A comparative study between the regulations of the U.S. and the United Kingdom on Hip Hop music - Essay Example

Eminem’s Slim Brush with the Censorship Knife: A comparative study between the regulations of the U.S. and the United Kingdom on Hip Hop music Introduction: The notion of censorship has always been warily approached with differing emotions. Whereas many regard censorship as a form of curtailment against individual liberty and freedom of speech, there are also some who would argue for censorship as a necessary mechanism for the protection of civil society and public order. In our present day, for example, several organizations both in government and outside government, espouse the need to filter media content. Within governments, we have UK’s Office of Communications1 and the United States has its own Federal Communications Commission2. Outside governments, organizations such as the Parents’ Music Research Center3 actively campaign for censorship as a necessary defense against the corruption of young minds.4 From the early days of the Inquisition wherein large volumes of books and other literature labeled as sacrilegious or scandalous were ripped into shreds before being thrown into large flaming pyres, till today’s current practice of censorship cuts on mass-produced films and broadcast programs, artistic work has consistently come under the magnifying glass and scrutiny of regulating bodies bent on filtering the content of mass media which reach the common population. Although condemned heretics and witches are no longer being burned at the stake today, modern society and its art communities still have their own share of Priscillians5 and Galileo Galileis6 being marched to the gallows every single day. Everyday, producers and artists bear what some may conceive as a witch hunt against what is deemed as offensive content by regulatory bodies in media and mass communication. Among the many sectors which have been actively scrutinized by such regulatory bodies, the Hip Hop music industry is of particular interest as it has come against constant attack and attention for its alleged sensationalization and glorification of gang violence, crime and sexism7. In the United States, for example, several debates have been spurred regarding state surveillance targeted at the Hip Hop music industry which has spilled over beyond basic censorship of song lyrics and video images to actual scrutiny and investigation of the personal behavior and activities of Hip Hop and Rap artists in their everyday lives.8 The growing stigma against the Hip Hop music industry’s prevalent and constant use of violent and sexually-explicit lyrics in its songs has weighed heavily upon the said music sector, provoking not only reformatory mechanisms from major record labels interested in maintaining the support of the purchasing public but also the polarization among those who find such mechanisms necessary and rational as opposed to those who find them too restrictive and pointless. Hip Hop and Rap artists, their managers, and their record labels have been scrambling all over themselves to pacify the accusatory ire of both the government and non-government organizations bent at stripping Hip Hop music of its rabid teeth9. Of the many Hip Hop and Rap performers that are now working to improve and soften their image to the now-scrutinizing public, Marshall Mathers otherwise more popularly known by the stage name Eminem has come to the forefront of Rap artists being severely criticized for their continued use of inappropriate and provocative lyrics. The “hate speech”10 that has come to be associated with Mathers in his rabid songs has propelled him to the centerstage of this growing battle between artistic license, freedom of speech and censorship. His position becomes more significant considering not only the provocativeness of his lyrics but also by the fact that his albums sell to both the buying public and the music award boards.11 Not only did his album, “The Marshall Mathers LP,” sell beyond 8 million copies in the year 2000 alone, but the same album also garnered several nominations and awards in the 2001 Grammy’s12. Aside form, the Grammy’s, Mathers also has won several award to his name. No other artist today better embodies the very phenomenon that supporters of censorship fear most: an artist with both provocative lyrics and a captive audience. s This paper seeks to examine the ongoing debate surrounding the censorship of Hip Hop music. We first focus on the criticisms, forms of censorship and defenses made by various opposing sectors in reaction to Eminem’s provocative lyrics and music. The case study will include information on his life and a detailed focus on his song lyrics and music videos wishall be pursued. The forms of censorship employed by regulatory bodies in response to Eminem’s music as well as that of other similarly provocative artists shall also be examined with further emphasis on the differences between the mechanisms employed. Two countries, the US and the UK are also placed side by side so that we may inspect any differences in the way that censorship is carried out by their respective regulatory bodies and the support that such censorship may or may not enjoy from their general public. Lastly, this paper shall also return to the very crux of the debate by discussing the arguments forwarded by the opposing camps for and against censorship. After inspecting the case of Eminem or Marshall Mathers and the furor that trails him, we shall reexamine the lingering question of whether or not previous and ongoing attempts to curtail his freedom of speech are indeed necessary and of any real purpose. The Shady Furor Born as Marshall Bruce Mathers III, Eminem, as he would