"Family Guy," a satire driven animated show, by no means for kids under 17, nailed the FCC for its overreaction to their programming, with their song "The Freakin' FCC Song." Here are the lyrics:
They will clean up all your talking in a menace such as this
They will make you take a tinkle when you want to take a piss
And they’ll make you call fellatio a trouser-friendly kiss
It’s the plain situation!
There will be no negiotiation!
With the fellows at the freakin FCC!
They’re as stuffy as the stuffiest of the special interest groups…
Make a joke about your bowels and they order in the troops
Any baby with a brain could tell them everybody poops!
Take a tip, take a lesson! you’ll never win by messin’
With the fellas at the freakin’ FCC
Bridge:
And if you find yourself with some you sexy thing...
You’re gonna have to do her with your ding-a-ling…
cause you can’t say penis!
So they sent this little warning they’re prepared to do the worst
And they stuck it in your mailbox hoping you could be co-erced
I can think of quite another place they should have stuck it first!
They may just be neurotic, or possible psychotic
They’re the fellas at the freakin FCC!
Obviously, this song rubbed some people the wrong way, but the great thing about Family Guy is that it isn't afraid to take criticism for pushing the envelope and not censorsing certain things. I think that censorship is okay if used for the right reasons, like protecting to innocence of little children. However, relating to this class, if you censor things, you create a false illusion of reality, and your audience is trapped in a Plutonian cave where crude language doesn't exist.
You have to consider also, that there is a certain inevitability that people will eventually lose their innocence (that is, unless a person is sheltered to the point where their emotional growth is stunted). By the time kids reach a certain age, there are certain words, images, and things that they are inevitably going to know. You won't find a middle school student who doesn't know what sex is. It makes me wonder, why do people want to censor things that a majority of people have already been exposed to. My theory is that censoring TV content is a form of money making, allowing two versions of TV content available to the open market: censored and uncensored. The more ways you can reproduce the same material, the less money you spend. In return, since there is demand for both types of content, the businessmen end up with more money.
Deciding what does and what doesn't get censored is a bigger power than most people realize. Censorship doesn't just include removing certain expletives from TV shows, it also entails keeping information secret and not telling the whole story, such as some journalists do when reporting on a story.
However, we are making plenty of progress. Certain words that would've been censored 20 years ago are now seen as innocuous. Now, if we could just get the media to spill the beans more often...
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
You Are the Weakest Link...Goodbye!
"It takes hundreds of nuts to hold a car together, but it takes only one of them to scatter it all over the highway."
- Evan Esar
I like how Esar uses the metaphor of a car falling apart to illustrate just how important teamwork is. In group situations, it takes the entire group to be successful, but one person can just as easily ruin it for everyone. In a college setting, there is the all-too-familiar position where a group divides up the work for a project, and on the day of the presentation, someone is absent, and therefore a portion of the presentation is gone, and the group suffers.
Perhaps Esar would agree with the phrase "if you want something done, it's best to do it yourself." Relying on other people can have negative consequences those particular people have huge flaws. I myself prefer to do things alone, because I would much rather determine my own destiny, than put it in the hands of a few unreliable people. On the other side of that, if I became lazy and remiss in my duties for a project, I wouldn't want someone else to suffer for my laziness.
One must also notice the magnitude of Esar's comparison. If something is wrong with a car, and the parts of it scatter over the highway, the car is ruined and the people inside of it could be seriously injured or dead. Obviously, relying on other people and/or things doesn't always have this worst-case scenario. Who could blame him for wanting to be in control of his own destiny, though?
- Evan Esar
I like how Esar uses the metaphor of a car falling apart to illustrate just how important teamwork is. In group situations, it takes the entire group to be successful, but one person can just as easily ruin it for everyone. In a college setting, there is the all-too-familiar position where a group divides up the work for a project, and on the day of the presentation, someone is absent, and therefore a portion of the presentation is gone, and the group suffers.
Perhaps Esar would agree with the phrase "if you want something done, it's best to do it yourself." Relying on other people can have negative consequences those particular people have huge flaws. I myself prefer to do things alone, because I would much rather determine my own destiny, than put it in the hands of a few unreliable people. On the other side of that, if I became lazy and remiss in my duties for a project, I wouldn't want someone else to suffer for my laziness.
One must also notice the magnitude of Esar's comparison. If something is wrong with a car, and the parts of it scatter over the highway, the car is ruined and the people inside of it could be seriously injured or dead. Obviously, relying on other people and/or things doesn't always have this worst-case scenario. Who could blame him for wanting to be in control of his own destiny, though?
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
An Evanescent Honor
"Lyrics are like liquor for the fallen soldiers"
-Common, in the song "The People."
As I was listening to the song mentioned above, this particular lyric stood out. I'm sure there are multiple interpretations for what this line could mean, but today I came up with a possibility. First, I thought about how in certain urban areas, gang members pour out from a 40 oz. bottle of liquor to commemorate dead gang members, which is where I think "liquor for the fallen soldiers" comes from. After I figured that part out, I thought "how could that possibly relate to lyrics?"
Well, first of all, I wouldn't know that gangsters refer to themselves as "soldiers" if it wasn't for rap music, which is reflected through lyrics. A rap song has two main components: a beat and lyrics. Strangely enough, the listener only remembers the lyrics for a short while, but the beat is more memorable over time. This means that in terms of the song's legacy, the lyrics are an afterthought.
With that, it's easy to make the comparison of lyrics to "liquor for the fallen soldier." The short time after a person dies, people honor them briefly, but then place them as an afterthought as time goes on. Common is saying that when it comes to remembering a person, people have a tendency to remember the most immediate things as opposed to the person as a whole over time. You can pour out a little liquor to remember a friend, but eventually, they will be seen as an afterthought.
-Common, in the song "The People."
As I was listening to the song mentioned above, this particular lyric stood out. I'm sure there are multiple interpretations for what this line could mean, but today I came up with a possibility. First, I thought about how in certain urban areas, gang members pour out from a 40 oz. bottle of liquor to commemorate dead gang members, which is where I think "liquor for the fallen soldiers" comes from. After I figured that part out, I thought "how could that possibly relate to lyrics?"
Well, first of all, I wouldn't know that gangsters refer to themselves as "soldiers" if it wasn't for rap music, which is reflected through lyrics. A rap song has two main components: a beat and lyrics. Strangely enough, the listener only remembers the lyrics for a short while, but the beat is more memorable over time. This means that in terms of the song's legacy, the lyrics are an afterthought.
With that, it's easy to make the comparison of lyrics to "liquor for the fallen soldier." The short time after a person dies, people honor them briefly, but then place them as an afterthought as time goes on. Common is saying that when it comes to remembering a person, people have a tendency to remember the most immediate things as opposed to the person as a whole over time. You can pour out a little liquor to remember a friend, but eventually, they will be seen as an afterthought.
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