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Free Speech And The Raunchification of America
by Kevin Leahy
On Wednesday, September 13, a Senate committee headed by John McCain and featuring Lynne Cheney met to discuss the marketing of violent music, video games, and movies to children. Great to know that our nation's leaders are hard at work as usual, chipping away at the real issues. In order to celebrate the occasion, I played Mortal Kombat for a few hours and then, so heavily influenced by the game, picked a fight with my neighbor, during which I shot fireballs from my eyes and ripped out his spine in triumphant glory. Then I went inside and listened to my new "Marshall Mathers LP" and fought the urge to stomp homosexuals by watching six consecutive hours of wholesome "Leave it to Beaver." Or something like that.
Ladies and gentlemen, the issue of free speech in America is more conflicted right now than Anne Heche's sexuality. Raunch-fests like "Scary Movie" and "American Pie" enjoy huge success at the box office while Democratic Vice Presidential hopeful Joe Lieberman rails against Hollywood for making movies like them in the first place. Eminem raps about beating gays and women as GLAAD (Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) and NOW (National Organization of Women) call for sanctions against him. Do artists have a responsibility to produce family-friendly product? Are there limits to bad taste? Battle lines are being drawn. Where do you stand?
Well, I believe that the first thing that needs to be stated here explicitly is that the context that something's spoken in is as important as the language (or celluloid, or lyrics) itself. For instance, take last year's movie "Fight Club." Brilliantly satirical, dark and witty, the movie was released right after the Columbine school shooting perpetrated by those media darlings Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris. It's a violent film, but the violence was necessary to plot development and the overall context of the story. It caught hell from self-righteous politicians who were riding the anti-violence wave, all of whom completely failed to understand the anti-violence message that the movie was trying to convey. Hell, the Rocky movies were more violent than "Fight Club," but because the latter was filmed in darker lighting and lacks a rousing patriotic soundtrack, it's condemned while Rocky skates away scot-free.
Now, the first time I heard one of Eminem's songs I mistakenly thought that someone had signed a Tourette's-afflicted imbecile to a record contract. I've only modified that impression a little since then. Eminem is well on his way to being the most successful rap artist (and I use the term "artist" loosely here) of all time. Do I have a problem with some of his lyrics? Yes, I do. Call me crazy, call me kooky, but I'm just not down with the whole kill-your-mother-and-your-wife/beat-up-on-gays thing. Frankly, I think that almost all rap sucks. I find rappers like Eminem just plain silly, mostly because the vast majority of what they rap about is themselves. I term this kind of self-aggrandizing art "masturbatory," since it's merely self-feeding and makes no statement about anything other than it's own greatness. (Note: rap does not have the market cornered on masturbatory music, witness i.e. the song "Bad Company" by the band Bad Company, released on the group's album entitled, you guessed it, "Bad Company.")
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