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I am here to address the issue of a possible rating system in the
recording industry, labeling records where excesses of explicit sex
and graphic violence have occurred and, furthermore, references to
drugs and alcohol or the occult are included in the lyrics.
These hearings have been called to determine whether or not the
Government should intervene to enforce this practice. Mr. Chairman,
this would approach censorship. May I be very clear that I
am strongly opposed to censorship of any kind in our society or
anywhere else in the world.
I have had in my experience two encounters with this sort of
censorship. My song "Rocky Mountain High" was banned from
many radio stations as a drug-related song. This was obviously
done by people who had never seen or been to the Rocky Mountains
and also had never experienced the elation, celebration of
life, or the joy in living that one feels when he observes something
as wondrous as the Perseides meteor shower on a moonless, cloudless
night, when there are so many stars that you have a shadow
from the starlight, and you are out camping with your friends,
your best friends, and introducing them to one of nature's most
spectacular light shows for the very first time.
Obviously, a clear case of misinterpretation. Mr. Chairman, what
assurance have I that any national panel to review my music
would make any better judgment?
To my knowledge, my movie "Oh God" was not banned in any
theaters. However, some newspapers refused to print our advertisements,
and some theaters refused to put the name of the film on
the marquee.
I do not believe that we were using the name of our Lord in vain.
Quite the opposite, we were making a small effort to spread his
message that we are here for each other and not against each
other.
Discipline and self-restraint when practiced by an individual, a
family, or a company is an effective way to deal with this issue.
The same thing when forced on a people by their government or,
worse, by a self-appointed watchdog of public morals, is suppression
and will not be tolerated in a democratic society.
Mr. Chairman, the suppression of the people of a society begins
in my mind with the censorship of the written or spoken word. It
was so in Nazi Germany. It is so in many places today where those
in power are afraid of the consequences of an informed and educated
people.
In a mature, incredibly diverse society such as ours, the access to
all perspectives of an issue becomes more and more important.
Those things which in our experience are undesirable generally
prove to be unfurthering and sooner or later become boring. That
process cannot and should not be stifled.
On the other hand, that which is denied becomes that which is
most interesting. That which is |
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