“At MTV, We Don’t Shoot for the 14-year-olds, We Own Them.”
— Posted by John (July 27, 2006 at 4:41 pm)
So said Bob Pittman, creator of the Network That Formerly Played Music Videos.
If anybody deserves to be picketed, it’s MTV.
And the teens and young adults at Stand True are going to do just that tomorrow morning at the network’s headquarters in Manhattan’s Times Square.
At the protest, they’ll also be distributing flyers with the message:
Does MTV own you?
For years, MTV has believed that they own this generation. And maybe they do. After all, the eager eyes of the American youth have silently watched MTV exploit their minds and bodies for profit, never questioning the product they’ve been sold. But what if we looked closer?
What is MTV really selling? And what is it really costing us?
Young ladies, what kind of standard is MTV setting for you? Many of their shows encourage the falsehood that women are defined by their appearance, and that their worth is grounded in an ability to seduce. But what if beauty has nothing to do with sex?
The network also provides girls of any age with free information about abortion, emergency contraception, and STD’s. Their website is covered with links to Planned Parenthood, the country’s largest supplier for the killing of human persons through abortion. It seems rather strange for a music network to offer such information, unless that network is attempting to compensate for peddling sex to teenagers.
Young men, if girls are merely objects, what role does that create for you? MTV shows men to be collectors. Cars, money, women—they’re all the same, an empty, emotionless fulfillment of ‘the American Dream.’ But what if human beings are not objects? What if MTV is ignoring relationship simply to sell sex?
Our generation deserves better than this. No matter how many reality shows it produces, MTV constantly fails to portray anything real. The value of a human person, the passion and beauty that accompanies true romance—these things do not exist in the world of MTV. Instead, we have become just another worthless commodity, and our voices have been lost, reduced to simply repeating every word MTV says.
“If you can get their emotions going, make them forget their logic, you’ve got them. At MTV, we don’t shoot for the 14-year-olds, we own them.” –Bob Pittman, creator of MTV.
…still want your MTV?
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Pansy Moss says:
I find MTV so incredibly offensive. There is a show on TV where the parents of a guy does not approve of his girlfriend, so they set him up with a date with another girl, and make the girlfriend sit there and watch the televised date. Sometimes the guy decides the heck woth his girlfriend, sometimes he stays with her. But the whole things is so dehumanising and degrading. There are lots of reality shows that treat people and relationships like objects like that on MTV.
The videos are not much better. I don’t even know when MTV shows videos anymore, but my kids watch 106th and Park sometimes (BET), and I cannot tell you how tired I am of seeing the same video of a bunch of guys blinged out holding a bunch of benjamins surrounded by scantily clad girls booty dancing.
I have as much issue, if not more so of the materialism is god attitude, as I do with the promiscuity.
Comment posted July 27th, 2006 at 7:34 pm
Mike says:
I used to watch MTV at times in the early 80′s when they showed music video’s 24/7. I do like music. I don’t know why they call it music television anymore because I never see videos on the channel anymore. All I see now are singles sleeping with each other in bed.
Remember in the 70′s on “I Love Lucy” both Lucy and her husband on the show were actually married in real life. On the show both Lucy and Her Husband had separate beds even though they were married in real life. Now when you watch MTV its anything goes. Numerous teens are in the same bed and nobody’s married. These changes all occured in just 30 years.
I wish cable tv would subtract off my bill channels I really do not want. The only cable channels I want to pay for are EWTN and sports channels. The rest of the channels I can do without.
Mike
Comment posted July 27th, 2006 at 9:23 pm
Lauren says:
see: mtvu.com
Comment posted July 27th, 2006 at 9:56 pm
joe says:
I haven’t seen more than a few minutes of MTV in my whole life. It would be nice to only have to pay for the channels you like.
My family did not have a TV until I was 10. We also were not allowed to have radios. Instead of getting “into” music, I played with the kids from the neighborhood.
A lot of the time I feel like taking my TV, putting a sign “FREE” on it and leaving it on the curb. Perhaps some day…
Comment posted July 28th, 2006 at 2:36 pm
John says:
Joe said: “A lot of the time I feel like taking my TV, putting a sign “FREE” on it and leaving it on the curb. Perhaps some day…”
Joe,
What you need is a TV-B-Gone.