later be known, was raised in a single-parent household by his mother, state-hopping until the age of 12 when they finally settled in Detroit.13 His success as a rapper only first came to bloom in 1998 upon the underground success of the single “Just Don’t Give a Fuck,”14 a title that ironically epitomized the very complaints held against him by his critics. Later songs carried similarly provocative titles such as “Shit on You”, “Cum on Everybody” and “Still Don’t Give a Fuck”, with lyrics which have now been categorically labeled as “hate speech”15. At the very base of the controversy surrounding Marshall Mather’s music is the strong accusation coming from his critics that his lyrics are “violent, homophobic, and misogynistic”.16 These accusations pepper much of the criticism against his songs and music. With his liberal usage of words such as “faggot” and “lebs”, for example, it comes as no surprise that a large chunk of his critics come from gay rights activists, primarily the organization called GLAAD or Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation.17 Their criticism zooms in on the defamatory manner and choice of words found in Mather’s lyrics which encourage disrespect and even violence against lesbians and homosexuals. In an interview with The Advocate’s Alonso Dularde, GLAAD’s representative Romaine Patterson, discusses how the primary issue with Mathers lies not really in the scope of censorship but more in the field of professional responsibility since much of his audience is actually composed of young adolescents and teenagers.18 According to Patterson, Mather’s use of defamatory words such as “faggot” and “lebs”, whether employed jokingly but nevertheless used repeatedly in songs that hit the airwaves more than twice or thrice a day sends out “a whole new standard when it comes to words dealing with the gay and lesbian community,”19 wherein such defamatory words against homosexuals are held to be socially acceptable whereas similarly defamatory words referring to other minorities such as blacks are purposely stricken out. The sociological composition of Eminem’s audience, as pointed out by Patterson above, has also been the main battlepoint of parental protest over his explicit lyrics. Much of his audience is composed of young adults and children thereby justifying censorship as a necessary means of protecting his audience from content that they cannot filter for themselves. Such criticisms coming from parents did not escape Mathers’ parody parade. In one music video, he parodies such concerns by comically saving a young boy from purchasing his album, thereby further fanning the ire of his critics. On the other hand, many artists have also been quick to come to Mathers’ defense, relying largely on the argument of artistic freedom and the absence of any concrete correlation between media and violence. Paul McCartney,for example, defended Mathers’ lyrics as just being showbiz and nothing more, further comparing the controversy surrounding Mathers’ to the uproar that Elvis previously triggered20. Such defenses, however, somehow end up missing the point as to exactly why Mathers’ lyrics are under such scrutiny. Beyond the controversial sexism that may have also been prevalent in other controversial artists of the past, Mathers’ lyrics go several steps darker. As is aptly pointed out by Patterson; “I think each of us has listened to music that has been in some way controversial, whether it be Elvis or Madonna or whatever, but were not talking about swiveling hips, its really about hateful lyrics. And in the end it reinforces prejudice and gives people, especially young people, permission to express their emotions through violence aimed at gays and lesbians. To us, that seems like a very dangerous thing.”21 The most powerful argument then supporting the censorship of Marshall Mathers lies on the percieved danger that his lyrics pose, when taken in the context of his audience composition. While arguments providing for his musical and artistic freedom may hold water when taken in regards to the sexually explicit content of his songs, they fail to follow through in regards to the defamatory and violent content which pepper the same songs. It is precisely this point that defenders of Mathers, as well as similarly-situated artists, fail to successfully brush aside. Although no research study may have proven a positive and direct connection between hate music and violent tendencies, recent incidents of adolescent violence and hate crimes, as well as increasing rates of juvenile crime, have already placed the society at the defensive against any such influences which may fan or encourage further adolescent violence and juvenile behavior. For this reason, regulatory bodies may be said to be justified in censoring inappropriate content which not only encourage such behavior in minor audiences but also infringes on the rights of minorities against whom such defamatory remarks are directed against. This same line of reasoning is aptly accepted by the anti-censorship organization, FreeMuse, which does recognize existing and legitimate restrictions to free speech particularly in instances wherein it is abused in advocating national, racial or religious hatred.22 Current Mechanisms of Censorship The main justification for the censorship of violent and explicitly hateful lyrics such as those found in Marshall Mathers’ songs thus lie on the protection of the general public. While both the United States and UK hold freedom of speech as a value, the censorship of mass media is still recognized as a necessity by the greater population. Many people seem to feel that some degree of control has to exercised against what people are allowed to say publicly. This is