[Lady Sidhe]

I agree wholeheartedly with the Eminim thing. I mean, a couple of his songs are kinda funny (I've only heard a couple on the radio, but I have a DJ friend who subjected me to *ugh* more than I wanted to hear.) Nah, I don't care much for Eminim...his music is too disjointed to me...terrible beat, and you can't dance to it *grins*...and he's got the whole violence thing going on, too.

I liked Whitney Houston back when I was in high school, but it seemed that the more music she put out, the more she started yelling at me rather than singing. Maybe I'm just getting old...you know what they say, if it's too loud, you're too old....And I agree with the thing about Bobby Brown...he's about useless. She either needs to kick him to the curb or knock him down so that he doesn't get back up. That's not being a very good role model for girls, either, letting a man beat up on you again and again. I mean, anyone can get into the position of being in an abusive relationship, often before they really realize what's happening...but nowadays, especially for people with money, it's a lot easier to get out of that kind of position. Women like Whitney, who have lots of money, don't need to depend on their partners for support, like a lot of poorer women who are in abusive relationships do. I think that if she'd do something decisive about Bobby Brown, she'd be a very good role model for girls, showing that you DON'T have to put up with that kind of nonsense...from ANYONE.

I realize that we can't go back to "the good old days," and to reference another song, "The good old days weren't always good..." But just because we can't build Rome in a day doesn't mean we have to settle for not trying to build it at all. If we keep popularizing and lionizing behavior that we would not allow our kids to engage in, we're just reinforcing the message to them that this kind of behavior is ok. That's the bottom line. Our kids idolize musicians, and as long as musicians get rewards for engaging in lewd, violent, or other inappropriate behaviors, our kids are going to want to copy them.

Now, I'm not one of those people who wants to censor everything. You wanna sing about killing cops and beating women? Fine. But you know what? I don't have to support you, and my child won't even know that you exist, so long as I control what she is exposed to. You want to dress and act like a tramp? Go ahead, but again, I won't listen to your music, and my kids won't either. I won't help you get a star or a platinum record you don't deserve. So long as a musician engages in violent, trashy, or unacceptable behavior, I don't care how well they sing or play an instrument. I guess that's the bottom line for me.

The music is really secondary to kids...what they see first is the artist, and the easiest way for me to build my Rome is to filter what my daughter is exposed to until she's got enough sense to do it herself, which, if her behavior now is any indication, she'll have plenty of sense and probably won't listen to half of what's out there *grins*

If a kid sees that her favorite singer lets a man beat her up over and over and keeps going back to him, what kind of idea is she going to have about what relationships should be like? If she sees her favorite singer dressing like a tramp and making all kinds of money for doing it, what's she going to think about what is and isn't acceptable dress? If a kid hears his favorite singer singing about killing cops and beating women, and sees him in the news getting arrested for assault, how will that affect his behavior? I know that we are our kids' first role models, but when they begin to be independent, they look to movie stars, sports stars, and musicians...and our movie stars, sports stars, and musicians make money out the wazoo while they're dressing like streetwalkers or being arrested for drugs, assault, murder, and other bad behavior. And lots of times, they get out of the charges. THEN they go platinum, and get a star. What's that telling our kids??

It's actually kind of sad, when I think about it....

*sigh*

Sidhe