is only because of the way he was brought up his entry into music for being in the ghettos, however, he states it is the responsibility of the parents to monitor the songs their children listen to. Songs produced from Shady Records have been wrongly accused of manipulating children into poor life decisions or goading the children into violence-Eminem would argue that if a child is going to get into a fight it is because they wanted to, if a child used a knife to harm somebody they would have done that regardless of what his songs say.

Shady Records, the music label Eminem is signed to and happens to also be his own label, would argue that he can take his music in whatever direction he wants to and he should be able to retain the ability to decide on the lyrics and topics included in the song.Shady Records mean that Eminem can do whatever he wants with his music as long as it stays profitable and does not cause the label to lose money. the label will always side with Eminem as it is owned by him.

MTV, Radio One and Kiss 100 will not play any of Eminem's early career songs, and have only just started playing the less explicit songs. the reason for this is that these three stations all appeal to a mass market audience in which Eminem may not appeal to. Another reason for Eminem not being played is that young children can have access to the service that these three provide and therefore not all material from Eminem will be age appropriate.MTV specifically did not want to play Eminem's songs because of the themes of Violence and death in the videos, which was more likely to offend people than it was to excite people.

The argument of Eminem's music has also spread to the parents of children, some parents are happy with the music he produces and others dislike him as an artist entirely. The argument of supporting parents is that they decide on the music the children listen to and can restrict the child from listening to the music if it becomes unfriendly for children. They also argue that it is good for the children to see Eminem's world and culture to learn that everybody is different and has had a different upbringing which can also prepare the child for the horrors of life rather than keeping the child protected and deceived. The argument against this view is that children can find other ways to listen to music if the want to, making the parental restriction hard to enforce. they would also argue that the children are not old enough to face the injustice of the world as they may not fully understand it. Some parents against Eminem would also argue that children are easily mislead and so it is down to the artist to be responsible for such actions that could cause the child to imitate.

The debate of Eminem and the examples of Rihanna and Eamon show how censorship is controlled to protect the audience, because of this, censorship can be seen to be effective and needed in the industry, however it is clear that the restraints of censorship are too restrictive which could detrimental to the industry, there also needs to be a place where censored music can  be played to be fair to all artists of the industry as some can benefit from having clean lyrics but not necessarily be the better artist.
From this research into censorship we have greatened our understanding on what we can include in our video and what we can not include. For example, we know not to swear within our product or have any mouthing of swear words, we also have learnt that provocative clothing is frowned upon and may lead to our product being banned on some music channels/websites which we would not want to happen as it could make our product less appealing to our target audience and a potential audience.