Contexts of Practice 2: Censorship

The act of censorship is a moral issue that still affects are society today. Very rarely is there a simple "right and wrong" answer to such things. There's the obvious political censorship which is typically an abuse of power and authority, but what about censorship in the media? What is okay, and not okay to show to children?

When I was younger, I vividly remember an example of this surrounding the rapper Eminem. My father used to leave to leave music video channels on, back when we still had sky in our house. It always featured different themes in which different songs would be highlighted, and at one point theres was a whole lot of Eminem on the channel.

Depending on the time of the day, I would hear two different versions of the song. If for whatever reason, the song was played in the morning or during the day, I would hear a censored version in which Eminem's voice would "mysteriously" vanish when ever he was about to say a "offensive" word. Generally these were curse words, even damn was censored at times. I always recall other singers get censored whenever they made mention of anything gay, but I cannot find any source. If you listened to the song in the evening, then everything would as it was intended as it was past TV's watershed time.

Eminem isn't the only singer to be effected by this. Usually songs with high levels of cussing tend not to make into the mainstream, but there are always exceptions. Rise Against the Machine's Killing in the Name must have been a nightmare for radio stations when it got the Christmas number one spot. The question is though, is it right to censor this kind of material? Even if it's only for certain parts of the day.

There is a certain of artistic integrity that goes into this kind of thing. Context is important really. Was Eminem in support of this? Was he only interested in the money? But I personally have real issue in this context. However you feel about bad language, I think most would agree it shouldn't just be thrown in kids faces like its nothing. Some of these words carry a lot meaning and history, and youth aren't always aware of what they are saying. Also, considering the fact that the song was never completely edited down, and most of imagery in these music videos were left intact (which could range from sexual to violent) I can agree with the sentiment that perhaps this shouldn't be aired at this time of day. Then again, why was the song played at these times at all, and not just in the evening when it would have been acceptable for the censors? I think our old friend Mr. Greed probably had something to do with it.