Tipper Gore and Family Values

[Freddie Stubbs]

All Things Considered, January 11, 2005 ·

Twenty years ago, Tipper Gore bought a Prince album for her 11-year-old daughter and was astonished at the explicit lyrics they heard when they played it. That incident prompted Gore, wife of then Sen. Al Gore, to go before Congress to urge warning labels for records marketed to children.

Since then, the national debate has extended to content on television, video games and the Internet.

Gore recalls that she got mad when she tried to return Prince's Purple Rain to the store where she bought it. The retailer wouldn't take the record back because it had been opened and played. Gore says she surveyed the music landscape and found everything from "bubblegum" pop to heavy metal to songs about violence against women and killing police officers.

That's when she helped form the Parents' Music Resource Center, which took the issue up with the recording industry and Congress.

more: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4279560

[ButterflyBlood]

1. without this, President Gore would begin his second term fairly soon

Plenty of younger voters were driven away from the ticket for this reason. Lieberman sure as hell didn't help either.

[Cheswick2.0]

7. that's possibly the dumbest reason not to vote for Gore I have heard

and I doubt more than a thousand voters were that dumb.

[ZombieNixon]

50. And a thousand voters could have made all the difference. n/t

[fnottr]

52. I agree totally

I remember I personally felt a culturally conservative vibe (if you will) from the Gore/Lieberman ticket. I think it had more to do with Lieberman than anything else, but Tipper's work with the PMRC also contributed quite a bit to this. Back then, anyone who spoke about the evils of music,video games, movies, etc immediatly went on to my shit list. Even today politicians who make that an issue sit very uneasily with me, even if I agree with them on everything else. Is is a little childish? Maybe, but that's just how I feel about it.

I was only 16 back then, but if I could have voted, I would have voted for Nader. Remember 2000 was a different era, and honestly this issue actually seemed very important to many many people, particularly young voters. To many of us young'uns politics just seemed to be a trivial excercize back then. All of the truely substancial issues seemed so distant and removed from everyday life that they seemed unimportant. We were just very very jaded.

Obviously, Bushco wasted no time in proving us wrong, and here I am.

[htuttle]

2. That reminds me of a Frank Zappa album...

"Fire and chains and...leather...It's outrageous filth! Objectionable... Tools and presentations in some twisted minds..."


"Maybe I should be a rock star, I don't know..."


We'll get back to de whimp
And his low-budget conceptium of personal freedom
In just a moment.
But foist, welcome to:
What de fuck gwine on here?
A celebratium o' de american way o' life!
I see some y'all be frownin'...
'cause mebbe y'think what i's tellin' ya' is a lie!
Am i right?
Les' jes' have a test...
How many o' you nice folks think i knows what i's talkin'
'bout?
Raise y'hain up!
Uh-huh!
An' how many thinks my potato been bakin' too long?
Raise yo mizzable hain up!
Uh-huh!
Now...how many you folks is convinced
De gubnint be totally 'unconcerned'
Wit de proliferatium o' undesirable tenants
In de condominium o' life?
An' how many folks believe they number won't come up,
Next time de breeze blow fum de easterly directium?
Les' face it, peoples!
Ugly as i mights be,
I am yo' futchum!
Ain't that right, sister ob'dewlla?
Hmm hmm! oh, oh yeah! thass right!

[JunkYardDogg]

60. What about "It Can't Happen Here"

by Zappa
He used play at shows in L.A.
he had a really good band and he really ripped on the Guitar

[Drifter]

3. Check out Frank Zappa

he testified before the Senate with John Denver (and asswipe Dee Snyder). You can hear part of this on the "Frank Zappa - Meets the Mothers of Prevention" album.

In fact there is a Senator that begins addressing Frank with "Believe it or not I am a big fan of your music, and I truly respect you for being for being an original artist" (or something similiar). This Senator was none other than Al Gore.

Cheers
Drifter

[coloradodem2005]

6. I was actually going to say that it was Al Gore who said this.

I have never really listened to Frank Zappa. I may have to pick some of his stuff up.

[Freddie Stubbs]

8. What is your beef with Dee Snyder?

[coloradodem2005]

10. Isn't he a repuke?

n/t

[Freddie Stubbs]

14. What made you think that?

:shrug:

[coloradodem2005]

16. He supported Ahnold and it was said on CNN.

Though it is cable news so it may not be that reliable.

[Freddie Stubbs]

21. Many independants and Democrats supported him too

That doesn't make them Republicans.

California has too few Republicans for him to be elected with only GOP support.

