free speech or just offensive -- essays research papers

Free Speech or Just Offensive? A highly debated topic as of late has been the staggering rise of offensive language and topics of the music industry, which have infiltrated through. Should the artists of this music be punished for corrupting the minds of the people who listen to it? Or should the musician's rights be protected by the first amendment? The main problem to be seen is that this music has become extremely popular to the youth. With this popularity comes blow after blow from the media, parents, and organizations putting down the music because they believe it's corrupting the children. All of these criticisms towards music have even made the government step in and put parental advisory warnings on the CD's. This lets the consumer know that the CD they are buying has adult language, violence, or sexual references in the songs. The government has also set an age minimum of seventeen years old to even purchase the offensive CD's. After all of this is said and done, the albums are still selling millions of copies. It is a whole different market today, set on exploiting the rebels "fuck you I won't do what you tell me" attitude of the youth. "Big bucks is the name of the game.† says music critic Harvey Bickle. This implies that these stars that have risen from this music are only doing so to make themselves a quick buck. Whether or not this is true, we still support these stars and will continue to do so. But is there any evidence that the music is hurting anyone? Many reasons offensive music has been blamed can be documented through past incidences. During the Columbine shooting, the media was blaming the music of Marlin Manson because of his dark songs. This idea of music creating violence is not a new one. In 1982 ACDC put out a song called Night Stalker on their album. Later on that year, a killer roamed the countryside while assuming the alias Night Stalker, and was convinced that the lyrics from ACDC's song drove him to do these disgusting acts of murder. Many cases like this have been brought to court, but notably, not one has proved their case against the artist. How could we come to the conclusion that the music caused these mass killings and riots a... ...r a redress of grievances." (Duemler, David 34). This basically means that as an artist or regular person, one may speak or illustrate anything without being punished or revised as long as it is done so in a respectable manner. There is even an entire organization supporting and fighting for the first amendment for artist called the Recording Industry Association of America, or RIAA. It is ironic that the amendment that protects the artist is also the amendment that allows people to protest against it. Overall the point is that most of our basic laws come from these amendments, and they are what America was built on, so how can we accuse artists of breaking the law when all they were doing was following it? Although the music industry is becoming more and more controversial, it still does not give anyone the right to ban or prosecute someone’s music, because an artist has the right to a freedom of expression. People who disagree with this, can choose not buy the music or change the station when it's on the radio, but they cannot destroy it or the artist because freedom of speech is what makes this country so great and free.