further buttressed by the fact that most of the incidences wherein censorship often takes place are often initiated by private citizens themselves. Although much of the mechanisms emplyed to curtail the freedom of many artist may be sourced from regulatory bodies, the main initiative which brings about such curtailment may usually be credited to private citizen groups and non-governmental organizations. In the case of UK, for example, the Office of Communications, as established in UK by the Office of Communications Act of 2002, holds the duty to regulate all communications services.23 Among its duties is the official duty to apply “adequate protection for audiences against offensive or harmful material”24 While this duty seems clear enough, the manner by which OfCom is supposed to determine whether a material is potentially harmful to the general public or not is largely left unsubstantiated, thereby leaving any act of censorship open to argument in regards to whether that which is being censored truly qualifies as harmful or offensive. Since there are no general guidelines in place which dictate as to when a material may be considered offensive, those in OfCon are often left to their own resources in determining and justifying why a work is deemed offensive. When reviewing previous incidences of regulation carried out by OfCom, the general trend reveals that the decision is more often than not actually made by the private citizenry. In the 2004 case of the Jamaican reggae artist Sizzla, for example, it was not OfCom which defined the artist’s lyrics as offensive25. Rather such labelling came from the private citizenry in the form of Outrage, a gay rights group which protested against the artist’s upcoming concert in the UK and brought up the matter to OfCom.26 While it was ultimately OfCom which banned the artist from proceeding with the scheduled concert, we are hard-pressed to imagine that such a restrictive ban would have been initiated by OfCom of their own initiative, not without an initial complaint or protest from Outrage. The significance of UK citizenry initiative in regulating hate speech in music is even more clearly exemplified in the case of Brighton city in 2004 wherein the city’s citizens themselves initiated their own city-wide boycott of music albums with homophobic lyrics.27 This city-wide boycott, while not considered a direct censorship by the UK state of the affected artists or musicians, showed clearly how the curtailment of hate speech in songs is often initiated by the citizenry themselves. Athough there is no actual dictation or judgment coming from the main regulatory body, UK citizens in Brighton built their own initiative to censor songs and lyrics which the community itself felt were inaapropriate. As compared to the US’ Federal Communications Commission, OfCom as a regulatory body does not delve too much into direct censorship of artists and musicians. As was pointed out in Trew’s editorial, even the official ban against the reggae artist Sizzla was not directly justified by OfCom as being in protest of any hate speech in his songs. The Office avoided using the term censorship and instead justified the ban as a protective measure to prevent violence from erupting in the given scenario already made tense by Outrage’s protests.28 A more recent development in UK legislation, the Racial and Religious Hatred Act of 2006 gives more teeth to the state in curtailing and censoring offensive material. Although quiet in regards to homophobic material, statute 29E of the said act furthers the cause for censorship of hate speech and hate material directed against individuals by reason of race or religion.29 It specifically prohibits distributing, showing, or playing “a recording of visual images or sounds which are threatening.”30 As such, music videos and even music records containing hate material directed against a religion or race may be censored under the act, albeit qualified by the responsible person/persons intent to incite religious or racial hatred31. The recent Act clearly signifies a stronger role on the part of the Commonwealth in censoring or curtailing hate speech and other inflammatory material. Compared to the OfCom, the United States’ FCC holds greater power in censoring what it deems as inappropriate material and in the past few years has not been shy in exercising such powers. Established by the Communications Act of 1934, the Commission is charged with practically the same duties as the OfCom32. Unlike the OfCom, however, the FCC has not been shy in defining what they perceive as indecent material. Unlike in the UK wherein the current status quo leaves the decision to the private citizenry, the US’ Federal Communication Commission itself strictly reserves the right to decide whether a song or show may be considered as indecent or not. This may be rather problematic sometimes, especially since FCC’s definition of indecent is supposedly based on “contemporary community standards”.33 No record exists however which indicates the FCC’s thorough determination of the US society norms and and standards such as to have any basis when saying that such an item or video is offensive to the American public. FCC accepts complaints against obscenity,indecency and profanity and actively regulates the content of broadcast media.34 It is interesting to note that Indecency complaints filed with the FCC have been rising since the year 2000, peaking at 2004 with a total of 1,405,410 complaints.35 In the case of Eminem, the FCC has explicitly banned several album versions of his songs from being broadcast over the radio, among them the song “the real slim shady” for being indecent36. Radio versions of the song ended up being edited so as to be rid