Parental Advisory: Explicit Content

Imagine this: one is cruising down the street listening to one’s favorite song. One is really getting into it when…nothing. The music then continues after a second like nothing happened. This is an all too common phenomenon found in today’s society. It is called censorship. This researcher’s definition of censorship is the government’s suppression of anything it finds objectionable, thus taking over the parents’ job. The First Amendment states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances” (Hull, 166). Censorship not only infringes upon one’s First Amendment rights but also “…is the denial of another’s freedom to choose” (Hull, 2). Censorship of music and television should be left to the parents and/or caregivers, not the government or its counterparts.

The United States, a nation that guarantees free speech, has always had a huge problem with censorship. One of the earliest cases, according to Hull, occurred in colonial times. A man named John Peter Zenger was accused of treason for his spoof-like commentary about New York’s governor in his publication, New York Weekly Journal. He was tried for treason and acquitted. This resulted in the First Amendment being added to the Constitution. However, seven years later, in 1798, the Sedition Act was passed.

The Sedition Act said that people could not criticize the government. This act was law until 1919 (a year after World War One ended), when courts repealed it. The fact that the law was repealed is not as much of an issue as the fact that it was in effect for so long. As Hull states this “…illustrates a trend in U.S. history”(3).

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) was formed in 1934 as part of the Communications Act of 1934 (Zelezny, 355). It is part of the government which, according to Not In Front of the Children by Marjorie Heins, is “assigned by Congress to regulate broadcasting, which included enforcing a law that banned ‘any obscene, indecent, or profane language’ on the airwaves” (89). The aforementioned law basically states that the FCC has the power to fine or imprison anyone (up to two years) for using obscene language in means of communication. However, according to Supreme Court Justice Powell, they do not have “unrestricted license to decide what speech, protected in other media, may be banned from the airwaves” (qtd. in Corn-Revere 2). The FCC has, more recently, become embroiled in controversy because of its ability to almost ignore the First Amendment. During the Super Bowl XXXVII halftime show, Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake performed together. Everything was going smoothly until a part of her costume was ripped off by Timberlake. This infamous two-second wardrobe malfunction, which showed Jackson’s bare breast, sent major ripples into the FCC since the broadcast was on when children could be watching. Heaven forbid children see a part of normal

adult human anatomy (that they’ve seen from birth), so on September 22, 2004, the FCC decided to fine the entire CBS network $550,000 for a two-second mishap. This was just the start of an FCC indecency crackdown. A few months before the Super Bowl, the

Golden Globes were broadcast live. Bono, the lead singer of U2, was accepting an award and impulsively added the following words to his acceptance speech: “This is really, really fucking brilliant” (Corn-Revere, 1). The word “fucking” managed to get past the censors. At first, the FCC ruled that this was not indecent. Then, after the “wardrobe malfunction” happened, the FCC reversed its decision and said that Bono’s use of the word “fucking” was indecent. This final decision is a complete contradiction of the original. This government organization should not be taking the job of parents (to teach their kids). It is not the FCC’s job to decide what is indecent or obscene, it is the parents’ job. There should not even be laws and/or court cases defining indecency or obscenity. In spite of this, there are. The FCC defines indecency as:

The Commission interpreted the concept of indecent to be intimately connected

with the exposure of children to language that describes, in terms patently offensive as

measured by contemporary community standards for the broadcast medium sexual or

excretory activities and organs, at times of the day when there is a reasonable risk that

children may be in the audience (Lipschultz, 14).

Neither the Janet Jackson incident nor the Bono expletive fit into this category.

Another organization heavily involved in censorship, mostly of music, is the Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC). This organization was founded in 1985 by then Senator Al Gore’s wife, Tipper Gore. Its main goal was to inform parents (in the government or not) about explicit lyrics. She founded this organization because she was angered about the explicit lyrics of the Prince song “Darling Nikki” (Hull, 17). This organization has always gone after the supposed explicitness and/or obscenity of the rock and rap genres.

