Parental Advisor: Explicit Censorship

Last week the Justice and Interior ministers of the European Union (EU) announced that they were looking at ways to prevent the sale of violent video games to children in their nations. The EU Justice and Home Affairs Commissioner Franco Frattini was quoted as encouraging member states to “prevent, to ban violent video games.” Mr. Frattini stated that the EU would be creating a website where parents would be able to verify whether or not games were suitable for minors.

To some these statements and actions may seem like a reasonable reaction to the increasing availability of extremely violent entertainment material to children who may not be suited to best comprehend the line between entertainment and reality. To others though these steps could well be the first salvo in a dangerous encroachment on artistic and free speech civil rights. While a government certainly has the right and obligation to ensure the health and safety of its citizenry the leap between the state banning video games deemed to violent (often by individuals who have never played these games) to the state banning books deemed to insurrectionary (once again often by those who have not read the prohibited material), does not require a wholesale abandonment of logic.

Censorship is best exercised on the personal level. If one finds certain materials offensive they can simply not participate. If parents want to limit the type of material their children have access to they should be able to obtain reviews of said content. This does not mean that the state needs to create a system that rates games, bestowing legitimacy on approved material. For all forms of media there are numerous content producers which provide in-depth reviews of entertainment materials. I believe it is far more effective for citizens to apply their own critical reasoning skills by forming an opinion based on independent outside reviews of material. When the state begins to rate and approve material they usurp the role of arbiter of appropriateness. One only has to look at the flawed system of parental advisory warnings in place in America to see the arbitrary and misleading nature of state run artistic regulation.

In 1985 the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) bowed to pressure from the Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC) and began to label music deemed offensive. This program was expanded and brought to the forefront of American culture due to the visibility of PMRC founder, Tipper Gore, wife of then Senator and future Vice President, Al Gore. To some the Parental Advisory stickers placed on explicit or obscene music may seem like a minor, inconsequential intrusion. These stickers do not represent a ban on said material just warnings to consumers that explicit content lies within. The issue though is not that information is being conveyed to consumers but rather who is determining the explicitness of the content.

In 1985 musician Frank Zappa testified before congress stating

“The PMRC proposal is an ill-conceived piece of nonsense which fails to deliver any real benefits to children, infringes the civil liberties of people who are not children, and promises to keep the courts busy for years dealing with the interpretational and enforcemental problems inherent in the proposal's design. It is my understanding that, in law, First Amendment issues are decided with a preference for the least restrictive alternative. In this context, the PMRC's demands are the equivalent of treating dandruff by decapitation. (...) The establishment of a rating system, voluntary or otherwise, opens the door to an endless parade of moral quality control programs based on things certain Christians do not like. What if the next bunch of Washington wives demands a large yellow "J" on all material written or performed by Jews, in order to save helpless children from exposure to concealed Zionist doctrine?”

The next year Zappa’s album Jazz from Hell was slapped with a parental advisory sticker. The label was order on the album due to a track entitled “G-Spot Tornado” despite the complete absence of lyrics on this instrumental song. This brew-ha between Zappa and the PMRC perfectly illustrates the ludicrousness of state approved censorship. Because potentially one person in a position of power thought the mention of the G-Spot was obscene the entire album was labeled as explicit. The inclusion of this label prevents the content from being sold at major retail outlets, such as Wal-Mart, due to internal morality policies. In many rural areas where Wal-Mart may be the only physical retail outlet for music the parental advisory label acts as a de facto ban on material.

Additionally the criteria for an explicit label is shifting and vague. Several albums receive these stickers for the inclusion of a single curse word while other artists are allowed to slide with multiple profanities. As I stated previously I believe there is a fine, often indefinable, line between declaring material as inappropriate for profanity, violence, or sexuality and declaring certain positions and stances as objectionable. One person’s sacred belief is another person’s deeply offensive belief. Government regulation of obscenity can often have the intended or unintended consequence of stifling artistic expression.

The famous incident where Janet Jackson’s nipple was briefly exposed during the Super Bowl created the regulatory furor that has made broadcasters consider airing material such as the war film Saving Private Ryan due to the exponentially raised fine amounts levied by the FCC. The potentially huge fines has also caused PBS to demur from producing content that could stray into objectionable territory where ever that vague no man’s land lies. All of this because some children may have been forced to comprehend the fact that women have nipples. Common sense is often the best form of censorship, unfortunately the larger the bureaucracy the larger the chance that common sense will be completely lacking. For those who are interested in seeing a current dramatization of the battle between broadcasters and censors Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip has included a central plot line based on a showdown with the FCC over the inclusion of an obscenity during a live news broadcast from a war zone when a RPG exploded next to the interviewee. As absurd as the idea that the FCC would penalize a broadcaster for airing a live obscenity by a soldier in a war zone while under attack the idea that a council of five individuals is ordained to protect the nation from nipples is, in my opinion, equally ridiculous.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07022/754222-96.stm
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/search/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002913247
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/07/12/DDGHK7JE0V1.DTL
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/jaypfunk/trading/fzpmrc.html