Musical Controversy of the Day
Dead Weather Shots Themselves in the Foot with Gun Video
America has always been obsessed with censoring sexual expression in the arts and media. To that end, the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) prowls radio and television airwaves to make sure that no American citizen will be traumatized the sight of naked people, or somebody's costume malfunction or a four letter word used by Bono at a music awards ceremony.
The government takes very good care to be sure that all of god's children don't become perverts because they've viewed scenes of sexual depravity on their television set. And that's assuming that the naked body, in and of itself, is a display of sexual depravity. The sole exception to the FCC rule is anyone who pays 50 bucks a month to their cable company, can watch scenes of sexual depravity apparently immune from the sexually deviant effect of nekkid ladies on human sexual behavior. Aren't you seeing the logic of all this? No? Welcome to the club, because I'm clueless to the inner workings of the mind of a censorship board member.
As for a programming standard on graphic violence the FCC apparently sees no connection between television violence and tidal wave of random killing sprees by heavily armed berserkers who go postal and make a visit to a local post office, retailer, day care center or school take and out a dozen or so innocent citizens with an arsenal of automatic weapons that are often more powerful than those of the cops who arrive on the scene to stop the killing spree.
On a nightly basis, Americans of any age are free to view graphic violence including decapitations, shooting sprees, stabbings, immolations, mutilations, ax killings and even graphic recreations of autopsies of people who have already been shot, beaten, stabbed to death or mutilated beyond recognition. The F.C.C. is apparently waiting for a live broadcast snuff film before seeing any relationship between television violence and street violence.
The FCC has never commissioned one single serious study on the effects of viewing graphic violence or graphic sex on human behavior, despite all of the solemn and sober judgements they've made on censorship. The FCC just assumes the viewing nakedness leads to not only nudity but also is the underlying cause of a cornucopia of sexual deviancy including pedophilia. A man can hardly carry photos of his children in his wallet, these days, without being accused of being a child molester. On the other hand, the FCC is sees no harmful effect from the nightly orgy of violence on prime time television.
I say all this as a person who is unconditionally opposed to censorship in the arts and media. If people want to produce or view graphically violent art and films they should be free to do so, but if an explicitly violent video is proven to have led to a violent act, those artists should have the guts to accept some responsibility for their role in the violent act. If given the choice, I'd rather have my son view a sexually graphic video and grow up to have sex than view an explicitly violent video and grow up to kill someone.
About now I'm sure you're rolling your eyes and asking yourself what my point is and how this relates to contemporary music. Read on.
The most recent video release by Dead Weather,
Treat Me Like Your Mother has Allison Mossman (singer for the Kills) and Jack White (of White Stripes) going at each other with assault rifles which at first shocked me. However with 2 or 3 subsequent viewings I became desensitized to the violence. I call it the
Amsterdam effect. Upon my first trip to Amsterdam I was shocked the abundant number of prostitutes freely soliciting sex on the streets. Maybe I was more shocked that they were soliciting me. After or week or so the prostitutes (and ganja clubs) receeded into the background and became a part of my every day normal existence and all of the shock value had disappeared.
The fact is that routine exposure to any behavioral phenomenon be it sexual, violent, authoritarian, benevolent, or sinister will be integrated into any human's perception of normality. We know this as fact from the extensive reasearch studies in the field of coginitive behavioral psychology.
It left me wondering what, if any, effect this video would have upon a mentally disturbed kid, with access to automatic weapons who was in a particularly black mood about his own home or school life. What if any effect, do repeated views of the Dead Weather video have upon his human will to use an automatic weapon to make his own personal statement to a cruel world that treats him like a loser and a nobody?
I've been fully advised that the violence is ludicrously over the top and neither White nor Mossman gets killed by 100 or so rounds of point blank gunfire. But isn't that exactly how human beings are desensitized to violence? Isn't a person essentially desensitized to violence by viewing staged scenes of horrific violence in which nobody (except maybe a few crazy evil bad guys) suffers the consequence of gratuitous violence?
MTV should not ban this video because it gives Jack, Allison and other members of Dead Weather an opportunity to obfuscate the issue by claiming to be victims of artistic censorship. I'd rather listen to whatever contrived artistic statement they have to make for the gratuitous violence in video.
Even rock stars do and say stupid things, but should be held accountable, just as both Bowie and Costello were raked over the coals for their stupid statements about fascism and black folks, a few decades back. Not doing so would makes us victims of our own blind worship of idols.
I certain any Jack and Allison would cringe if anybody suggested
Treat Me Like Your Mother might be the springboard for a horrendous act of violence by one of their fans. I love the music of both Allison Mossman and Jack White and their respective bands by the way. And since I don't believe censorship I'm posting the video for you to draw your own conclusions and your own comments on the issue.
Personal Disclosure: I'm unaware any other negative criticism of the Dead Weather video on similar grounds. I'm a fan of both Jack White and Allison Mossman and their musical endeavors and I'd even recommend the Dead Weather album. If the artist involved were Ted Nuggent, I wouldn't even mention it because a video celebrating reckless gunplay is par for the course for Nuggent.