They are most famous for the institution of the ubiquitous ‘Parental Advisory: Explicit Content’ stickers found most commonly on rock and rap CDs (Hull, 17). In Roth v. United States, the Supreme Court ruled that obscenity was not protected under the First Amendment (Hull, 82), so the PMRC felt they had a right to go after music they considered obscene. However, there had been some dissent about what obscenity really meant, especially in the years following the Roth case. Ultimately, obscenity was defined by the courts in Miller v. California(1973):

(a) whether the average person, applying contemporary community standards would

find the work, taken as a whole, to appeal to the prurient interest; (b) whether the work

depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined

by the applicable state law; and (c) whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious

literary, artistic, political, or scientific value. (Lipschultz, 14)

Rap was targeted because of the lyrics’ degradation of women and glorification of inner city life. This is just a generalization though. There are some rap artists whose lyrics are not degrading or about inner city life at all, such as: Will Smith, Queen Latifah, MC Lyte, Salt-n-Pepa, and Arrested Development. These groups and/or rappers show that rap can exhibit strong females and male-female relationships (Hull, 19). There are also groups like 2 Live Crew, who make music to test their First Amendment rights. This group released an album in 1990 called Nasty as They Wanna Be with a song called “Me So Horny” on it. It was the first CD to be charged with obscenity. The charges were later dropped (Hull, 19). The fact that the group felt they had to test the First Amendment should say something about the government and its overwhelming control on what

society can watch and listen to. Perhaps the most classic example of the government interfering with the parent’s right to decide what is indecent (and not to mention a case of violating the First Amendment) is when Ice-T released a song called “Cop Killer”. He was expressing his feelings after hearing that the Los Angeles police officers charged with Rodney King’s beating were acquitted. The song was basically vocalizing Ice-T’s anger about police brutality. However, his thoughts and/or words were censored because police believed “…the song would encourage people to kill police officers” (Hull, 19). The song was even removed from his 1992 album named Body Count because of this criticism. Again, this is where parenting comes in. Parents (should they choose to let their children listen to the song) need to tell their children that it is just a song, and one expressing anger at that. The government’s censorship of this song set the precedent for rap censorship (Hull, 20). If one goes back to the aforementioned definition of obscenity, none of these rap artists fit into it (so the PMRC had no right to go after them). Also, neither the government nor its affiliates have the right to violate the Constitution, which they did with this. Lastly, the government also has no right to tell parents how to do their job.

Rock music has been targeted as well because of its inherent sexuality and drug usage. One of the earliest cases of rock censorship in America occurred when the governor of Indiana, Matt Welsh, banned the song “Louie Louie” from the Indiana radio in 1962 (Zone, 4). This song had such harmful lyrics as: “Louie Louie, oh no, me gotta go, Aye-yi-yi-yi, I said Louie Louie, oh baby, Me gotta go…” and “Three nights and days I sail the sea, think of a girl, constantly. On that ship, I dream she's there. I smell the rose in her

hair.” To take a quote from the popular television show Grey’s Anatomy: “Seriously? Seriously?” In another case, the attorney general of Kansas, Phil Kline, stopped the distribution of 1,600 CDs from major labels including those by Rage Against the Machine (Zone, 4). Kline’s response to this was to say “its Kline’s office consumer protection division went over the list and made the cuts” (Zone, 4). This was the reason

given for those CDs being banned, but Rage was a band that was very outspoken about the government and its policies. In fact, two of their most popular songs were named “Killing in the Name” and “Sleep Now in the Fire”. The song “Sleep Now in the Fire” (the video especially) exposes some of the hypocrisies of living in one of the richest and/or freest countries in the world such as: poverty, censorship, the major influence of the religious right, and the ease with which the U.S. goes to war. “Killing in the Name” is about the stupidity of police brutality and racism. The fact that this band was censored says more about the government than the supposed indecency of the songs. It may suggest that the government is paranoid that people will start getting ideas and demand a change. This sounds suspiciously like the reason why the proletarians were kept stupid in George Orwell’s famously anti-censorship/anti-totalitarian novel 1984, does it not? A lyric from Green Day’s song “American Idiot” describes this kind of censorship best: “Now everybody do the propaganda and sing along in the age of paranoia.” Perhaps the most famous case of rock music censorship, however, was when Clear Channel Communications (the corporation that owns the most radio stations in the U.S.), sent out a list to radio stations containing over 150 songs that were declared indecent (by ClearChannel) after September 11th (Nuzum, par. 2). Among these songs were Sugar

