Music Television
Essay Preview: Music Television
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MTV is a cable network television station that has been on the air since 1981. (MTV.com) Ever since it began airing its target market has been the teen and young adult population, 15-29 year olds. It started as simply showing music videos but quickly branched out into other areas of television entertainment. They began running shows about lives of celebrities, such as the popular series The Osbournes, MTV Cribs, and Jackass. They started many reality/game shows like Room Raiders, NEXT, and Date My Mom. Lastly and the most popular, MTV launched a series of life/reality shows such as Laguna Beach, The Real World, Road Rules, and My Sweet Sixteen which broadcast the lives of individuals dealing with extreme situations yet portrayed as a societal norm.
With the rapid growth of their network and viewing audience, MTV added another station to their association in September of 1997, in order to cover all genres of music sufficiently and expand their current fan base. The new network was given the name MTV2 and appealed to a different more radical group of music listeners. (The Satellite Encyclopedia) Here, one would be able to find products suitable for the hard core, emo/punk rock crowd. With the implementation of this new station, those that were radical became popular and increased in number becoming the new mainstream popular sound of their genre, in a sense becoming that which they resisted against. Today, any person can have access to all types of current popular music and that which it allocates, by turning on their television.
Through the progression of time and MTV network popularity, the station also unfortunately, continued its growth in vulgarity and offensiveness. As popular music followed the trends of society it also began to push the boundaries of what was acceptable and what was not. The use of coarse language, explicit lyrics, and degrading images within music videos became something that was not only acceptable, but was expected. A music video was not a video without a display of scandalous women dancing around a celebrity or on a pimped out vehicle with men in sexually mannered situations. There began to be increased display of gang violence within songs and videos that even took a lifelike form through the Tupac and Biggie east coast, west coast controversy that resulted in their murders. (Vibe, 2004) There was blatant use and abuse of alcohol and a boasting within songs describing the use of drugs and drug dealing as if it were not illegal. With the assistance of Music Television, our culture has hit a downward slope. MTV is breaking down barriers and crossing lines that our Christian society has fought so hard to maintain.
The philosophies that MTV is founded upon are in strict controversy with the Christian lifestyle. One of the first aspects of controversy is the materialistic way of life that is constantly portrayed by MTV. For example, everything shown in My Sweet Sixteen is about bigger and better things. They showcase the latest and most high scaled cars on the program Pimp My Ride, the largest houses on MTV Cribs, and the biggest “bling” is flaunted in the mainstream hip-hop music videos. This obsession is clearly against the teachings and principles of the Bible in Matthew. It states in chapter 6 verses 19 through 21, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven…For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (NIV Bible) This pattern is unacceptable and collides with God’s teachings about how wealth should be used to further His kingdom. This selfish mentality is in direct controversy with the concept expressed in John 3:30. The passage states, “He must become greater; I must become less.”(NIV Bible) This is a life concept of dying to self to be brought back to life for something better. As Christians, we apply this selflessness to every aspect of life, including our material possessions or that which we acquire, which means not buying into the worldly norm of finding worth within material possessions.
Another area of key concern is the rampant sexuality that the MTV network promotes. It is founded upon the idea of encouraging a generation to participate in loose behavior and defile their body with as many and multiple partners as possible. This use of the God’s gift as a body stands against Christian teachings. In 1 Corinthians 3:16-17 the apostle Paul says, “Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him; for God’s temple is sacred, and you are the temple.”(NIV Bible) God did not intend for humans to be sexually promiscuous, and that immorality is what MTV is engraining in teens and young adults minds. The command given to man in I Corinthians 6:18-19 states, “Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own.”(NIV Bible) It is clear that Christ abhors the sexually immoral.
This immorality includes the widespread push of the liberal press to accept homosexuality as normal in society. MTV supports this gay movement by showing gay couples in shows and portraying them as the worldly standard within their programming. MTV Networks launched a new cable network in 2005 that carries programs primarily aimed at gay and lesbian viewers. MTV, owned by Viacom Inc. named the new cable network, LOGO, and it is advertiser-supported. Industry watchers said Viacoms interest came amid a surge in the popularity of gay characters and gay-themed shows on television in the past few years, led by NBCs “Will & Grace” and the runaway hit “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” on Bravo. “The high amount of disposable income controlled by gay consumers has long remained an attractive target for advertisers”, said Howard Buford, head of Prime Access Inc., a gay and lesbian advertising and marketing agency in New York. The combined buying power of gay and lesbian consumers averaged nearly $500 billion last year, slightly below the consuming power of blacks but higher than Hispanics, according to Prime Access. (CNN.com) The Lord disapproves of homosexual relationships, for example the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah was in direct relation to God’s moral guidelines. Romans 1: 26-27 reads, “For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural