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Re: Violence and censorship
Posted By: Jimmy, on host 206.229.91.132
Date: Thursday, March 9, 2000, at 09:56:47
In Reply To: Re: Violence and censorship posted by Sam on Wednesday, March 8, 2000, at 10:11:21:

> > What's the big deal? Every other station I listen to plays the song in its entirety. I hate the way Mix 98.5 insults my intelligence by playing this truncated version of the song.
>
> That kind of bleeping out is not an insult to your intelligence or anyone else's. That particular radio station (as opposed to "every other station" that plays the song in its entirety), much like this particular web site (as opposed to "every other web site" that allows the phrase), simply wishes to target an audience that is sick and tired of hearing profane speech every where they turn ("every other radio station" and "every other web site"). There are a great deal of such people, myself among them, and that is the audience that radio station is evidently trying to target. I don't see anything wrong with that -- particularly since there ARE other radio stations that play the song unedited. The word "censorship" doesn't even apply to this scenario (not that you specifically said it did); true censorship would be if there were only inaccessible venues, or none at all, through which the song could be heard in its entirety. That scenario is abominable and rightfully hated, but it's not the case here.
>
> What IS insulting to one's intelligence is the dubbing over of violent subject matter. Darien is right; people don't become violent by listening to music with violent lyrics. (Although the trend of violent lyrics is still disturbing, and I do believe it does damage simply by reinforcing the notion, right or wrong, that violence is acceptable in our society. But that's a symptom of a deeper problem, not the problem itself, and shouldn't be treated directly by forcibly suppressing them.) I still believe that a radio station has the right to do that (as long as the owners of the song consent to the modification), but if the audience they're targeting is an audience that would appreciate the lack of violence in its music, why are those songs being played in the first place?
>

I don't understand the distinction you're making that truncating a song is not insulting to one's intelligence, but blanking out words is. If any, I think it's the other way around.

By playing the truncated version of You Get What You Give, the radio station seems to be expecting that listeners won't realize that they're not getting the full version of the song. They are passing off a modified version of the song as the real thing.

A radio station which blanks out words, on the other hand, is at least honest in playing a modified version of the song. It is clear to listeners that this is not the original version of the song.

Note also that the latter reveals to the listener the opportunity to hear a fuller version of the song, perhaps on the album or another station, while the former conceals that opportunity from the listener.

That's why I find removing entire lines from a song to be insulting to my intelligence.

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