Ray’s “Fly” (“I… just wanna fly/put your arms around me, baby(x2)/dance a little stranger, show me where you've been/love can make you hostage wanna do it again…”), Cat Stevens’ “Peace Train”, John Lennon’s “Imagine”, and every song by Rage Against the Machine (Nuzum, pars. 2 and 4). The radio DJs were told to “…exercise restraint”(Nuzum, par. 3) when playing this list of songs. What, exactly, was so harmful about these songs? Nuzum says it best: “Absolutely nothing, but in the past, each of these

artists has expressed controversial political sentiments that buck mainstream beliefs. It’s a perfect example of how a well-intentioned attempt at ‘sensitivity’ can quickly careen down the slippery slope towards stifled free expression…” (par. 4).

Finally, the problem of government censorship has made its way into the public’s awareness. In 1996, as a result of the Communications Decency Act, a rating and blocking system for television was instituted (Heins, 194). This also resulted in the V-Chip being put into television sets. The reason for this? Television companies were threatened by the FCC. The FCC said that “if the television industry did not, within a year, ‘voluntarily’ develop an ‘acceptable’ rating system to go along with the chip, the FCC would ‘prescribe’ one” (Heins, 194). However, the House Conference Report on this did not call this a threat. The Report claimed “that ‘prescribe’ did not mean the FCC could ‘require the adoption of the recommended rating system’(Heins, 194).” According to Congress, “ ‘Sexual violent, or other indecent material’ were indicated as the categories to be rated” (Heins, 194). Congress specified this because of the potential First Amendment violations. All this researcher has to say about this specification is a brilliant quote from an attorney named Floyd Adams: “the v-chip is First Amendment-friendly

like Henry VIII was wife-friendly” (qtd. in Heins 194). The V-Chip would allow parents to block “programming that they have determined is inappropriate for their children” (Heins, 194). But even if parents used this, they would not be helping to determine anything about the supposed inappropriate programs (Heins, 194). Pointless, no? The V-Chip is another example of the government interfering with parenting. As one TV manufacturer put it, “It’s not something that America was clamoring for. It’s something that Congress was clamoring for” (qtd. in Heins 198). The response to the V-Chip (and the buying of it) was exactly how it should have been: underwhelming. One

parent put it perfectly, “I don’t know how the v-chip works but I don’t really trust that someone is going to have better judgment than we will” (qtd. in Heins 198). These are the reasons why censorship should be left up to the parents, not the government.

Works Cited

Corn-Revere, Robert, and Robert London. “Indecent Proposals: Why Most Recent FCC

Crackdown Risks Crossing Center Line into Oncoming First Amendment Showdown.” First

Amendment Law Letter (2004): 1-7.

Heins, Marjorie. Not In Front of the Children. U.S.A.: Hill and Wang, 2001.

Hull, Mary E. Censorship in America. U.S.A.: 1999.

Lipschultz, Jeremy H. Broadcast Indecency. U.S.A: Focal Press, 1997.

Nuzum, Eric"Sound Off: Our Attitudes Toward Music Parallel Our Belief In Freedom.”
27 Jul. 2003. 28 Nov. 2006. John D. Communications Law: Liberties, Restraints, and the Modern Media.

U.S.A.: Thomson-Wadsworth, 2007.

Zone, Censorship the. “The Censorship Zone.” Rock and Rap Confidential 207 (2004): 4.