[LSdemocrat]

49. He also actually endorsed Al Gore in 2000

[coloradodem2005]

51. Really?

Interesting, considering what happened in '85. Also, on CNN, they said that Dee Snider was a conservative Republican. Of course they are news people. So I guess they don't know anything.

[Freddie Stubbs]

54. He stated in an interview that he was in independant

"I have no allegiancy to either party. I'm a rational thinking human being. Voting on party lines...only assholes do that. I have voted Republican, I have voted Democrat and I have voted Independent. I look at the situation. Whenever you get a Schwarzenegger or a Jesse The Body or a Perot or even a Michael Bloomberg it's a middle finger to status quo politics. It comes down to "if you're not going to do it right, we're going to get somebody else to do it. We might even elect Gopher from the Love Boat just to fuck with you!"

more: http://www.rockconfidential.com/DeeSnider2003.html

[quispquake]

9. That's cool...

I never knew that was Al Gore saying that...

[coloradodem2005]

4. How do you personally feel about all of this?

I can see where she is coming from a little, but she really took it too far and then she gave the RW the ball and they ran with it and are still running with it 20 years later.

[liberalhistorian]

15. I agree, and what was

especially annoying was her belief that she and her group were the only ones who knew what was best for everyone else's kids. I can make that decision on my own, thank you very much. She did, indeed, take it way too far, and I'm speaking as the mother of a teenage boy.

Morality Nanny Holy Joe sure as hell is just annoying, if not even more so. Especially when he complains about the extreme violence of video games, but couldn't care less about the horrendous REAL violence of the war he's so gung-ho about.

[Cheswick2.0]

5. I have no problem with what Tipper Gore did

We lable movies and though they don't always get it right, it is still a useful tool for parents.

[jpgray]

19. Then you are part of the problem

Unless we're going to put explicit labels on Ulysses or a book of Reubens prints, it's hypocrisy and empty moralizing.

[noonwitch]

22. I don't know too many 12 year olds that are eager to read "Ulysses"

Hell, I tried to read it and could make no sense of it. If there are dirty parts, I never got to them because I gave it up after 20 pages of gibberish. It doesn't need a label to keep kids from reading it.

You don't need to put a label on a book of Reubens' prints, most parents know there are nudes involved and act accordingly. If I had a teenaged boy who bought such a book instead of "Playboy", I'd at least appreciate his good taste.

If I had a kid and they were listening to some of the music out there today, I'd want to know what it was about. For example, I love GNR, but I don't think I'd let an 8 year old sit around listening to it. And GNR doesn't even come close to some of the rap out there-Eminem has a song in which he describes killing his wife and disposing of the body in front of his little girl, and one in which he describes sodomizing his mother. He has every right to make these songs, but parents need to know what is on the cds before letting their kids buy them. Songs like that make "Darling Nikki" seem tame.

[jpgray]

24. You've just described the problem

Who has the right to say Reubens is not obscene but artistic, while Eminem is just obscene and therefore must be labeled? To another person it may be the other way around. How do you determine who is right without appealing to your own bias?

Goya's Saturn, a painting of a grotesque titan eating his own child is much more disturbing than any childish rant Eminem could come up with. Yet no bored Washington matrons will clamor for sticking a garish label on it. I don't think allowing a group to label any form of expression it doesn't value is a good idea.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

27. how about ALLOWing a group to label

asking the recoring industry to provide labeling for its album content and the televsion industry to label it shows? Labelling content gives the consumer additional information that can be very useful in determining what they will be exposed to. I agree that the government should not FORCE these things...but would you be opposed to the recording industry providing them as a service to their customers?

And an honest question...are these labels government mandated???

theProdigal

OnEdit : too many 'L's and bad punctuation...not that I fixed it :-)

[noonwitch]

29. "Accepted Community Standards", the same that apply to television

There are community standards-how do we define porn? Or decide what movies are rated R or G? Reubens is for the most part accepted and considered art. That Goya painting is sick and twisted, the stuff of nightmares. I don't know about anyone else, but I never saw a print of it until I was in college.

No one is saying that Eminem can't make his stupid violent raps, what they are saying is that parents need to have a way to know what kind of crap it is before they let their children listen to it. If you can't play it on the radio, a 10 year old shouldn't be able to buy it without question at the store. We don't let kids buy porn, we don't let them watch R rated movies at the theater, and if parents don't want them listening to violent or overly sexual lyrics, they now have a tool at their disposal to help them make their decisions.

When the PMRC first came out asking the industry to label records, I was in college and read about it in "The Rolling Stone". I thought that it was wrong and that it would lead to censorship of music. It didn't. I'm older and wiser now, and I think that labelling recordings is a good thing for parents, even though I'm not one.

