An interesting "phenomena..."
I used to listen to a lot of pop music up until a year or so ago, now I listen to country. A lot of the music I used to hear played, and stuff that's played in 'teen' stores now, really offended me. I just find it disgusting that businessmen in their forties think it's a good idea to write suggestive, immoral lyrics to be sung by teenagers for a preteen audience. Britney Spears, for example? A huge majority of these songs suggest sexual activity that 11 year old kids really shouldn't be hearing, yet the music is aimed at them.
So when I switched over to country music since my radio had bad reception for the station I had been listening too, I stopped being so offended. But then I listened to the lyrics...and they're just as bad as the others. Somehow, though, I find it okay. Even songs with lyrics like, "let's get drunk and be somebody!" seem okay. I was thinking about this, and then I realized - it's the intended audience. It's okay to be singing about getting drunk when the intended audience members are adults, but not about getting drunk when the intended audience is still in elementary school.
We really need to think about context more as a society. And make music for kids music that they don't get grounded for listening to.
Okay, that can be agreed upon. As a matter of Fact, I can't even find the right argument against this to play devils advocate. However, does this only apply to music? What about day to day events?
"I disaprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." --Voltaire
- Rufus V. Barner III
It is not only music, it is almost everything around us. Video games, TV shows, real life situations. Children today are exposed to a lot more vulgar items.
I never let my schooling interfere with my education. - Mark Twain
Ok, so I've taken Rufus saying he can't find the right arguement to play devil's advocate as a challenge to find one, so how's this:
If it's ok to include topics like getting drunk in music intended for adults, but not music intended for kids, is it ok to include those topics in music intended for adults, but actully listened to by mixed audiences? If that's the case then anybody can say their target audience is adults, even if more kids listen to their music then adults.
Adults listening to adult music with their kids adds another twist to this. At what point, if ever, is it ok to listen to adult music with children around?
Also there's the point of it wouldn't interest kids if they didn't want to hear those things.
Isn't applying one standard to children and a different standard to adults prejudiced, and encouraging inconsistent values?
I don't know that any of those points really make a good arguement against the original post either, but it's hard to argue against a really good point, so I'm done trying to play devil's advocate. Two points to Dr. Bumbo for writing post that (so far) nobody can argue against. I also think that the same thing applies to books, movies, tv shows, etc. as well as music. I think our culture is too quick to expose kids to adult topics, but too afraid to give them straight forward and honest information about the risk and dangers associated with adult activities.
The mass marketing of adult content, or indeed the marketing of anything, to children had never occurred prior to the 20th century. There was no such thing as a 'teenager' before 1950. With the boom we have experienced in the West economically, and the advent of television and as a result mass-advertising to meet the sales requirements of mass production, we have seen children rise up as potential consumers. Marketing techniques like 'pestor power' or the 'nag factor', are being used to leech the pockets of their parents. Children of the 1980s were really the first pre-teen markets to be targeted by advertisers in history. Today advertisers are realising that they can effectively market to toddlers. The question of content is redundant, the fact is that goods should not be directly marketed to children period. It is fundamentally wrong to use manipulative persuasive technique on an individual who's brain has not fully developed, it is also ethically wrong for advertisers to undermine a parents authority over their young children and to extract money from them through exploitation of a not yet developed mind.
It definately applies to day-to-day events as well. TV shows and such show amazing amounts of sex and violence. And, as the movie "This Movie Is Not Yet Rated," says, the ratings are very dependant on the people deciding them, there isn't a distinct formula. Also, yesterday I saw a stage version of "Seven Year Itch," which would be incrdibly inappropriate for a kid to see, seeing as it deals with sexual feelings between a 22-yr-old and a 39-yr-old while his wife and son are away. But somehow it's okay when the audience is different.
Good point.