
Censorship is defined as the omission of any segment or segments of books, films, news, etc. that are considered obscene, politically unacceptable, or a threat to security. It is said that “generational value gaps are a large factor in music censorship” and that older generations sometimes use their power to try to censor the music of younger generations because they feel that new music does reflect the values that they identify with (Hall). The crescendo of this topic peaked following the actions of the group Niggaz Wit Attitudes (NWA) in the late 1980’s. The music they created included explicit content such as violent behavior and vulgar activities. Parents and the government were outraged at the social norms that they believed were being ingrained in to society. This, in turn, lead to the establishment of the Parental Advisory Label in 1985, which was forced onto artists’ albums. This act initiated a widespread concern over the social influences on America’s youth and while it was not the first time music censorship was demanded; it reflects a monumental point in time that suppressant restrictions were bestowed on the industry. Simply put, censorship is a limiting agent. It limits individuals’ rights to freedom of speech and expression and in the media it restricts the ways in which people can express themselves through outlets such as music, writings, poems, and other valued forms of art. It restricts the creative process that defines music and ultimately is a restricting factor when it comes to our freedoms in the society we live in.

Early problems involving censorship in music came about in the early 1950’s. Rock and roll would be the main focus in the battle of government limitations during this era. In 1954, a Congresswoman by the name of Ruth Thompson attempted to present a bill to Congress that declared any artist who displayed explicit or pornographic material on their own album cover should be convicted of a crime and be punished with a hefty amount of jail time of up to five years. This punishment is grossly cruel and unusual. Looking back at the earlier years of censorship, most of the other incidences were laughable compared to what we are given exposer to now. Perhaps the most ludicrous form of censorship also surfaced in the 1950’s when Elvis Presley was supposed to perform on the Ed Sullivan show. In this instance, the camera crew were specifically instructed not to film any part of his body from the waist down because they considered the movement of hips to be inappropriate and deemed it unwatchable for viewers in the audience and on television.

On the flip side of the argument that censorship is a suppressant, some would argue that censorship either does not matter or simply does not affect them. A concern for youth development appears to be the only stance that those whom support the use of media censorship can take. Rapper, 13-time Grammy winner, and Academy Award winner, Eminem, released a song called “Who Knew,” and received a large amount of parental harassment from doing so. Parents claimed that his music taught their children to swear. His disputed these claims by asking, “but what about the make-up you allow your 12-year-old daughter to wear, so tell me that your son doesn’t know any cuss words when his bus driver’s screaming at him, fucking him up worse” (1:45-1:55). Eminem ignores the concern of parental control in his songs as many of them are considered to be illicitly explicit. His stance on the issue firmly argues that no matter what you limit your children to, the world, being a very mean and nasty place, will inevitably negatively impact everyone in one way or another. Censoring music is just a way of sheltering children and stunting their development as kids will eventually learn that the world can be a cruel place whether it is either before or after they enter adulthood.

Many people who defend their views on censorship bring up the topic that countries with more censorship have less violent and sexual crime than countries that contain less censorship. Even this can be argued that the views they have on censorship could be limited or skewed by the provider in which they obtain that information from. So when a government portrays itself as trying to help or improve a society by enforcing limitations on what a person can know, the credibility of the people in that society decreases significantly. Those same people would most likely argue that there was significantly less violence before the existence of television, films, and video games. This could possibly be a valid point except for the fact that from kindergarten, to your senior year in high school, everything that is taught in history classes seems to include wars, genocides, the beheadings of kings, and forced slavery of different races and nationalities. The presence of fictional movies and videogames is said to be far more detrimental than the teachings of factual violent events in history. As this gives the children in America a sense of imagination and freedom to think the way they want, the teachings of the brutal historical events enacted by the figures we are forced to learn about in carefully chosen curriculum hide this expression of imagination in kids.

One of the numerous consequences of censorship as a whole includes a direct effect on the reduction of education in a given society. It can be argued that a country such as China, with very high limitations in that of censorship, is one of the top producers of goods along with a supposedly highly-educated population. The simple explanation to this is that they are taught only to manufacture those certain goods from a very young age and most of their education levels come from students who travel to other countries and attend those country’s colleges that include less censored, or less limited, curriculum. The most important consequences of these limitations include “physical violence, threats, and the resulting self-censorship,” as described by Gary King, the Weatherhead University Professor at Harvard University, who also serves as Director of the Institute for Quantitative Social Science (326). This proves his point that censorship is fixed toward attempting to prevent certain activities that are currently occurring or may occur in the future and, as such, seem to surely expose corrupt government intent.

Government, big businesses, and other large companies who control what your everyday citizen thinks, watches, and hears have been playing societies all over the world like puppets. As outlandish as this may sound; it is true. The simple fact is that we are by-products of a lifestyle obsession. The big guys up at the top of the chain of command do everything in their power to force product down our throats and block out everything they deem inappropriate or unnecessary. They slyly place their ideas in social medias, put their names on the underwear we buy, make sure we enjoy our 500-channel access of information they feed us, and limit the content of books we read along with the music we listen to.

Foerstel, highly-credited author of Banned In the Media, states that “if the government attempted to license newspapers, book publishers or even motion-picture producers, such action would immediately be regarded as prior restraint, the most presumptively unconstitutional form of information control” (26-27). If a song gets censored in this day in age, no one seems to notice because it is an expectation of people now, however, when one little action or word at an event such as the Oscar’s gets censored, people lose their minds. This is a perfect example of people not noticing how corrupt these people that lead you to believe are so good really are. That does not concern you or any of your loved ones so why should you care? The sad fact of the matter is that is does concern you. You, along with everyone else you know are just deteriorating dust in the wind of life if you’re not living your life free of control and free of censorship. 

