When looking at censorship, I looked at Eminem. He has been one of the most controversial artists over the past 20 to 30 years, simply because of lyrics used in his songs, but is still highly regarded as one of the most popular rappers in music.
Eminem shows in music videos, and through the lyrics of his songs about situations such as drinking, smoking and sexual activity.
Eminem was questioned about the controversial things inn his songs, and had many points in which to defend himself. The first of these points were that he understands some of the lyrics used and subjects that are covered in his songs are not politically correct, and may be absurd or offensive. However, he understood this, and upon his daughter Hailie getting older decided to make clean versions of some of the songs that caused offense.
Some of the biggest causes for concern when it came to Eminem was his voilence towards 'gays' and women. He defends himself by stating that he is representing the 'white trash community' and is simply bringing to light the problems that occur in those communities. Marshall Mathers also said that he created the music video to 'Stan' in order to show how crazed fans can get and how un healthy it is, hence why he tries to keep a very personal level with fans, rather than trying to get them to worship him like many pop groups/artists do now. Another criticism is that kids will see and hear the work he produces, and a point often raised is that children will not know the things he talks about are wrong. But again, he argues the fact that children have more common sense than given credit for and he is simply offering another way to show the things he speaks about are the wrong things to do, he believes that is his ethos as a popular artist.
A problem that then follows when having to censor his videos comes when music channels won't play the songs. MTV and Kiss both have said that it is hard to edit the swear words in the songs, so play a very minimal amount of eminem songs, as most of them have explicit language. AKA on the other hand say that he is the sort of edgy, urban artist they look for and are more than happy to play him on their station.
The first 3 points that you have included, shows some understanding of why music censorship is important within the music industry. But you need to refer the points to detailed examples, to demonstrate further understanding.
ReplyDeleteThe points that you have included on Enimem also shows some understanding of the class debate that was carried out, but further examples are needed again. You also need to include the advantages and disadvantages of each point too.
Within this post, you need to include images to support your points and a summary to explain how this research will assist you with planning your music video