Comment posted July 28th, 2006 at 2:51 pm
Lucy says:
Mtv still exists? You learn something new every day.
Comment posted July 28th, 2006 at 6:38 pm
Sunnyday says:
I like music a lot and used to watch MTV sometimes in the 1980s. Then I stopped watching for about a decade, and then when I recently started channel-surfing again and came across MTV, it was always showing scantily-clad women in sexually-charged dances. And I noticed that most of the time (at least when I got to tune in) it was black groups/dancers wherein the women act like prostitutes and the men making the women in the video act like their slaves. It is all so demeaning. Let me make it clear that I look up to black people in general because I admire Martin Luther King, Denzel Washington, and some professional basketball players, so I hope nobody misconstrues what I just wrote there about black people I see in those raunchy music videos.
I am delighted, though, that there is a lot less of Britney Spears in MTV now, and when the Spice Girls broke up, I truly rejoiced because my 11-year-old niece then was starting to “idolize” them!
Oh, one important thing: the merits of giving feedback CANNOT be underestimated. Once, when a teenage friend of a friend came back from a media-related international event (a conference or something), she said that in a conversation it came up that what’s shown on MTV Asia is quite different from the regular MTV — and especially in the Philippines, MTV has to tame the programming because my country is known for being conservative. So we were told to keep up the feedback and the complaints when the show’s contents offend our sensibilities — and to make our feelings known.
Comment posted July 28th, 2006 at 6:42 pm
Sunnyday says:
“…and I cannot tell you how tired I am of seeing the same video of a bunch of guys blinged out holding a bunch of benjamins surrounded by scantily clad girls booty dancing.”
Pansy, what are “benjamins”?
Comment posted July 28th, 2006 at 6:59 pm
lauren says:
“My family did not have a TV until I was 10. We also were not allowed to have radios. Instead of getting “into” music, I played with the kids from the neighborhood. ”
Holla at that Joe.. You should get in touch with the Republicans and let them know.. Many dems have been working on this issue for awhile.
Comment posted July 28th, 2006 at 11:55 pm
lauren says:
i copied the wrong passage
I haven’t seen more than a few minutes of MTV in my whole life. It would be nice to only have to pay for the channels you like.
Comment posted July 28th, 2006 at 11:57 pm
Pansy Moss says:
noun
Benjamin
Money. From the one hundred dollar bill, which has Benjamin Franklin on the front. “It’s all about the Benjamins” — Puff Daddy (It’s All About The Benjamins baby!!
My man Killa Cam off “young cassanovas” on the “how to be a player” soundtrack: “Now I know what a woman think, but girl I’m top ten rank/ But I only get hard when I see Ben Frank in the bank”
Comment posted July 29th, 2006 at 7:02 am
Sunnyday says:
Oic! Haven’t even held a hundred dollar bill in my hands. =) Thanks for explaining, Pansy =)
Btw, those are disgusting lyrics! I hope them songwriters stop penning such stuff…
Comment posted July 29th, 2006 at 6:28 pm
Pansy Moss says:
Oic! Haven’t even held a hundred dollar bill in my hands. =)
LOL, I know. Beyond my “Washingtons” and “Lincolns” I would not know who is on what! LOL
Btw, those are disgusting lyrics! I hope them songwriters stop penning such stuff…
Disgusting is the new virtue.
Comment posted July 30th, 2006 at 8:13 pm
John says:
Pansy said: “I have as much issue, if not more so of the materialism is god attitude, as I do with the promiscuity.”
Pansy,
Interesting point.
I’m inclined to think that the relationship between promiscuity and the “materialism is god” ethos is of the Chicken-or-the-Egg variety.
It also seems to me that promiscuity could be considered a form of materialism.
Comment posted July 31st, 2006 at 9:02 am
Pansy Moss says:
John,
I agree. It’s just when I look at the videos, I have equal parts horror at the innuendo and the blatant shows of worship of things.
Comment posted July 31st, 2006 at 11:20 am