Hollywood Needs A Heartland Wake Up Call
By Kevin Fobbs
February 23, 2005
Somehow I have to believe that comedian and actor Chris Rock the host of the upcoming 74th Academy Awards has gotten it at least half right when he said recently that America really should not take these awards too seriously.
Of course the pundits of Hollywood struck back and tried to dethrone him before he could even ascend to the throne as host. The part Chris Rock did not cover is probably even more important to Heartland Americans than his rather obvious comments about the award's importance. What Chris Rock did not speak to was the obvious under current the Academy Awards represent in Hollywood as it strives to showcase a culture framed in a shop of horrors complete with torturous anti-traditional Heartland values. The red carpet will somehow miss that.
We can't afford for America to miss that message. We have to do more. It seems that every 20 years; almost a complete generation has to pass, when the family values are again assaulted by liberals who seem to be trying much harder at destabilizing our values system. But a national effort launched twenty years ago does bring some clarification to the save our values movement of today and the battle that Heartland families must wage against another entertainment industry giant.
The multi billion-dollar record industry was being influenced in a big time way by Gangsta Rap and hard Rock's usage of vile language, violence and blatant sexually suggestive lyrics.
A group of parents fueled by the heightened concerns of several wives of congressional representatives and one Reagan Administration official formed the Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC). The originators of PMRC were Tipper Gore, wife of then Senator Al Gore, Susan Baker, wife of Treasury Secretary James Baker; and Nancy Thurmond, wife of Senator Strom Thurmond.
These women saw the daunting problems plaguing the homes of parents all across America. Do you remember what parents were up against at that time? It was incredibly similar to the same challenges you hear parents discuss today. We were worried about the decay of the family; i.e. the nuclear family. Now more families are headed up by single heads of households.
We were concerned that our children would be influenced by outside influences, which would sabotage all the work and effort we were putting in to raise our children to be respectful of their parents, supportive of our religious values, and mindful or our nation's greatness. These poisonous lyrics and Gangsta Rap, Hard Rock music with not so hidden meanings were slowly seeping into our culture. Each artist tried to out-do the other with even more highly suggestive sexually explicit and degrading lyrics and content. The emphasis was not on entertainment but on selling more records.
I was a Michigan coordinator of PMRC, and like millions of parents all across America was worried about the recording industry's seemingly unabashed effort at repeatedly targeting minors like my child.
I did a live broadcast with recording artist Frank Zappa who was joined on the phone from Hollywood. When I challenged his frayed and faulty logic concerning the harm to the children of America, instead of being an adult and reasonable he simply hung up on me on the air. Zappa was not trying to protect children but his right to make music. He wanted to expose children to the destabilizing influence of music, which glorified sex, emphasized drug use and violence, and promoted the decay of the family. That was his world and it was the world that Hollywood reflected as well
Zappa could hang up on me, but he could not hang up on America. Eventually the Recording Industry Association of America caved in and required that labels describing the lyrics appear on all records.
Parents like myself fought back against the Zappas of the recording industry and what was at the time an unrepentant industry. We worked to establish necessary codes prohibiting those types of vile lyrics being marketed to children without their parent's knowledge. We also asked for point of sale enforcement and compliance at the retail level. Most importantly we worked to educate parents about warning labels.
It took several years, but it was well worth it to protect our children's future and it certainly did not diminish or derail the recording industry or negatively impact upon recording artists' ability to make millions and millions of dollars.
What we fought for then is the same thing we have to stand up and fight for now, and that is the protection of our children and grandchildren's innocence of youth. Now, 20 years later we see Hollywood being even more invasive than the recording industry in its time.
You see, the Culture Wars of the 80s are now in full swing and gone is Gangsta Rap and Hard Rock as a tool of destruction of our family values. It has been replaced with an even more stealthy weapon. That weapon of choice by the liberal entertainment industry is now cartoon characters like Sunday night's longest running nighttime cartoons series the Simpsons. First Sponge Bob Square Pants, then PBS's Buster The Bunny... and now the Simpsons walked right into the midst of this war with the Sunday's shows supposed legalization of gay marriage in the Simpson's fictional town of Springfield.
Was it necessary to air this episode and was it sending, yet again, another message to America's children? No V-Chip can protect our children from cartoon characters. When Hollywood could not get its anti-family values agenda item through PBS or other means then they will air it on Sunday via the popular primetime cartoon series.
We as parents and concerned citizens have to yet again put on our armor and suit up against the entertainment industry. When Hollywood announces its Academy Awards this coming weekend we must also announce our renewed effort to take back our family values and fight to preserve our children's future.
We must do more than simply write about the damaging effects. We have to do more than simply share our disgust about this in emails and instant messages streaming across the computer screens of concerned Americans. We must do more than post our concerns on family friendly websites.
The Heartland of America must stand up and fight for the heroes of Hollywood who do share our values, and each state must have its own effort, organized, coordinated and ready to truly preserve the family values of our Heartland.
We who were involved in the PMRC were informed 20 years ago that the task was too daunting, too big. Instead of backing away from the task, parents and concerned Americans joined our effort, without the power, resources and the connective reach that the Internet now provides. It was done with parents and groups in states all across this nation who gave their time to preserve the future of our culture.
What must be done is quite simple:
And the Academy goes to...
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Kevin Fobbs is President of National Urban Policy Action Council (NuPac), a non-partisan civic and citizen-action organization that focuses on taking the politics out of policy to secure urban America's future one neighborhood, one city, and one person at a time. View NuPac on the web at www.nupac.info. Kevin Fobbs is also Second Vice Chairman of the Michigan Republican Party and daily host of The Kevin Fobbs Show on News Talk WDTK - 1400 AM in Detroit as well as co-founder of the Jackson, MI-based American Conservative Values Television Network. Listen to The Kevin Fobbs Show at www.wdtkam.com.
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Note -- The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, views, and/or philosophy of GOPUSA.