Afrikaans Afrikaans Albanian Albanian Amharic Amharic Arabic Arabic Armenian Armenian Azerbaijani Azerbaijani Basque Basque Belarusian Belarusian Bengali Bengali Bosnian Bosnian Bulgarian Bulgarian Catalan Catalan Cebuano Cebuano Chichewa Chichewa Chinese (Simplified) Chinese (Simplified) Chinese (Traditional) Chinese (Traditional) Corsican Corsican Croatian Croatian Czech Czech Danish Danish Dutch Dutch English English Esperanto Esperanto Estonian Estonian Filipino Filipino Finnish Finnish French French Frisian Frisian Galician Galician Georgian Georgian German German Greek Greek Gujarati Gujarati Haitian Creole Haitian Creole Hausa Hausa Hawaiian Hawaiian Hebrew Hebrew Hindi Hindi Hmong Hmong Hungarian Hungarian Icelandic Icelandic Igbo Igbo Indonesian Indonesian Irish Irish Italian Italian Japanese Japanese Javanese Javanese Kannada Kannada Kazakh Kazakh Khmer Khmer Korean Korean Kurdish (Kurmanji) Kurdish (Kurmanji) Kyrgyz Kyrgyz Lao Lao Latin Latin Latvian Latvian Lithuanian Lithuanian Luxembourgish Luxembourgish Macedonian Macedonian Malagasy Malagasy Malay Malay Malayalam Malayalam Maltese Maltese Maori Maori Marathi Marathi Mongolian Mongolian Myanmar (Burmese) Myanmar (Burmese) Nepali Nepali Norwegian Norwegian Pashto Pashto Persian Persian Polish Polish Portuguese Portuguese Punjabi Punjabi Romanian Romanian Russian Russian Samoan Samoan Scottish Gaelic Scottish Gaelic Serbian Serbian Sesotho Sesotho Shona Shona Sindhi Sindhi Sinhala Sinhala Slovak Slovak Slovenian Slovenian Somali Somali Spanish Spanish Sundanese Sundanese Swahili Swahili Swedish Swedish Tajik Tajik Tamil Tamil Telugu Telugu Thai Thai Turkish Turkish Ukrainian Ukrainian Urdu Urdu Uzbek Uzbek Vietnamese Vietnamese Welsh Welsh Xhosa Xhosa Yiddish Yiddish Yoruba Yoruba Zulu Zulu

 

 

Article Navigation

Back To Main Page

 

Click Here for more articles
Google
The Effect of Censorship on Music Videos
by: Ispas Marin
Music videos represent a form of expressing an artistic message, but many artists sometimes make a statement that is considered to be offensive. Therefore the music video gets censored due to these offensive messages.

The definition of offensive music videos is different from one country to another. What is considered to be offensive in one country could be seen as a completely normal behaviour in another. The reason for this situation is the diversity of cultures that have different laws and different ethics. The label company which is usually producing the music video is aware of this phenomenon, so videos are being edited and distributed in a censored version and an uncensored one for a single artist. Despite these efforts on behalf of the producers, some videos still get banned as they are still regarded as being too offensive to be broadcasted to the public.

The first music video to be ever banned was ‘Girls on film’. It was banned by MTV in 1981, the very year of the birth of this TV station. This music video was considered to display too much amount of flesh and it was also banned by BBC for reasons of excessive nudity. Madonna had a lot of music videos that got banned for different causes. The ‘Justify my love’ music video was particularly censored for its display of homosexuality, sadomasochism and group sex. Another Madonna music video, ‘What it feels like for a girl’ was also banned by MTV because it displayed too much violence. And Madonna was banned again years later for the ‘American Life’ music video as it was considered to send an anti-American message. The artist was forced to shoot another video for the song.

But Madonna isn’t the only artist who has ever been banned. The ‘Smack my bitch up’ music video by Prodigy was also banned, but only in a few countries, as it contained images displaying drug use and nudity. Even the music video for the hit song ‘Firestarter’ by Prodigy was censored by BBC as it was considered to send a violent message for arson. The ‘God save the queen’ music video for the Sex Pistols was also censored by BBC for making an anti-royal statement.

Taking all these bans into consideration, there is no wonder that Egypt has banned around 20 music videos for their display of sexually-charged images!

Surprisingly, but even innocent music videos become victims of censorships. For instance, REM’s ‘Losing My Religion’ music video was censored in Ireland as it was displaying images which were considered to mock religion.

In conclusion, music videos have been banned along the years for all sorts of reasons: religion, nudity, violence, drugs etc. One thing needs to be said: the fact that a music video gets banned doesn’t mean it has a poor artistic value, it plainly means that the message is inappropriate to be broadcasted on national television.

About the author:
For a great data base of music video codes just visit us at http://www.videocode.org


Circulated by Article Emporium

 


©2005 - All Rights Reserved

Total Views stat / Page Views stat

Advertise Here

web page counter