Lady Gaga is just two nights into her Australian tour and already parents have jumped on the flamboyant performer. They’re begging us to think of the children and calling for concerts to carry a classification similar to films and albums.
Personally I think the whole thing’s ludicrous. I’m not a parent, but if I was I wouldn’t take my child to see Lady Gaga. I have nothing against the performer or her brand of entertainment, but it’s one built on shock value. Her recent film clip for “Telephone” contains a healthy dose of violence and nudity, so I’d expect her live concert to feature similar elements. It’s just not something I’d expose a small child to, but I don’t condemn any parent who does.
While I don’t condemn any parent who opts to take their child to see Lady Gaga, I am critical of those who bring children to a show without being informed. I think it’s good parenting to be aware of the content of art your child is consuming and make a choice accordingly. If you want to expose them to entertainment that’s edgy, do it by all means. But don’t attend a performance blindly and then express your moral outrage.
I don’t see how we could possibly give concerts a ratings system. They’re live performances, and at their best completely unscripted. Consider an artist who lets a few f-bombs fly while bantering with their audience between songs. Should they play to a strictly adult crowd, or be forced to watch their language? What I love most about an evening of live music is its spontaneity. If we introduce ratings we lose that, which would be a very sad thing indeed.
I say this all the time when it comes to the material I publish for both work or my blog: If you don’t like it, turn the page or click the back button.
The U.S. had a Supreme Court case eons ago that basically stated that you can’t use the standard of suitability for children to regulate what adults can see or hear. That’s why I never buy CDs from retailers like Wal-Mart. I don’t want Wal-Mart keeping me from hearing what the artist intended.
Furthermore, it’s the parents’ jobs, in my opinion, to evaluate what material their kids like and whether or not to can it. For that matter, who is going to be the person who rates concerts, music, movies, etc.? Their standards, my standards and others’ standards could be totally different. Who is to say what’s decent and what’s not?
Wow … so Wal-Mart releases a different version of particular albums than other music stores do? That’s insane! Here we just have stickers guiding consumers of the content of particular albums.
I do think the onus is on a parent to be aware of the art their child is exposed to. I remember wanting to watch particular adult films as a teenager and my parents would always watch them first and then decide whether it was appropriate. They’d play our CDs in the car so they had some concept of the content. They took me to concerts from a fairly young age, but they knew enough about the bands to know what to expect. Is it really too much to ask parents to do a little bit of research? Two minutes on Google would have told them to expect a pretty wild show.