Who really stops and thinks when they’re passwording their Internet and thinking they’re being clever by saying their kids can’t get access to anything untoward in our homes? I remember duly locking down my kids Facebook, our browsers and the Apple gadgets, only to be faced with an afternoon of gyrating by way of our TV music channels.
The idea amongst our Film and Music video producers seems to be focussed on selling sex to our minors as a way of enticing them to spend money and time on their music. Watching the videos and children gyrating in time to the beat in discos and kids parties is sometimes enough to make me gag and feel like throwing up my dinner.
The artists demean themselves by promoting junk while they pretend their music is not for anyone under a certain age. Why then, can I turn on the music channel any time of day and be confronted by scantily clad women and men pouting and birling to the tune of suggestive content? Most of these artists made their name from the kids who they now profess not to be singing for, and wouldn’t be far short of being thrown off the top shelf in a newsagents.
In 2011, the Guardian reported that music videos faced a “crackdown over sexualised content with a Government report into sexualisation of childhood set to propose tougher regulations on retail, advertising and video industry.” Rhianna was reported to allegedly be “unrepentant for filming a music video in which she shoots someone who raped her.”
How on earth do you explain the likes of her S&M Video to kids who have no idea that grown ups even have a sex life? I remember a friend running from my kitchen to the family room like a demented banshee when she heard the opening bars to Sexy and I Know It coming on to the TV early on a Sunday afternoon. It’s not one of the worst videos I’ve seen, but no parent should have to feel like that when it was the kids who bought that music in their droves.
While there may be some inroads into the regulations and ratings for music videos, I’m not fully aware of how far these have gone, and I still feel uncomfortable watching the world of usually female artists plying their wares and looking for sales on the back of the sexualised content of their videos.
As a child, I don’t remember any of this type of thing, and music channels and videos were usually restricted to Top of the Pops and not much else.
Turn on music channels now and we’re likely to be faced with as much content that would have gone on behind closed doors and been tagged as adult content a few years ago. How do we explain the coverage of 50 Shades of Grey and what S&M is to our kids when they’re not that long out of nappies?
It’s not like kids even have a choice. They might like a tune, and they might want to listen to an artist without having sex rammed down their throats. Do artists and their publicists not realise that kids shouldn’t be exposed to pornographic content over their marshmallows and cake pops?
It’s all for money, but our artists really are selling themselves short. In a fad for Rhianna and Eminem, the explicit versions were downloaded by more than a handful of kids at my boys schools, yet these are the same kids that keep their wallets fat and their platinum albums spinning on their precarious tops.
It’s done deliberately. Why else would Madonna still be gyrating to music and wearing clothes fit for teens, while she’s old enough to be the grandmother of most of the people buying her music?
I don’t let my kids buy anything with explicit content, but their friends will let them see it anyway.
Aren’t we meant to be the adults?
Aren’t the adults meant to be the ones protecting our young and keeping them safe, comfortable and protected?
If we stop buying the music from artists who seem to be promoting gratuitous porn, maybe our kids will be more protected with videos that are more suitable for both granny and child to watch in comfort. I want to choose what my kids watch, and not have it rammed down their throats by the music industry, whichever dentist surgery has MTV on while my kids sit in their chair, or the shop in town bumping out the tunes to show how great the clarity of the new HD TV’s are.
Our music industry certainly seems chained to values that are designed to maximise profit, but is it too much to ask for our kids to just be kids, and for parents to know that our kids aren’t watching things they shouldn’t at young ages?
It is worrying, as my daughters get older they want to hear the latest music which is bad enough however there is no way they are watching the music channels. Keeping them away from it is like pushing back a tide that just seems to be getting worse.
The music channels are quite bad. Mine are at the age that they know it’s not all real, but for all kids, it’s far too much too soon.