Sex Yeah
“Nothing is provocative anymore
Even for kids
No room for imagining
‘Cause everyone’s seen everything”
Cover for the song ‘Sex Yeah’ by Marina and the Diamonds.
Sex Yeah is a song by Marina and the Diamonds and portrays EXACTLY what I am getting at in this blog. We no longer see media as provocative because we are becoming accustomed to seeing half dressed women, hearing dirty songs, and watching inappropriate scenes on TV.
“Nothing is provocative anymore” is true. We are beginning to see it as normal because a provocative culture surrounds us. Shows nowadays can also be deceiving, because what may look kid- friendly may actually be inappropriate. Take South Park and Family Guy (which has an ironic theme song for the content on the show) for example. Both are cartoons, which in my mind correlate with children, but neither of the shows are family friendly.
South Park is rated MA for mature, although it appears to be a decent show with friendly cartoon characters.
Family Guy is rated for ages 14 and up, but again the name and appearance do not portray how vulgar the show actually is.
TV Trouble:
Another problem with the increasing difficulty in finding family shows to watch, is finding family music to listen to. Not only are the lyrics far beyond what a child needs to hear now days, but the music videos are also, very inappropriate. A known example is Miley Cyrus’s video Wrecking Ball.
A UK news source called Mirror reported, “Children are copying the provocative dance moves and sexual song lyrics of pop stars like Miley Cyrus and Rihanna, with some understanding their meanings by the age of just FIVE.” This is a huge problem we need to address, because not only are the kids getting information that is beyond their age, they are also copying it. These girls are who they look up to and that can be very dangerous at such a young age.
“Research by University of South Australia academic Lesley-Anne Ey found direct links between what children watch on television and how they dress and behave.” Kids are surrounded by media, and being a tech savvy generation, they are going far beyond what their parents know they are doing. Many kids copy what they see and allow the hyper sexuality of media to influence their daily decisions. This is resulting in an unnfortunate End of Innocence, which is an article describing the cost of sexualizing kids with a focus in Salt Lake City.
For more information check out The University of Michigan’s article on on the the effects of Television on Children.
My Input:
To get a better understanding of how much really has changed in the past few decades, I interviewed employees at Georgia Cancer Specialist, one being a Pastor, to see the variety of opinions. What I found in everyone I interviewed was the same. Most had parental blocks on their TV, they were upset at how much media has changed, and also some believed that TV needed to be better regulated to keep children from seeing things they should not see.
Watch for yourself and see if you agree:
Provocative Culture Has Desensitized Us 
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