While walking on eggshells in front of superiors, who work for our bosses, who work for big business, who work for our governments, we fail to see the point of even standing up for ourselves anymore. Censorship in music is only the first step in a bigger world of chaos we all choose to live in. Music is supposed to be the most freeing and expressive form of art, yet actual limits are put on it. In my opinion, and any competent person’s opinion, that clearly goes directly against the definition of music in general. In fact, Lawrence Lessig mentioned in a TED Talk how the majority of people switched to a less popular radio station when the top played one started censoring out certain uses of language and songs that were deemed too inappropriate.

Lessig said that “the important point to recognize is that even though these broadcasters were broadcasting something that you would call second best… that competition was enough to break, at that time, this legal cartel over access to music” (3:36). This just goes to show that people used to care about how their lives were being controlled and how little by little, they just stopped caring to the point where these same people just shrug it off when a higher entity limits how they live. Those accumulating restrictions, although seeming small when it comes to a subject like music, only lead to greater forms of control and justifications on how these people in high positions act. Things like hoax’s, T.V. commercials, advertising, brand-name items, and the next Greek life event you have to attend don’t concern me; what concerns me is the increasing number of rules and regulations put on your average, everyday citizen. In a slightly more open-minded viewpoint, one can easily see how much outside control can make such a huge negative impact in someone’s life, which is meant to be lived free and without control, as stated by our founding fathers in the constitution we so heavily live off of. Max Strozier created aa website with a collection of some the founding father quotes about the American Constitution. He wrote that Thomas Jefferson, a correspondent of the American Constitution, said “the greatest danger to American freedom is a government that ignores the constitution” (Strozier).

While bringing up the constitution, it mentions that every man is born free, in lack of better terms. When a government has to force their control on to a rap group such as NWA, it just goes to show how they were trying to limit not only music at that time period, but race as well. The black community was causing an uproar at this time because of the misuse of police power towards these individuals. The well-known song, “fuck tha police,” was a direct innuendo towards these actions the police were taking against black people around the late 1980’s. Charis Kubrin was a very open-minded individual with a very wide viewpoint and said that “when applied to issues of race and culture, confirmatory bias can reify existing stereotypes, such as, for example, that young men of color are inherently dangerous,” as a way of summing up the corruption of control and heavily based stereotyping that was occurring in this time period (185).

Robert Palmer, a writer for the New York times, also shared Charis Kubrin’s open-minded viewpoint but had something slightly different to say about censorship. He says that “rap music serves not so much to establish identity but, rather, establishes a contextual space for an affective individuality, or a variety of forms of behavior and speech, along with particular styles of dress, dance, and art, which in turn then inform identity construction” (Palmer 126). He goes on to say that “this cultural space allows for the development of a privileged everyday life to those who do not have one and for the opportunity to better improve and make sense of the chaos (such as violence, marginalization, subordination, oppression) that is, for many, everyday life” (126). Not even Palmer could predict how greatly this matter would rise in the years following. The only problem that could not be concluded from this type of music control, is the overall, world-wide control that the government realized they could take at this point. 

Since certain types of speech are not protected by the Constitution’s First Amendment, one may imply that the first amendment's guarantee of true "freedom of speech" has, in essence, been rendered meaningless. The founding fathers of the American Constitution intended to have no type of suppressant for the citizens who actually represent the population in for the nation. Instead, governments continue to treat the first amendment as a sort if double entendre. They act as though it contains more than one meaning and that the writers purposely left it vague enough for interpretation but really, they simply could not comprehend how crooked and power-hungry their future government would end up being. These two-faced individuals who run our societies with such high authority would falter and waver if they felt as if they were losing any amount of control. While including the treacherous mutinies and rebellions against certain governments in teachings throughout our schooling, we are taught to always respect our elders and to never question authority but if that were truly the case, there would be no existence of rebellions or wars and the world would inevitably be led by the most powerful country with the most powerful dictator.

Contrary to previous beliefs, subjects with negative, or even violent, criticism of governments, its rules, and its leaders are not more likely to be blocked. On the contrary, the target of certain censorship organizations is aimed at diminishing unified actions by suppressing certain comments that entail social mobilization, regardless of the content in them. Censored music is just a small example of the collateral damage caused by the sort of brainwashing that goes on in America. Christopher J. Schneider, well known writer of Culture, Rap Music, ‘Bitch,’ and the Development of the Censorship Frame, said “contrary to the claims of its critics, rap records present teen-agers with an image that is largely positive—an especially widespread rap theme is that kids can make anything of themselves if they work at it (55). His overall claim supports the fact that censorship in music that the youth of America chooses to listen to, degrades the level in which they thrive and ultimately kills hope and opportunity.

If government chooses to place censorship, limitations, rules, and their large amount of control on our freedoms, are we truly free? There must be a clear line drawn between if the meaning of ‘freedom of speech’ is defined as absolute or limited. While rap music is a definite form of our freedom of speech, it is continuously blockaded by the very same people in which we rely on governing our lives’. The subtle oppression of an individual’s choices in their life are slowly being lopped off and it’s only starting with the way in which we express ourselves. It begins with simple things such as books, news articles, music, and movies; and will end in only more important life decisions, such as jobs, companions, religions, and more and more things that make us human. While others sit back and watch this all happen right in front of their eye’s, the ones who fight back against it will ultimately live a better and a more freeing form of life that was intended for us to live.