[jpgray]

30. I don't deny that it helps parents

And I don't trot out the slippery slope fallacy unless there is something to back it up. A child could get into much nastier stuff at the public library than he or she could get into at a record store--but books are not going to be labeled in this way. I wonder what a parent who is ignorant of William Burroughs would think if he or she suddenly picked up The Soft Machine and read through some choice parts--from the cover it wouldn't be readily apparent that the book has some rather mature material. My problem is it disrespects a form of expression--and it's a more personal comment on an artist than a rating on a movie or a tv show because like a painting or a poem music is often an intensely personal form of expression. By saying popular musics needs to be stamped with a label that says "explicit" whereas a book or a painting does not I think you devalue one form of expression as a result.

I just think it does more good than bad. I won't say it does no good at all, but I do think it does less good than some think.

[JaneDoughnut]

59. Let's not forget

There was also a racial aspect to this. Because people were so appalled by 2 Live Crew, a great deal of black artists were labeled explicit - guilty by association.

I don't think rating systems are inherently evil, but Tipper and the PMRC really had their priorities screwed up.

[Cheswick2.0]

34. nice side lateral arabesque

but you just avoided the obvious argument the poster made in regards to your last post.
But you can't twist away from the obvious that easily. Kids aren't going to the mall to find the lastest printing of Goya's Saturn either. If they were parents could take one look at the painting and know it was not suitable. Unfortunately with CDs there is no way of knowing what is there unless you torture yourself by listening to the whole thing first. That is a ridiculous and irrational expectation to put on parents.
Besides, no one is actively marketing Goya to children.

:eyes: But welcome to try again.

[jpgray]

39. That's a silly argument, because labels don't just affect kids

They affect the music, and those who produce, market, purchase and enjoy it. The sensibilities of kids with inattentive parents aren't so important that we should crush the rights of millions of others. Those who would trade their liberties for security deserve neither--remember that one?

The kids are the excuse to enforce a set of restrictive moral values on an entire means of expression--it just isn't worth it. It isn't worth it to have a subjective measure of "obscene" forever stamped on someone's art. If kids started buying up Goya prints and ceased to buy Eminem records, would one cease to be art and start being dangerous and explicit? That's nonsense--the art remains the same, it's the hypocritical morality of a few that would aim to say it changed.

[Zhade]

64. Great riposte. Very well-said.

NT!

[ieoeja]

69. No it wasn't. It was horribly said.

What rights are being taken away? The right to NOT put a label on your CD? You know, I have never heard an artist yet complain about having their music labelled. More than a few have complained that they have NOT gotten labelled since that label immediately pumps up sales. But I haven't heard anyone complain the other way around.

[Cheswick2.0]

32. nonsense

people know about Ulysses and Ruebens and they aren't buying either for their 10 year old at Christmas.

Try again

[jpgray]

33. People know about Ulysses' content but not about Eminem's?

What country do you live in? A kid can walk in to a public library and walk out with a book that describes and depicts more horrible things than any pop musical artist has dreamed of, but he can't buy Purple Rain? Explain that one to me.

[madison2000]

11. I think she did a reasonable thing

which had nothing to do with Gore not being elected and shows that Dems are just as concerned about the influence of culture on their children.

[SheilaT]

12. All Tipper wanted to do

was to have some kind of indication of explicit lyrics indicated on music, videos, etc, and she's been vilified for it. She was NEVER trying to stop anyone from selling whatever they wanted.

And I doubt that young people stayed away from voting in 2000 because they were aware of this.

[JaneDoughnut]

17. If so, the PMRC twisted her intentions

The "Parental Advisory: Explicit Content" stickers ended up on lots of material that wasn't vulgar - including just about any spoken word, political speech, etc. Anything deemed socially undesirable. Yeah, I'm not a fan of Tipper.

[MemphisTiger]

13. How about that...

a democrat with a mandate for moral values.

[Cheswick2.0]

18. imagine a democrat

who thinks young children shouldn't be treated like adults and exposed to whatever indugent excesses their elders desire to market to them?
Damn her for looking out for kids with a labling system!

[Crunchy Frog]

68. Well, my vote for Nader in 2000 had nothing to do

with the Gore's desire to protect children from explicit music lyrics.

I found myself unable to vote for Gore because he basically took the position that politically motivated kidnappings of young children are fine and should be defended as long as they're done by small but vocal and influential minorities whose votes you want to get.

