OPINION: Censorship Is Not Freedom

‘Baby It’s Cold Outside’ was written for the 1949 film ‘Neptune’s Daughter’, starring Esther Williams and Ricardo Montalban. Photograph: Mondadori Portfolio by Getty Images

BY CHARLOTTE ALEXANDER | Go Venue Magazine

Can I just say “Damn, baby, it’s fregion cold outside!”

When political correctness has mainstreamed itself into the music industry, Houston, we have big fucking problem!

As a music lover and old enough to remember Twisted Sister frontman Dee Snider’s appeal to Congress in the 1980s, when warning labels were slapped across albums to inform parents that the music their children were listening to may influence some kind of harm to their fragile ears, the message was simple, “don’t buy it then.” This was even before Gangsta Rap came onto the scene.

And today those in the music industry and fans alike are casting their views on proposed censorship across social media and the message couldn’t be more clear to those wanting to restrict certain songs from being broadcast – “Change the station if you don’t like it!”

What is the real issue with radio stations wanting to ban the 1940s Frank Loesser’s winter classic “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” and the effect it may have on listeners?

Apparently, the issue is “offensive” to those who are misunderstanding, confused and dominating in their desire to control what You can be exposed to. They don’t seem to know what the 1st Amendment to our Constitution and the Freedom of Speech actually means, nor are they grateful to the men and women in our military who risk their lives defending it.

Let me be clear: Censorship is Not Freedom!

Referring to the song as “rapey” yep, that’s right folks, it’s been alleged that the song promotes a rape culture because the woman in the song repeatedly says “no” when shooting down the sexual advances of the man she is apparently dating in the song.

Anyone who is married knows that this happens every single day so is it promoting a rape culture to turn down someone for sex by repeatedly saying No? Of course not. Without your father’s persistence, you probably wouldn’t exist.

It’s clear those who are making these claims and instigating this attempt at “disguised” censorship in the name of “offense” have an agenda and, pulling the wool off, it is exposed for what it is: Your speech is in real jeopardy if this continues.

The FCC has standards for what is allowed to be broadcast on public airwaves and with way too many options in how people listen to music these days, from preferred digital playlists in your vehicle, on your phone and Internet or cyber stations, should public radio stations actually be pursuing this route?

I say, not if they want to continue to exist.

I wanted to cry when my old hometown of the Windy City watched the Chicago Loop go off the air earlier this year after going bankrupt. The rock station, 97.9FM Chicago Loop, which was broadcast for four decades, was famous for inviting fans to Wrigley Field, home of the Chicago Cubs, to destroy an entire genre of records when a culture and a DJ declared that “Disco is Dead” in the late 1970s, and fans stormed the field to burn those funky vinyl grooves. It was a great stunt and hilarious to say the least, and I don’t mind a little Bee Gee’s every once in a while. No environmentalists protested this event.

In the long standing Rock band Kiss, the song, “I Was Made For Loving You” off the Dynasty album was long regarded by many as a Disco song and played in clubs in the late 1970s in what appeared to be a hard charge to stay relevant in a changing musical environment.

This new environment sucks with regards to entitled miserable people who want you to be present in their company because it’s just no fun to be miserable alone. Why does a liberally bias mainstream media choose to shine bright lights on these control freaks in their desire to find everything “offensive” and restrict creative minds, forcing people to lose jobs over personal opinions on social media and sponsors pulling out of anything controversial out of fear from potential backlash? Because they’re in on it. They want to tell you how to think and feel and it begins with what you are allowed to be exposed to. It begins with censorship.

Acceptance is a brutal and often times subliminal tactic to control and dominate a society and if you know some history, there are plenty of examples to demonstrate that.

This isn’t a right or left issue. This is a cultural issue and it will affect your personal preference in music if it isn’t stopped now.

There was once a fear that when MTV hit the television air waves that radio would die. There was even a song about it “Video Killed The Radio Star.” That didn’t happen and if anything it gave a new visual medium to the music we wanted to hear and album sales for those artists increased. If anything has the ability to kill radio, it will come in the form of censorship. Are we really going to allow that to happen?

Here at Go Venue Magazine we’re going to beat this dead horse and reject any and all censorship in music and speech so that we may continue to provide you the artistic freedoms we presently get to enjoy across the globe because that is Freedom. We’ll continue to expose you to the hardest of rock, metal, the new, the old, the odd, the obscure and the most entertaining and brilliance of music for all music lovers until our fingers bleed on the keyboard and have to be amputated.

Don’t worry, we’re not going Anywhere and I suggest that every artist on the planet play a version of “Baby It’s Cold Outside” this winter to get that message across, even if you have to fake a falsetto.
In the words of Dee Snider “We’re Not Going To Take It.”