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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 11, 1994)
October 1 10f( - e Nofei} oteins! \y • October 11,1994 The Battalion • Page 3 in a state of iolence Jljrom movies to gangs to rap, today's entertainment value provides more shock for the buck BEl ne Jremy Keddie [Battalion [iolence, whether fact or fiction, can nd every day. It can be seen on lion, newspapers, movies and in music. Perhaps you could say people are attracted to violence in rm or another. At times, people laid the amount of violence ex- is overwhelming. But do we ask Roberts, lharp, tes Dr[ Susanna Homig Priest, assistant sor of journal ism, said we live in a e that glorifies violence. However, said she does not attribute the vi- in our society to the media, and mid look into reasons why vio- ice is so strongly portrayed. er & BertSakw, |We are much more puritanical m sexuality than Europe, but we are ichmore open with violence,” she <rebs, tgs & Edmond H. tes and SwMa Murry & Thomas, tes BishopS /armus, :es A. Black, lion & Hitchings, es negawa, Japan e said violence is a reflective char- istic of this country’s society, and ’s violence can be traced back to ontier days of the United States’. Dpment, when pioneers were ex- g and conquering the land. How- she said it is not easy to pin-point mse of violence in the media. ’s unfair to say that violence is id by the media because there is thing deeper in the culture that es violence in the media,” Priest )tion pictures and movies are the irne& ihler, & ed by the i that many tend to be and stor| ollege age ic. Basicil ) be relatr i also be idi tl. Men, nerally tab proach toll of the varin d by expk ind wants n relationstif lore sophisfi interacts ully reduce il love misraali ing miseries Lewis and Woody Harrelson star in “Natural [Killers,” a movie cited for extreme violence. visual mainstream of violence, and tick et sales are high for films like violent films like “The Crow.” Oliver Stone’s re cent satire on violence and the media “Natural Born Killers” debuted at No. 1 on the movie ticket sales. Ralph Large, manager of Hastings Books, Music, and Videos in Culpepper Plaza, said violent movies are attractive because everyone has the internal urge to kill somebody. “It’s the fact that there’s something that other people can get away with that (the viewers) can’t,” Large said. “Faces of Death,” a five-part film se ries, contains clips of fatal accidents and explicit scenes of violence. The films are in high demand by con sumers, and Large said Hastings does not carry the movie because the management thinks it is too extreme. He said vio lent movies tend to rent better at Hastings, but just because a movie is vio lent does not mean it is go ing to have a high rent de mand. However, 2 Day Video on Texas Avenue carries “Faces of Death,” and can be rented if someone’s lucky enough to find it. Matt Holligan, the store manager, said the movie is constantly checked out, and is usually returned late. “People mainly hear about it from oth ers, and are curious about what it is,” Hol ligan said. Violence does not occur in visual medi ums alone, but also exists in music - espe cially in rap. And rap has long been the tar get of attack from those who believe vio- .lence,in. music should be regulated. Dr. Marilyn Kem- Foxworth, an associ ate professor of jour nalism at Texas A&M, gave expert testimony in the October 1990 trial of Florida vs. Charles Freeman, in which the lyrics of 2 Live Crew were ques tioned for obscenity and violence. 2 Live Crew’s al bum “As Nasty As They Wanna Be,” was banned in Flori da, but Freeman, a record store owner, chose to distribute the album anyway and was sued. Louis Gates, an African- American scholar, testified in favor of Freeman, and said the explicit lyrics and violence of 2 Live Crew were repre sentative of the African-American cul ture. However, Kem-Foxworth, the first African-American woman to receive a Ph.D. in mass communications with a concentration in advertising, disagreed with Freeman and said the group’s mu sic has detrimental effects. She said the music of 2 Live Crew and other gangsta rappers advocates "When I'm called off, I got a sawed-off / Squeeze the trigger and bodies are hauled off." “Straight Outta Compton” —Ice Cube formerly ofN. VC A. men beating women, which makes it easier for men to justify violence, includ ing rape. She said the music also lessens the chance for women to be able to stand up for what they believe in. “If you really buy into that and think it’s okay, then you start thinking that that’s the way it is supposed to be,” Kem-Foxworth said. Kem-Foxworth said she thinks the music has the propensity to make people violent, but only blaming rap music for violent acts creates scapegoats out of the rappers. “Defendants who use that ploy are mentally disturbed anyway,” she said. t Music which portrays African-Ameri can men as violent, is detrimental to blacks in several ways, Kern-Foxworth said. Many parents do not screen their children’s music, and young black teenagers often want to emulate what they are hearing, she said. “They sometimes do not know better, or otherwise listen to it because it is go ing against the establishment,” she said. Kem-Foxworth said the music also' affects blacks in the way white