I follow the show occasionally as I have been fascinated by the variation of talent and the development of each contestant. Last night left me in a perplexing mood. I woke up during the night thinking about what I had seen. Young people have such big horizons these days. To be able to appear before an audience of over 10 million at the age of 17 is an amazing privilege and opportunity.
What disturbed me was not contestants. It was from the way the invited guests (Christina Aguilira and Rihanna amongst others) used sexuality in their performances. Don't get me wrong I am not against sexuality in music it is, after all, an important of being human. What concerns me is the over emphasis on sex in music essentially watched and followed by young (12-16 year old's}. I know that I sound like a grumpy old man but I remember having so to much to deal with and enjoy during my youth. Anyway, this got me thinking about being young and the pressure we faced.
In each of us we have powerful forces at work.
- There is a powerful biological drive fuelled by a flood of hormones in our teenage years.
- There's a social pressure which comes from our upbringing, parents and society (friends, teachers).
- There is a final force which is similar in all of us, conscience (this is our inherent sense of right and wrong).
2 comments:
Hi Julius,
good to read you !
Just to let you know that I share your thoughts and perplexity ...don't even know how to handle this. My son is 9 years old and music fan and lover. He has been able to put the TV on on its own fora while. On sunday mornings we are even quite happy about this ability ! Last year I arrived in the living room early morning and find him in front of TV watching what I thought was a porno film ! He was "just" watching Virgin 17 which is a channel of music clips ! So I explained that this was not of his age and he was forbidden to watch this channel without us being with him for filtering purposes ! What happened in reality was that he continued watching this channel but switched it quickly when he heard us coming up the stairs !Sometimes he was so fascinated that he didn't hear us coming up which is how we found out !
What he likes is the music and the video clips ... and since it is the only channel which provides this we finally gave up forbidding it ! Result is that a 9 year old boy loving music ends up seeing scenes that he does not understand (I think !) but that have of course an effect on him and that he mimetises from time too time ! The scenes ar not porno, but they are extremely suggestive ...and I don't think that I am particularly prude !
So much to say that we as parents are unable to avoid this influence on our child also we are against it! I had even forgotten about the "problem" before reading you Julius ! I am neither an old nor a grumpy (hum !)women myself ... but I think that there is a time for things ...
I hope you are OK
I hope you will have a very merry Christmas time and enjoy the coming festive times
Frédérique
I totally agree with you, Julius.
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