Trying to impose censorship on objectionable media outlets is wrong. Artists, developers, and not to mention every citizen of the United States should be protected by the first amendment, and those who aren’t ignorant to the Bill of Rights usually are. Taking away this right is unconstitutional. Federal authorities sometimes try to put censors on stuff. This happens when people complain about something being obscene. If an individual thinks the content of an album, movie, website, etc.
is objectionable or obscene, they shouldn’t view it. They should just sit down, shut up, and find something else for them or their children to do. Perhaps if they got their lazy butts outside once in a while they wouldn’t be so worried about what’s on TV or in video games. As mentioned, the first amendment of the bill of rights, also known as SHARP, or the Freedom (s) of Speech, Press, Assembly, Religion, and Petition, protects the citizens of the United States by giving them the right to speak or act out for or against what they may choose. This also gives people the right of artistic expression.
Music, games, websites, paintings, even showing off lacy under-garments on stage, can all be considered forms of artistic expression. Music artists (atleast the real ones) write, sing, perform, and sometimes dance to their music. Directors make videos for those bands. Once in a while that music may end up in video games and such. So what’s the point? All this is just the artistic expression of these creative people. Often times one of the goals for those people is to push the boundaries and explore new extremes of their genres.
Harder, faster music, flashier, gorier games, better graphics, sexier videos, all these are created to entertain, but at the same time push the limits of the current conventionality of modern society. So if a constitutional right protects all this, why is there such a problem? Well here’s the deal. The rights of an individual only go so far. Once they impose upon the rights of another individual they are considered to be crossing the line. Example, it is your right to pursue happiness, which implies you don’t really have the right to be happy, just to try to be. Walking around naked and saying it’s part of your religion is just peachy until someone else complains that they are offended by nudity.
So for some games, music, movies, etc. , they are seen to too obscene by society. But here’s where the big debate comes in, who gets to decide what is obscene and what isn’t? Different people would consider obscene to be different degrees of objectionable content. One person may watch the most brutal movie ever illegally released in this country, and laugh.
Another person may watch the first five minutes of that movie, and want to pop their eyes out with a rusty spoon. What it comes down to is what someone may call art, another might call smut. What somebody says is entertaining to him or her, may be the most offensive thing someone else has ever seen. For this reason rating systems were invented. Movies have had rating systems for a while, but for video games and music, and even websites, the rating system is fairly new. Back in the early to mid 90’s when the first game of the Mortal Kombat series same out for the SNES and Sega Genesis platforms, there was a frenzy among angry parents fussing about the game being much too violent.
They argued it contained way too much blood and gore. However compared to the latest, and so far best installment of the Mortal Kombat series, ‘Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance,’ the first one now resembles what it would be like for the Teletubbies if they learned how to kick and punch. Another argument was that it was distracting students from there schoolwork. In the later 90’s, violent video games, as well as violent music, was believed to have contributed to various school shootings. Violent games like these would probably have a rating such as MA-17. This acts a warning to the consumer that this product is full of blood, guts, violence, sometimes sexual references, all around hours of mindless entertainment.
Music also had to go through the same battles. Now music with questionable content, or even a little swearing, is stuck with a parent advisory sticker. We ” ve all seen them. They mean nothing what-so-ever, and rarely stop kids who are supposed to be too young to buy these products from getting them anyway. Website regulation is a whole different argument in it’s own, but has the same basis of debate as other forms of media. There’s a simple enough answer to all this though.
What’s appropriate and what’s not? When and where these kinds of media should be distributed? It’s easy. Parents should monitor their child’s activities more carefully. If they don’t think their child should be subjected to something that they think is objectionable, then don’t let them. As for people who just don’t like that so-called ‘obscene’s tuff in general, then don’t watch it. Nobody is forced to play a violent video game, or watch some XXX movie.
If they don’t like what’s on TV, sit down, shut up, and change the channel! Of course that’s a general statement, but it can be applied to most anything discussed above.