Some Things Just Aren't Right

I've blogged about how I know I am becoming a codger. I disapprove of a lot of things in this big, bad, modern world. I mostly disapprove of tasteless, bad behaviour, and things that are overly sexualized - because the target audience is impressionable young people, and that is just not right.

MTV and Mexican music tv channels are what's tuned in at our gym. I cannot abide most of the music (tuneless, unimaginative, repetitive garbage), so I wear my iPod shuffle and listen to my own choice of tunes.

But it is hard to miss what it happening on the huge screen on the wall right above the elliptical machines. In a word, as far as I am concerned, it's porn. A lot of the images shock me, as do many of the lyrics that scroll across the bottom of the screen.

I am not a prude, and believe adults should be able to pursue/view whatever floats their boat - within the privacy of their own lives and homes. But I don't believe the youth of North America (or the world) need this stuff relentlessly beamed at them 24/7.

Two current videos have images that really offend me. One is by Christina Aguilera, who seems to have taken her "Burlesque" movie too much to heart and has gone way beyond burlesque and into the realm of pornography. Between the "uber" skimpy/sexy, stripper/dominatrix outfits, the bumping/grinding and humping motions, full-on breast groping of her by her male dancers, etc etc, it is just over the top. I shudder to imagine the impact on the developing psyches of the preteens who watch and idolize her and similar such "acts" (I am loathe to call them artists or musicians).

The other video I just saw for the first time yesterday - it was by "Thalia and Elvis Presley" and is a remix of The King's "Love Me Tender." It shows a couple in love professing their feelings for each other...through spray painting graffiti love messages to each other all over public buildings, fences, and even transit buses! Whoever thought up this video concept obviously completely missed the fact that graffiti is VANDALISM! The video glorifies the destruction of private property. As urban dwellers in a Canadian town with a serious graffiti problem, I was horrified and outraged at the video's message to kids.

But the real nail in the societal coffin respecting the video is this - the young man and woman are each running around town separately defacing buildings with their spray paint cans, then photographing the message and e-mailing it to the lover, who looks at his/her phone adoringly upon receipt, and rushes to reciprocate by defacing yet something else. I mean, how disconnected can you get? When did it become more meaningful to make e-statements of love, as opposed to in-person declarations? Again, all I could think is this is something kids would quickly copy as a cool act to get the attention of the opposite sex.

So, complaints from two ends of the spectrum - on one hand I am offended by too much of the up-close-and-personal imagery of body parts being ground together on screen and, on the other hand, I am offended by the impersonal texting/e-mailing message of the other video. Neither of these videos bodes well for the future of our society, as far as I am concerned.

The "oldies" music videos that are sometimes shown (from the 1980s) are positively innocent in comparison, although I realize at the time many adults probably saw them as the end of the civilized world. Maybe they were right - the downhill slide certainly seems in full swing.

No Todo bien. (It's not all good.)