of expletives although much uproar did echo through the Rap community in 2001 when the FCC fined a radio station in Colorado Springs for playing the edited version, deciding thus that the said version still did not meet the commission’s definition of decency.37 Anti-censorship groups such as the Recording Industry Association of America, FreeMuse and the Rap Coalition have thus been fairly critical of the manner by which the FCC arbitrarily decides indecency complaints.38 From what may be gleaned from our examination of the current state of censorship in the US and the UK, the censorship of music artists is being carried out differently between the two countries. Whereas standards of decency are not formally in place in UK but are rather decided upon by the citizenry themselves, the US framework leaves such judgment to the FCC itself. UK has also been less bent or focused on scrutinizing Hip Hop and Rap music as compared to the United States wherein there is an existing stigma against Hiphop artists and rappers. Censorship activities in the UK have been directed more on anti-gay musicians, as initiated by gay rights organizations. New censorship legislation in the UK, while also affecting recorded visual or auditory media, emphasizes the significance of intent wherein the offense is qualified by the artist’s actual intent to incite violence or hatred on the part of the accused against a specific racialm or religious group. An artist can therefore still plead his innocence if he is able to provide ample evidence that there was never any intent on his part to incite violence or discrimination, regardless of the phrases and words employed. This is a different case compared to what is now happening in the US wherein media is judged purely on its content with no particular significance provided to the artist’s intent. The second method, that employed by the US, is more arbitrary and dependent on the actual regulating body. For as long as certain phrases or words may be found in the work, it no longer matters what the actual intent of the writer or artist was. At the same time, it fails to take into account the general effect of a work on society thereby ending up censoring songs for the very causes that the song itself was actually talking about.39 The attitude and strategy employed by the US’ FCC in censoring against hiphop artists as well as other broadcasting artists may be deemed as old-fashioned in that not much limitations are provided against the FCC from arbitrarily determining a piece of work as dangerous and provocative without actual evidence from the general public. Through the years, the FCC has actually been quite free in arbitrarily determining a work’s degree of indecency without much censure or control from other federal bodies, including the Supreme Court. As is stated by Schiller, “No case or series of cases in the 1940s stopped the FCC from judging the content of radio or television broadcasts when making licensing renewal decisions. The FCC did not have its prescriptive powers taken away from it by the courts. Thus, as other administrative agencies were losing their power to engage in content-based regulation of speech, not only did the FCC continue to retain its power, but the courts actively encouraged the agency to exercise its authority.”40 What emerges today, therefore, in regards to the FCC, is an agency that has been given too much free arm space in determining a work’s appropriateness for public viewing and has thus become less in touch with actual public opinion in regard to a work’s appropriateness or level of indecency. Such a situation warrants much reform if we are to guard against any possible abuses carried out in the name of censorship. At the end of the day, the mechanism employed in UK wherein the initiative to censor a piece of work is left to the judgment of the citizenry rather than to a checklist for indecency is more flexible and better addresses the very issues that censorship is being employed for, which is for the protectin of the populace. Whereas US laws seem to interpret this protective duty to the realm of morality and decency, UK censorship has largely limited itself to instances wherein there is an actual threat to public welfare. Conclusion We shuffle back to the question of purpose. Because freedom of speech is a much cherished right, the question, “why?” poses a difficult but defining challenge for the censorship movement. Two whys are presently of interest in this study. Firstly, why censor? As has already been discussed earlier, the strongest reason for censorship, the only one perhaps that some anti-censorship groups would accede to, is the curtailment of hate speech. While freedom of speech is clearly valued, it cannot be given precedence over the actual well-being of other society members. Although it’s true that there is still no proven direct connection between the music we listen to and the things that we do with our lives, it is still a fact that the music we listen to has an effect on our lives. It is the extent of that effect which has not been measured. Recent research has also shown that most individuals undermine or underestimate the extent by which their behavior is affected by the things they hear as compared to the extent by which other people see them being affected by what they heard.41 Incidents such as that of the 18-year-old British boy who murdered a man exactly the way he heard it, copying each single detail as elaborated in Eminem’s song42, such things give us more than enough reaon to be bothered.The rsising crime rate among juveniles tells us not to take the risk of underestimating or discounting their susceptibility to external influence however unproven. Secondly, we ask the question, why