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Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2001
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I just want to relay something that was said by a student this morning in class. His class had earned a music party. The boys' team had earned most points for correct reponses so they will bring the CDs we'll play for the 20-minute party. They can bring whatever selection they want as long as the selection has no profanity or subject-matter inappropriate for 5th grade school children to hear about. Parents sign a release form.
One boy told me while getting ready to leave, "There's no good music to bring here next week."
I asked, "Why not?"
He said, "Because all the good music has cuss words."
There's a world of commentary in his take on popular music. In his point of view, there is no popular music that is 'good' out there that is without 'cuss words.' I'm not suggesting at all that he thinks 'cuss words' are an essential characteristic of good music. But I am sorrowed to have heard his observation that all the 'good music' that's out there (e.g., music with perhaps interesting rhythms, instrumentation, etc.) happens to have 'cuss words' in it as a sideline.
Too sad. Just this one boy's view whether it's reflective of his friends' views or not. Just too sad.
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Joined: Apr 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
one view is that this is just reflective of the extremes that today's younger generation has to go to in order to be unique. (see tattoos, body piercing, etc.) (personal aside: when I were a lad, the mother of a good friend threw out his new Kingston Trio LP; one song offended her -- something along the lines of "don't give a damn about a greenback dollar".) http://www.geocities.com/Nashville/Stage/5476/A_Artists/Axton_Hoyt/greenbackdollar.html
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Joined: Jan 2001
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old hand
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old hand
Joined: Jan 2001
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I've noted the same problems when trying to choose music for Friday night Taekwondo classes. Any student is allowed to bring music they like, because the Friday class is more casual. If the group doesn't like one CD, we try another. But the CDs can't have swear words and that makes it very hard to choose something, even from our collection. And we're not "young punks" any more. I'm especially annoyed that we can't introduce this group to the great fun of ska music, because all our CDs have one or two songs with a swear in it. I keep meaning to make a mix CD of swear-free songs, but haven't had time yet.
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Joined: Mar 2001
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2001
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Remember, Rhett Butler's, "And, frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn!", rocked the sensibilities of movie-goers in 1939. Not a real long time ago. And, of course, Scarlett replied, "Neither do I...and don't call me Frankly!"
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Joined: Dec 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
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Scarlett replied, "Neither do I...and don't call me Frankly!"That musta been in the Leslie Nielson re-make.  -------- Someday there will be no cuss words left... but that'll be the same day we all speak the same language. Personally, I think we all do already, but not enough are taught to *listen to each other.
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Joined: Mar 2003
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>one view is that this is just reflective of the extremes that today's younger generation has to go to in order to be unique. (see tattoos, body piercing, etc.)<
AMEN! And just what is the next generation going to have to do to establish themselves? And the one after that....and so one???? I know it can get worse than it is now.....but geez, Im-a-feared for all of humanity!
My son comes out of his room the other day, with 6 safety pins across the front of his perfectly good, not torn t-shirt. Now in "my day" we used safety pins to secure torn clothing, and we hoped no one noticed......
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>And just what is the next generation going to have to do to establish themselves?
believe me, you really don't want to know...
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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re:And just what is the next generation going to have to do to establish themselves?
The pendulum swings.. and we will find our selves with super conservative grandchildren! In the 1920's things got loosey-goosey-- in the fifties, thing were all straight laced again.. they started to change in the mid 1960's, and parents were agast at their children..and their behavior..
in one letter in an dear abby/agony aunt collumn, (it was in the 'brin'tel breif',a column in the Forward, a yiddish language paper) an elderly couple didn't know what to do... there children (now in their early, mid and late forties) wanted to know their parent 'wedding' date, so they could plan a 50th wedding anniversary party..
the problem was, they had never married! and what's more were too embarassed to explain this to their children,, since one of their children was in a dispute with a grandchild,who was living with out the blessing of wedlock, which was making the parents very upset! what goes around comes around!
My daughter, is more more politically conserative than i am, and my father, while only a rockerfeller republican* in many ways was still much more conservative than i am!
the northest, and NY in particular were home to the most liberal members of the republican party, and while they didn't dominate, they did have alot of influence. since nelson was then governern of NY, and a powerful influence, this part of the party got called 'rockerfeller republicans'. today, the republican party is extremely right-wing, and the NY/rockerfeller republican influence is unfelt.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Two words: Lenny Bruce.
A big part of Bruce's introduction of profanity into his comedy material was the self-professed theory (as stated in his biography, but I can't find the quote), that through the use of constant repetiton these words will eventually lose their sting, their profane edge if you will, and thus be rendered harmlessly into the language as just "another word.". And his theory has proven to be true to a degree. We've seen this process change suck and sucks (i.e. they really suck, that sucks) from words considered too profane to ever be uttered in public or on screen, into a cutesified expression now uttered openly by most kids in the land (the gap thoroughly bridged by the use of the term by MacCauley Caulkin in Home Alone). Another example would be bullshit, which is viewed as a pretty tame expression instead of vulgar anymore, and has now crept as a colloquialism onto network TV.
>On August 3, 1966, Lenny Bruce died of a morphine overdose at age 41. Born
as Leonard Alfred Schneider in Mineola, New York, Bruce joined the Navy at
age 16, serving in WWII until 1946. After the war, he briefly studied acting
but turned to stand-up comedy, making his national debut on the Arthur
Godfrey television show. Bruce became one of the most influential comedians
in show business history, the first to lace his routines with profanity and
scatological language (he was arrested many times for obscenity and even
banned from performing in England). Bruce brutally satirized many of the
taboo topics and sacred cows in American society, building a devoted group of
fans and an equally large group of enemies. His 1965 autobiography "How to
Talk Dirty and Influence People" was a bestseller. Bruce struggled with drug
problems most of his life, finally dying of an overdose in 1966. After his
death, he became a cult hero, many fans considering him a martyr to the cause
of free speech. A critic of the American judicial system, he once said:
"In the Halls of Justice
the only justice is in the halls."<
However, I can't defend all the excessive and gratuitous flow of profanity in lyrics and some movies as "free speech"...is it really necessary for the work? That's the criteria I usally use. When you're doing a historical, period piece, I believe in historic accuracy...I mean, WWII soldiers hitting the beach at Iwo Jima didn't use "lousy" as their strongest expletive, their most vulgar language. "Platoon" and "Saving Private Ryan" finally let soldiers in battle talk the way they really spoke. But does a film like, "From Here to Eternity" need that absolute realism in language to work?...no, I don't think so. And I can't understand the hateful words that have become a part of a lot of now-mainstream pop music. But, then again, that's street poetry, and they have the right to write it and perform it. But does it have to be marketed to 8 year olds? (and, still, there has to be some kind of line...no one can say sanctioning rape, for instance, is necessary to the form, or a lyric that should be released...and questions arise if something that so directly hurts another person is even legal to endorse and/or promote). Censorship makes me shudder. But the coarsening of, and the bombarding of, our children with this stuff makes me shudder, too.
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Joined: Sep 2001
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Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
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Whit'--your overview of Lenny Bruce's point of view--was that what Musick was driving at with his "Someday there will be no cuss words left... but that'll be the same day we all speak the same language"? Musick?
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