Social Responsibility? Isn't That Something We ALL Need?
Aug 22 '01
The Bottom Line Do they have a responsibility to uphold? Are you stupid? YES!
This really shouldn't be all that complicated. The answer is yes. Do people in the spotlight have to attain a higher level as a human being? They're making more money aren't they? They have more fame don't they? Then they have more responsibility.
Money = Power = Responsibility. It's really that simple. Anyone who disagrees with this wants to have their cake and eat it too. And I'm not buying into that system, just so someone with more money, fame, and power than I have can have an easier ride.
Artists are really no different than the rest of us. If you've ever been to an art gallery, you'd know that a basic principle seperates a lot of artists from you and I. That difference being that they get paid a whole lot more to BS then we will ever get. I'm not saying this is true of all artists, but a lot of modern art is just really, "Hey, I made this up just now, it symbolizes the struggle of everyday life. Please buy my artwork." This really sucks because people who are really, really good but refuse to sink to that level end up in a field other than art or unemployed altogether.
But I digress.
Art, by the party line, is meant to enrich our lives, and show us things in a different light. To touch us with beauty and grace on one hand and then tear away the facade that covers society's ills with the other.
One of the predominant areas where this is present is in music. A song can switch to having you brimming with joy to choking back tears in a manner of seconds.
Back in the early 60s and on into the 90s, with the intense popularization of rock & roll, and as a result, radio music, politically active artists started grabbing headlines, with tunes to stop wars, increase freedom, and stop racial discrimination.
Has anyone heard a popular song released in this new millennium that was intended to evoke some kind of political or societal change? Anyone? The only one that comes to mind is this abysmal collaboration of artists around the world called "Zero Landmine". Maybe that "Mrs. Jackson" song, where a rapper tells the mother of his ex-girlfriend that he intends to be a father for the child he fathered with her daughter, despite the fact that they are seperated.
Yet how many songs are out there about killing, filled with profanities, angry, angry songs railing about everything and anything?
Let me ask you something? Do kids today seem happier than they were when you were one? We have it better now, it would seem. A more affluent nation, more goodies, more technology, greater freedom. Is the average high schooler a happy person, ready to contribute to the society that has given him so much? Or is he a ticking time bomb, ready to rail out against anything that they perceive threatens their way of living?
I'd have to say that it definitely looks to be the latter. While I can say that the music is entirely to blame, a large portion of the younger population just wants to be like the popular kids in school, and the popular kids just want to be like the popular people on TV and radio.
Artists need to realize this stuff, and take it into account. What exactly is Eminem trying to change when he talks about killing his wife? When Fred Durst of Limp Bizkit cries out for something to break, what kind of uplifiting message is that supposed to convey? (And yet, in a different song, he'll claim that he knows why the world wants to hate him, and it's because "hate is all the world's ever seen lately." Maybe it's a mirror, genius.)
Too much violence, cursing, and general hostility has worked its way into every part of our life. George Carlin and Chris Rock probably curse more in a 2 hour comedy special than I and the Everyday Joe do in the course of months. Why? Is the F-word a laugh multiplier? Does it just raise that joke to "the next level"? Does it help them get "in the zone"?
Artists definitely have a social responsibility. They know it, too, they just don't want to accept it. They know that they styles they wear the things they say and the things they do affect the public. It's evident in their lyrics, their movies, and by the throngs of sheep that come out to see them whenever they show up in public.
If all these people know that they have that great of an effect on people, why not use it for good, or at the very least, make an attempt not to warp them? I'm not talking about all this coddling garbage where someone blames a game of Final Fantasy for a kid killing a school, or people who think that cartoon cavemen who argue with their wives conveys a message of accepted misogeny.
Video games and cartoons are totally, totally different from seeing everyday people who are making real money, and all over real TV talking about that same thing. I mean, we all stopped trying to fly like Superman when we were what, 5? Unless you ate paste. Maybe figuring that stuff out took you a little longer...
I'm talking about when an artist talks about how he's a bigger man than another because he's got enough guts to pull the trigger and do the time, or how he's ready to die for his shot at revenge. Artists are all willing to talk about how magnanimous they are when they try and influence the public's influence for change, like trying to free Tibet, or save turkeys at Thansgiving, but whenever anyone asks why they talk about shooting cops, or rioting, that's "just where they're coming from", and people shouldn't try and emulate them.
You can't have it both ways. Besides, you're making more in a year than I'll make in a lifetime, where you're coming from has ceased to be relevant. Isn't that you rolling in the Bentley drinking Cristile? How do you have a tougher life than I? Isn't that you rocking the ice and the threads? Why does it matter to me that you used to have nothing? Shut up about it. Save the stories of how tough life on the street is for the people who are still there, unless you actually intend to help them. Otherwise, you're just rubbing salt in their wounds by making it evident that their suffering is your meal ticket.
And have you noticed when these artists actually do try and help out charitable organizations, it's just an extension of their selfishness. For exmaple, the KROQ concerts will nearly every time go to give money to the Surfrider Foundation and Heal the Bay. Because the alternative artists who do the concert like to surf. Give money to local schools? Why do I care? But, mess with my surfing, and I'll raise hell!
The bottom line is that artists like Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera know they're partially responsible for increased teen promiscuity. Certain rappers know that they're responisible in part, for the general hostility and distrust of the police. Prodigy and Eminem know that they have led to increased misogeny.
Do they want to accept it? No. But the next time you see 20,000 or more fans chanting along to every single word or theirs in concert, screaming in adoration, just try and imagine the kind and quantity of drugs they have to be taking to try and ignore that fact.
So what do we do? Ask the government for help? No, that's useless. The current government is just if not more pro-corporation/anti-consumer as the regime before, only in this reign they don't know their rear ends from a hole in the ground...just that they'd drill for oil in both.
So the burden falls to you, the consumer, the parent, the student. Support your socially aware artists. (Fiona Apple does NOT count.) Or at least, stop supporting the ones that refuse to accept their responsibility, and show them that they don't deserve it.
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Member: Clayton Chan
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