I personally have a bigger problem with kidnapping than with explicit lyrics. I think it's more hurtful to children. That's just me though.:shrug:

[sea dee]

20. D&D VS role playing

Tipper seemed nice and all but she over did it when she attacked Dungeon and Dragons.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

23. this was a great piece

i enjoyed listenting and it really got me thinking about some of the things i am going to be faced with raising my kids...

theProdigal

[leyton]

25. Then perhaps we should not have warning labels on food either.

Who needs those nutrition facts anyway?

[charlie]

26. There aren't

There's info though. The sort of stuff that could save the life of someone with a peanut allergy, proffered an M&M by his friend who can't taste the peanuts mixed into the chocolate.

[Susang]

28. Frank Zappa suggested that the lyrics be printed on the label

Rather than a big WARNING sticker that pre-judged the content of the work. Funny, not many people were interested in that compromise.

Ideas may be metaphorical food, but there is a huge difference and to compare the ingredients of your Big Mac or Pizza Hut slice (which still have no warning label, BTW) to an artistic work is dishonest.

[Cheswick2.0]

37. well of course no one agreed with Zappa's suggestion

it was childish and never meant to be a serious solution.

BTW, Tipper Gore and Zappa ended up being friends when all of this was taking place. He was grandstanding and knew it. I have known people like Zappa all my life. His music is fun, but I wouldn't want him raising my kids.

[charlie]

38. Friends?

I doubt that. He hadn't had much good to say about her up to his death.

I don't recall that Zappa suggested printed lyrics, but I do remember that the PMRC did. And it was an inane idea. Lyrics on a CD cover would be tinier than gnat specks, not much good.

BTW, Zappa raised some great kids.

[jpgray]

40. Zappa did support that idea

But this was in '85 before CDs were the dominant medium. He supported a lyrics sheet that would be packaged in such a way so that after it had been read the music could still be returned. That doesn't necessarily mean printed on the cover.

[charlie]

43. I'll take your (and the others) word on it

The PMRC also sought printed lyrics.

[Susang]

45. Don't take our word for it

Read it. Here's a link to the Zappa congressional testimony, everyone should read this for themselves.

http://uweb.superlink.net/~jdandrea/shrg99-529/p52.html

[charlie]

46. Thanks for the link

I'd read his testimony long ago. I'd forgotten about his suggestion for printed lyrics (and that maybe the gov't should pay the licensing and printing costs, if it's really interested in consumer protection).

And there's that backstory about the tape tax the RIAA was so keen about that he kept banging on. Good stuff, thanks again.

[Susang]

44. Zappa was deadly serious

And it is Gail, Zappa's wife, who became Tipper Gore's friend in the nineties, long after the PMRC. This is the only contact, other than the PMRC hearings and his and Gail's donations to the Democratic party that he had:

Even PMRC head Tipper Gore, who was at the helm of the late-'80s warning-sticker movement that Zappa so vehemently opposed, contacted him when she hear he had cancer. Zappa says, "The media likes to give the illusion that Tipper Gore and I are mortal enemies. That's not a fact. She sent me a sweet letter when she heard I was sick, and I appreciate that."

http://chunga.apana.org.au/~heederik/fz/interviews/pulse.html


From the PRMC testimony:
"The PMRC proposal is an ill-conceived piece of nonsense which fails to deliver any real benefits to children, infringes the civil liberties of people who are not children and promises to keep the courts busy for years dealing with the interpretational and enforcemental problems inherent in the proposal's design.

"It is my understanding that, in law, First Amendment issues are decided with a preference for the least restrictive alternative. In this context, the PMRC's demands are the equivalent of treating dandruff by decapitation." - Frank Zappa

[Mike Daniels]

57. TIpper Gore and Zappa's widow and kids became friends

I don't recall any reconciliation between Zappa himself and Tipper before his death though.

[0007]

31. Warning labels are only a way to pacified the whinny control freaks!

I don't see warning labels on whiskey, wine and beer containers. Medical science and the AMA have all the damaging evidences on alcohol. But guess who has the most power?

[Cheswick2.0]

35. we don't sell beer wine and whiskey to kids

[0007]

41. Oh, I forgot!

[bloom]

42. "warning labels on whiskey, wine and beer containers"

I think there are labels - warning about fetal alcohol syndrome or something...

(Also warns against driving, operating machinery and that alcohol may cause health problems).

[0007]

47. Goes to show how long its been since I've bought alcohol.

I got beat up on that one, 'eh?

[New Democrat]

36. Politicians need to get out the business of protecting kids from indecency

It's a stupid stupid Idea. I know that Tipper Gore never said she supported censorship, but she supported labeling "offensive speech." It is not the role of the government to decide what speech is obscene. Government mandated labels on offensive leads down a very slippery slope to tyranny.