hip hop music? In the case of UK, this question does not really carry much weight since much of the censorship incidences that are currently occurring in the UK are not really genre-specific. Much of UK’s censorship trend is focusing more on racial, national, and gender discrimination, and such things do not seem to be concentrated to any specific genre in the music industry. This is much unlike in the US wherein the hip-hop and rap industry is currently being extensively scrutinized not just for their lyrics but for the very lives that their artists are living. One could probably count this as a sociological difference between the UK and US. African-Americans in the US, the eco-social group that largely comprises the hiphop industry, does not have a corresponding socio-economic group in the UK. Further more, as a socio-economic group, the said group has already been under extensive scrutiny among sociologists and the like, especially in regards to crime rate and delinquency. In this case, even beyond the scope of censorship and hiphop music, the socio-economic group where many of those in the US hip-hop music industry belong are already under extensive scrutiny for their reported connections to crime groups and the like. Lastly we come across the question of workability and feasability. Granting that some degree of censorship is justified as a necessary mechanism to curtail hate speech and protect minority groups from physical and emotional attacks incited by hateful lyrics carelessly strewn across a song, we still have to consider how we may best exercise such curtailment while at the same time protecting against its abuse. Based on the research carried out in this project, it may be stipulated that a less arbitrary censorship program, contrary to that currently being used and exercised by the United States’ Federal Communications Commission, would serve better to efficiently provide the solution that censorship is supposed to provide. The existing mechanism employed in the Us, that of the FCC’s rules and regulations regarding indecent, obcene and pornographic material somehow ends up completely disregarding the intent of the work being scrutinized. A work, albeit controversial in its content for example, may serve to provide a greater purpose than the sum of its controversial segments. If we are to apply the FCC mechanism which simply judges a piece of work through a set of indecency checklists, then we are bound to somehow disregard the overall value of a work. Such mechanism does not provide enough working space to allow for artistic work which makes use of controversial material to bring out socially-valuable messages. The more apt mechanism which best carries out the modern purpose of censorship is the mechanism which is now being carried out in the UK. Unlike previous decades wherein censorship was used primarily to suppress, censorship’s only valid argument today is its ability to protect against and prevent hate crimes. As such, it is important that acts of censorship be carried out so as to deal the least amount of damage possible to works which do not really pose any possibility of inciting hate crimes and hate attitudes. The UK mechanism wherein the regulatory body, though equipped with the necessary powers to carry out censorship, leaves the decision to the general public, ends up being more precise in carrying out the only valid purpose of censorship for today’s modern society. The threat of artistic works becoming too provocative so as to endanger the safety and well-being of general society must be examined and judged by that society itself. Society and its citizens are of the best position to determine whether a piece of work is threatening or not. Such a decision should not be left and determined through the use of a haphazard and arbitrary list of indecency symptoms such as that employed by the FCC. As has been the tradition of many legal mechanisms which somehow curtail against the constitutional bill of rights, such curtailment should ever and always be made only as a necessary precaution against greater societal danger. As such it become the duty of the state to ensure that the curtailment does not end up becoming unnecessarily oppressive in instances which do not warrant suppression. Between the mechanisms provide by UK and the US, it is the UK mechanism which best achieves this aim with the least amount of damage against otherwise innocent works. Bibliography Bennett, Andy. (2001) Cultures of Popular Music. Open University Press. Born, Georgina. (1995) Rationalizing Culture. University of California Press. Chang, Jeff. (2005) Cant Stop Wont Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation. Edbury Press. Chastagner, Claude.(1999) The Parents’ Music Resource Center: From Information to Censorship. Popular Music, Vol. 18, No. 2, pp. 179-192 Donnellan, Craid (2001)The Censorship Issue. Entertainment and Society Journals Duralde, Alonso. (2001) The Trouble with Eminem- morality and social effects of rap singer’s use of offensive language in song lyrics. The Advocate. Eveland, William, et al. (1997) Support for Censorship of Violent and Misogynic Rap Lyrics. Communication Research, Vol. 24 (2), pp.153-174 Gey, Steven (1996) The Case Against Postmodern Censorship Theory. University of Pennsylvania Law Review, Vol. 145(2), pp.193-2s97. Office of Communications Act 2002 Peddie, Ian (2006) The Resisting Muse: Popular Music and Social Protest. Ashgate Sanneh, Kelefa (2007) MUSIC: Dont Blame Hip-Hop; How Don Imus Problem Became a Referendum on Rap. New York Times. Schiller, Reuel E. (2000) Free Speech and Exercise: Administrative Censorship and the Birth of the Modern First Amendment. 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