Raising Kids in an X-Rated Society
Gore, Tipper
rr ipper Gore has an audience problem—finding one. She has a perfectly reasonable message, which I'll get to in a minute, but I fear it isn't going to reach all that many people. There are...
...She likes rock...
...But the overwhelming media response to this legitimate concern seems to be 'kill the messenger'—by ridiculing an outdated image...
...The book is repetitive...
...And Tipper isn't averse to patting herself on the back as a Paul Revere figure...
...Rock concerts provide the alcohol industry with an ideal way to reach potential young customers," she says...
...You can't get much milder than that...
...All it wants is a warning on records that might be inappropriate for kids: "Explicit Lyrics—Parental Advisory...
...Nothing could be worse than the shame of suffering such an accusation...
...And if she's a feminist, she doesn't boast about it...
...They live in fear of being accused of prudery or censorship or being authoritarian with their kids...
...member...
...RAISING KIDS IN AN X-RATED SOCIETY Tipper Gore/Abingdon Press (Nashville, TN)/$12.95...
...Bloom doesn't...
...For one thing, there's her husband...
...If they read Tipper Gore's book, they will...
...Okay, she's a leaden writer...
...But they're silent...
...For another, her pitch is very, very tame...
...Gore is at pains to disassociate herself from censorship...
...Our proposal amounted to nothing more than truth in packaging, a time-honored principle in our free-enterprise system...
...Elektra/Asylum issued a press release boosting a new album by Motley CrUe this way: "Dripping with impure and adulterated lust and a take-no-shit-and-grab-some-tit attitude, Shout at the Devil is a call to armsfor American youth...
...And why not...
...N o, she has not replicated Allan Bloom's critique of rock music...
...On stage, its lead singer wears a codpiece with a circular saw blade protruding from it...
...Tipper has a lot more appeal than Albert does...
...Use of drugs and booze is promoted by these groups and in movies, and Satanism is occasionally proclaimed and glorified in rock lyrics and onstage antics by rock groups...
...It smells of censorship," responded the president of Warner Brothers Records...
...But Gore has been treated in the media as the Carrie Nation of rock music...
...8.95 paper Fred Barnes 42 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR SEPTEMBER 1987...
...There is a responsible, non-fanatical, growing concern over pornography that can't be pinned on outdated images of high-collared prudish misfits attempting to Lysol the world," she says...
...There are political obstacles...
...I haven't...
...He makes a lot of what seems like sense about rock, only I don't think he persuaded a single person who actually likes the music to stop listening...
...She says the corporations are polluting the cultural environment and harming our children...
...But liberals are squeamish about the subjects she addresses—sex, teenagers, rock 'n' roll...
...We did not advocate a ban of even the most offensive albums or tapes...
...She has four kids...
...Some heavy metal performers have expressly designed their concerts to display depraved, violent behavior that stimulates and inflames hostile emotions...
...Like a toxic waste dump, this hidden subculture has begun poisoning mainstream rock...
...It's just hard for me to believe that Bob Seger can be that harmful...
...H er spiel is pretty simple...
...Don't expect liberals to rush to Tipper's side, either...
...I've talked to some folks who support her husband's candidacy and they're embarrassed by her...
...Gore says that rock is fine, except that the raunchy stuff, including Prince, shouldn't be dished out to unsuspecting (or even suspecting) kids...
...That's all we asked for—awareness and disclosure...
...These youngsters watch stars strut about the stage while chugging alcohol, glamorizing it at a time when alcohol use and abuse among young people is rising...
...This shows their political stupidity...
...Rock concerts are singular in one important regard: In almost all other entertainment media, vulgar and violent stage acts are segregated from the mainstream, and certainly from children...
...We simply urged that the consumer be forewarned through the use of warning labels and/or printed lyrics visible on the packaging of music products...
...Our approach is the direct opposite of censorship," she writes...
...When she formed the Parent's Music Resource Center in 1985 to warn parents about rock lyrics and concert performances, Gore found that record companies acted as if any change in their practices at all amounted to censorship...
...Teenagers and even younger kids...
...This was enough to attract Capitol Records, which signed the band to a $1.5 million record deal...
...Yet songs and stage performances today often deal with such unconventional subjects as sadism and masochism...
...If her-husband had half her moxie, he might stand a chance of being President some day...
...In any other context, this would make her cause a perfect one for Ralph Nader and all the others who are ever-ready to find fault with capitalism...
...The bad news about the press release is that it isn't hype...
...The first request, made at PMRC's instigation by the National Association of Broadcasters, was for companies to include written lyrics with the records, so disk jockeys could know what they were playing...
...We Are Sexual Perverts) that uses skeletons, axes, saws, and gallons of fake blood in its act...
...We spit blood and throw raw pieces of meat into the crowd," boasted a W.A.S.P...
...This group, whose videos appear on MTV, isn't shy about explicitly sexual lyrics or about talking up drugs...
...If you think about it, Gore has the sort of enemy—big corporations—that should automatically bring her allies...
...RCA markets the records of Grim Reaper, which plays satanic rock...
...Her most telling horror story is about a rock group known as W.A.S.P...
...Tipper Gore also takes a shot at booze manufacturers...
...Porn rock may be performed by only a small minority of bands, she writes, but it is a growing phenomenon and has a spillover effect...
...Fred Barnes is a senior editor of the New Republic...
...Parents should know better...
...To her, censorship is as dirty a word as some of those that heavy metal bands use when discussing what they'd like to do to teenage girls...
...Be thankful for that...
...They're afraid to be called censors or prudes, or worse...
...Some companies underwrite rock concert tours, which "gives alcohol advertisers an opportunity to reach teenagers and even preteens...
...Conservatives, potentially her most enthusiastic constituency, are bound to be leery of rallying around the wife of a moderate-toliberal politician, Senator Albert Gore of Tennessee, who is running for the 1988 Democratic presidential nomination...
...PMRC dropped its request for an R rating on some albums and for the record industry to develop a uniform standard on what is explicitly sexual in lyrics...
...Parents are often oblivious...
...At least she's got a distinctive message, which is more than can be said of him...
...Gore isn't...
...And who buys the records...
...Besides, Tipper doesn't look or act like one of them...
...They innocently send their kids off to a rock concert or to the music store to buy a record or to the newsstand to get a rock magazine, and don't have the foggiest idea what their children are buying and consuming...
...Not a bad point...
...One RCA ad for the band said: "Grim Reaper is Going to Send You Straight to Hell . . . heavy metal so intense it'll sc$e the hell out of you...
...Capitol is not alone...
...Some continue to lampoon and caricature the messengers as sexually repressed hysterics...
...Nonetheless, she makes her case, particularly against record companies...
...She doesn't have a job...
...We called for more information, not less...
...Explicit sex and violence are being pushed on teenagers and preteens by some, though hardly most, rock groups...
Vol. 20 • September 1987 • No. 9