And besides, people need to relize that you can't protect kids from "indecency." If a kid can't watch an R rated film, he will go to his friends house. If the kid gets banned from playing grand theft auto he will do the same. Same thing for porn also. Most kids today have seen some form of pornography, especially with the advancement of the Internet. And don't tell me the solution is to censor the Internet, because that is impossible.


It is time that we as a society give up on this "culture war" and realize that we cannot protect the youth from obscenity. All we can do is guide our future generations to make good choices.

I refuse to vote for any "moral values candidate." I would not vote for "Gore-Lieberman" and I will not vote to re-elect Governor Rod Blagojovich (I can't spell his last name) after his new crusade against violent video games.

[Bridget Burke]

55. So--you chose President Bush because of a 20 year old "scandal"

Wonderful priorities you've got.

[New Democrat]

63. Did I say I voted for Bush?

Quit infering stuff you don't know.

[OldLeftieLawyer]

48. She sucks for doing this

She opened the floodgates, and the waters have been getting higher and higher ever since she pulled this stunt.

I'll never forgive her for starting this crap, and then - don't forget - she disappeared. Left it for others to carry on. Hell, her kids grew up, so what did she care.

Later, when she wrote about her struggles with bipolar and depression, I figured she just went off the deep end, since all this took place before she got help.

Still, it's a lousy price for Americans to have to pay - censorship.

Frank Zappa, though, took her to task in the most brilliant way. God, I miss that guy!

[JaneDoughnut]

53. Y'all should check out Jello Biafra's rants on the PMRC

On his "I Blow Minds for a Living" CD Set.

Also some great commentary on the first Persian Gulf war and censorship in general.

[JaneDoughnut]

58. Oh no, I said "y'all" in public

Please forgive ;)

[d_b]

66. His debate with Tipper on Oprah's show is CLASSIC.

I have the mp3 around here somewhere..

[m_welby]

56. i always had a problem with tipper after that

being a huge fan of frank and freedom, I never really approved of labeling music, or anything else.

to paraphrase frank, there are a million love songs in the world, none of hem have significantly influenced kids why would any other lyrics?

and as a parent, I know my kids, what they watch, what they listen to, what games they play, their beliefs and hopes and dreams and all the rest. I am responsible for them not the government. I am responsible to know what they are doing and listening to, not the government.

The govenment does not belong in my kids mp3 player any more than it belongs in my bedroom.

I think britney spears and all the other teen diva clones are horrid, musically and socially. They display a poor image for young girls, with the 'sluts r us' outfits (my wife's term), but it isn't up to me to police other peoples children.

If I wanted someone to tell me and my children good from bad or right from wrong, I'd join a church, that's what they're for.

[Withywindle]

61. Oh, I remember this well!

I was a teenager then and ran a little Xeroxed music zine. Comedy gold for many issues. Zappa was so brilliant. I miss him.

There are countless problems with the whole rating thing--not the least of which is that, as with the movie business, it's the industry that does its own "self-policing", which means it's often political and marketing-based. You don't think artists are now doing EXTRA profanity to make sure they get that warning sticker? Hah! In some genres, you'll never be considered "the real deal" if you DON'T get it.

Yeah, I remember being 14 pretty well. I never once heard anything new from a record that I hadn't been hearing my classmates say for years. :shrug:

10 or so years later, I was talking with a 15-year-old friend I knew through the Chicago poetry scene (this guy was quite the prodigy--he's in college now and has already published two books). He was a huge jazz/Beat/countercultural history fan, and my jaw hit the sidewalk when he slipped me a 20 and asked me to buy the new Lou Reed album for him because it had a sticker. Goddamn, I guess it hadn't occurred to me they actually enforced the stupid thing. (Yes, of course I bought it for him, wouldn't you?) Yeah, the album had a couple of "fucks" on it: but this kid was hugely influenced by Ginsberg and Burroughs, and was already WRITING and PUBLISHING and PERFORMING stuff that used much, much, much more colorful language than that tame 90s Lou Reed stuff!

But, you know, it's something relatively harmless for politicians to grandstand on when they want to draw attention to themselves but don't want to take a stand on something that really matters. It didn't stop me from voting for Gore, Jebus. Lieberman almost did, though.

[MrSlayer]

62. I remember hating the hell out of her for this lunacy.

I still think it's stupid. It was great when Dee Snider made her look like a complete jackass.

[d_b]

65. Her work with the PMRC, the Eagle Forum (puke),

and the choice of Lieberman were all factors in my voting for Nader

[no name no slogan]

67. Don't forget Tipper's PMRC accomplice-- James Baker's wife

Yes, that very same James Baker who shilled for Dubya during the 2000 fiasco. The less said the better.