One topic I regularly come back to is that of the censoring of music videos. I'm not particularly for or against censorship - though I think there are images that young children shouldn't see at lunchtime on 'The Box' - but more about the inconsistencies of how it is applied.
Today I saw three music videos that stood out in particular as absurd examples. Firstly, 'Die Young' by Ke$ha, a song that features half-naked dancers, suggestive kissing and provocative imagery, all shown with no cuts or censoring at 10:30 in a morning on 'Starz'. However, the line, 'That magic in your pants' sees the word 'pants' removed. Yes, 'Starz'. Young children are fine with the naked women and snogging, but not the word pants.
The second comes from television channel 'Bliss'. There they show Robbie Williams song 'Candy' but heavily edit it. For those who have not seen the video it shows Williams as a guardian angel, protecting a woman from all manner of cartoony pitfalls and traps. Like a living cartoon, it gets increasingly absurd as the video goes on but 'Bliss' have taken the steps to censor certain bits, but clearly have a sliding scale of what is acceptable. It's fine to punch the stomach of a man but not an old lady, clearly not actually done; it's fine to be thrown through a pub window but not the rear windscreen of a car; you can show someone being hit by a car but not a cartoony dagger thrown at someone's back; and, clearly in the 'don't try this at home, kids' rulebook, it's fine for a grand piano to be dropped on Williams but heaven forfend he punches some pigeons and briefly sets on fire, as that's not allowed.
The third was the new 50 Cent video which features so many rewinded words to cover up the swearing you might as well have played the whole song in reverse and be done with it. There the word 'bitch' was censored by having a circular haze blocking his mouth and having the word reversed, but it was still clearly that same word. 'Motherfucker' was treated similarly and it was obvious what the word was, in an example of ticking the box without doing a decent job.
So whilst these songs are edited music television meanwhile serves up Nicki Minaj in next to nothing writhing on a beach, Rihanna flaunting her 'assets' like a dodgy QVC commercial and many other examples, but the word 'pants' and seeing someone punch a pensioner? Well that's unacceptable for kids to see!
Sunday 6 January 2013
The Absurdness of Music Video Censoring
Posted on 03:47 by Unknown
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