Censorship

Do you think videos should be censored?

Censorship has a crucial role within the music industry in order to protect the audience from becoming offended, as the progression of the industry encourages artist’s to push the boundaries in order to become controversially known and keep their target audience interested.

Censorship laws and organisations such as Ofcom, aim to uphold the censorship of any content that may harm an audience. Ofcom is a communications regulator that specify in TV and radio sectors in particular. There are many music videos that have been censored or removed from the public eye as they have been deemed to offensive through the sexual exploitation or encouragement to use drugs etc. There are levels regarding severity of content that are dealt with according to how much of the video should be censored or if it should be shown.  

Here are some examples of videos that have all been censored, but in different ways and why they have been censored:

Rita Ora – How We Do

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOOxlVUC08Q

The video to this song contains simple content as it fulfils the generic conventions of a pop song by show casing a party scene. The video itself contains nothing of offensive substance; however MTV chose to censor a few of the lyrics as they could be found unpleasant to some viewers. The words ‘bullshit’ and ‘sex’ were both removed from the song when played on the channel. In terms of censorship, this particular video had minor issues in which only a couple slight changes were made to maintain a certain standard for the audience. After this, the video continued to play on TV.

Eminem ft Dr. Dre – Guilty Conscience

                                           http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xbw_BxDwdjk

In comparison to the previous video, this video contains much more content that can be perceived as offensive or disturbing. The video is based on 3 examples that portray a moral dilemma in which Dr Dre is attempting to encourage the person to do the right thing and Eminem is trying to convince them to do the wrong thing. Examples include stealing from a shop, having sex with an underage girl and murdering your wife for cheating; all very explicit situations. MTV chose to censor the lyrics of the song that included swearing or offensive content. They also removed the end of the video as it contains a scene showing a murder – an obviously disturbing scene.

Rihanna - SNM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdS6HFQ_LUc

With the song itself being called ‘SNM’ it is obvious that the sog is known for being overwhelming sexually natured; lyrics claiming that ‘chains and whips excite her’. Within the video, there are a large amount of over the top sexual references; people being tied up, whips and sexual toys. When the video first came out, it was immeditely banned from 18 countries. MTV first banned it from day time television, claiming it wasn't appropriate for these hours. They then found to be too offensive to shown on any music channels and therefore it didn’t.

Is Rihanna a Bad Role Model?

Being an RnB artist, Rihanna is well known for pushing the boundaries. Her controversial videos, explicit lyrics and revealing image is what has labelled her as a bad role model; so is she? Or has the media
presented her flaws to us as an audience unfairly?

The video to her track 'We Found Love' is a good example of what is considered to be one of Rihanna's controversial videos. It is based on a couple (Rihanna and an actor) who live a self destructive life and relationship by doing drugs, drinking and gambling. These are just a few examples of the content of this video that many found were inappropriate. MTV found this video too belligerent to distribute as they felt that the artist encouraged the use of drugs throughout to a young audience who are vulnerable to her influence. The video shows pills and other substances as well as the effect on the body i.e. dilated pupils as well as using a tie lapse to convey to disorientation, almost as if they were actually on drugs. The video was also filmed on a farm in Ireland, in which they were later removed from as the farmer who owned the land felt that Rihanna was 'too raunchy' and 'needed help from God' as she was exposing herself openly. In regards to this topic, The Prophet Blog says:

 “When photos of a topless Rihanna running around naked in an Irish field on the set of her ‘We Found Love’ video surfaced earlier this month, it gave the impression that the visual for the Calvin Harris club cut was going to be nothing more than a sexed up, raved up ‘Only Girl (In the World)’. But honey, this ain’t no ‘Only Girl’, and by comparison, Rihanna’s antics make Britney’s recent ‘Criminal’ crime-spree look like afternoon tea with Nan and Grandpa.”

[ http://idolator.com/6050571/rihannas-we-found-love-video-review-revue ]

Rihanna is well known for her revelling image, in which she certainly conveys this at certain parts of the video. There are scenes within the video that do not show, but suggest the couple to be having sex in which Chart Rigger indicates this being 'soft porn', obviously deemed inappropriate for her young target audience, in which she is aware they are in fact young; this is the perceptive of which many people share regarding Rihanna's 'bad role model' behaviour. If she were an idealistic figure in which many young girls look up to, why act as she does?

We are all too aware of Rihanna's 'negative' attributes as a result of media distribution, however, not many are aware of the good that Rihanna does. For example, Rihanna is an artist that supports over 20 charities such as Alzheimer's Association, Red Cross and Stand Up to Cancer - in which she supports in many different ways that not enough people are aware of:

'Grammy award-winning singer Rihanna has time and again proven her dedication to helping children in need, and created her Believe Foundation in 2006 to help terminally ill children.
In partnership with charities across the nation, Rihanna has performed a number of concerts to raise funds for both those charities and the Foundation. After her performances, she met children from the local charities, signing autographs and posing for pictures with her young fans.
The Barbadian-born star explains her reasons for starting the Foundation, “When I was young and I would watch television and I would see all the children suffering, I always said: when I grow up, I want to help.'

[  http://www.looktothestars.org/celebrity/rihanna#charities  ]

Rihanna donated approximately $5 million to a hospital in Barbados
in order for vital equipment and medicines to be available

As we can see from this quote, Rihanna is an example of a person who had an innate instinct to help others from a young age, in which she has continued to do up until this very day; so why is it that hardly anybody acknowledges this? Why is it that the media do not focus or even expose this side to Rihanna?

Instgram pic of Rihanna's

Her personal social media accounts are heavily focused on, as this gives us as an audience a peek as to 'who the real Rihanna is'. She as often been criticised for the content on her social media accounts such as Twitter and Instagram as they contain bad language, use of drugs and often reference to exploitation of the female body. She has also previously tweeted her argument regarding critic's opinion on her behaviour conveying her anger and outrage on sites such as Twitter.


In less than 10 years Rihanna has won 117 awards, has 7 albums of which she has sold over 40 millions copies of worldwide. Her job is to simply sell music and has asked nobody to idolise her and yet there are millions out there who do? She is still approached by respectable companies such as River Island and Mac to release her own range of products to increase both the companies and the artist's profit, in which this wouldn't be possible if she were not to be popular amongst their target audience. Many argue that it is her attitude and actions that are affecting her younger audience, yet do not address that it is the responsibility of those children's parents to advise them right from wrong. It is fair to conclude that the media abuse their responsibility to educate us as to what Rihanna is up too, as they clearly do not focus on all aspects on her life. All celebrities receive criticism, because it is impossible to please everyone.



To develop this post, you need to-
1) Include the points from the class debate and consider the positives and negatives 
- include eminem points

- emphasise the points are from different perspectives i.e. parents,record label etc

2) Include a summary to explain how your research will assist you with planning your own music video
- do we want a controversial artist
- pros and cons
- no, in order to create a simple artist representation to appeal to our target audience so that they can relate to them.