people view the music. She said white people who listen to gangsta rap may think that the lyrics are portraying what blacks do. “They often think you are sup posed to disrespect to be ‘in’, and don’t think anything is wrong with the music,” Kem-Foxworth said. Kem-Foxworth taught a class two summers ago which addressed the ef fects of the media on consumers. She said the class included the effects of music, and she had the students listen to 2 Live Crew and discuss the issue. “I was appalled that white as well as black students paid little attention to the lyrics,” Kem-Foxworth said. She said several of the students, in cluding women, had violent music in their collections, and most of the women in the class were not offend ed by the lyrics be cause they did not feel it was talking about them. She said the women felt the music was referring to oth ers who carried them selves in ways de scribed by the lyrics “bitches” and “hoes.” Kem-F oxworth said the number of listeners of gangsta rap has decreased and attributes it to the increased aware ness of the music. She said par ents now scrutinize their children’ music more, and that legislation is establishing stricter regulations against the music. But a decrease in violence doesn’t ap pear to be the case in movies. Priest said the violence in movies appears to be increasing and it is a matter of shock value — as people are exposed to vio lence, they become immune to that par ticular level of shock. She said movies then have to contain higher levels of vio lence to have a thrilling effect on audi ences. Priest said the catharcist the ory, which states that vio lence in the media al lows us to act out our desires, is a discredited theory. She said the theory tends to oversim plify the situation, and that it does not completely address the problem of vio lence in the media. Priest said that violence in the entertainment industry makes people more aware of vi olence, and as they are exposed to it over a long period of time, the effect of violence in the media Body Count, led by rapper Ice T, created the controversial anti-police song “Cop Killer” influences what is acceptable and nor mal in society. “Seeing violence in the media teaches us that violence is something that just exists,” she said. laying college crowds satisfying for Texas rocker Ian Moore about lovinff Ndia Zavaleta may consi* ; Ba ' !TAUON ating Serf 16 man on stage makes love to his an and Clfi ir ’ Okli v i° us to the hundreds of people udent Conti* in g an d singing along with his music, ways toleS ^ore closes his eyes and plays, way of W recent record-breaking crowd of 450 'ough varii ; ! ed into Stafford Opera House, for one ig groups,s! ; m — to hear The Ian Moore Band play. Relation^ 98 th 0 biggest show at the Opera House gh individ 1 * 1 p- [or Moore, performing in front of an au- ceis a sensual experience.“I try to have rtatious male-female relationship with Uidience,” the 26-year-old Austin na- HWirtflsaid. “It’s almost sensual. You have to the balls to reveal things about your- [on stage.” is second album, in,” captures |fe’s soulful lyrics Ipassionate gui- Tan Moore Live in n editor to editor its editor editor tolos the way a live perfor ce can. fhere’s some- about perform- in your home t,” Moore said, are welcomed open arms, and ike we can do no urge Nasr.ElizT Cg. When W6 gO our outside of os, we have to be ot-proof and have 7 harder to have cat perfor- nie Dube, Ami''- ance Parten,^ -nnifer Montiel J on, Blake Crigji Henderson, Eii« ne fall andspiirl versity holidays’- Jniversityintt* ial offices are' 'tn phone nnmt it by The Batta^ dvertising, calif 1 ’ to 5 p.m, Mondi- d $50 per fully "It's good to know that when you play places like College Station, the people are all there because they like your music and they like to watch you play. In L.A., people maybe knew one song and it felt like they were there because it was the cool thing to do." —Ian Moore ation, TX 77Wt Ice,” uildmg,Texas foore said that some of his out-of-state attracted about 1,500 people, but he I he prefers playing in towns like Bryan College Station because he likes per- hng to a college crowd. It’s good to know that when you play ; es like College Station, the people are here because they like your music and like to watch you play,” Moore said. L.A., people maybe knew one song and it like they were there because it was cool thing to do.” ioore, who describes his style as “soul ic” because his songs deal with emo tions, is often compared with other gui tarists such as Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughn. He said his influences run much deeper than those two musicians. “I don’t just play blues-rock,” Moore said. “My music is more in the vein of Hendrix, but I have tons of other people I like.” Among those are A1 Green, Little Willie John and the Beatles. But having grown up playing the violin, Moore said he was influ enced by classical and Hindu music. “I’ve been playing instruments since I was a baby,” he said. “My first instrument was a sitar (a Hindu stringed-instrument), then I moved on to violin.” Moore said he picked up a guitar as a teenager and formed his band when he was about 19. Since then, Moore said his focus has been exactly where he wants it — on his music. “The thing I enjoy most about where I am today,” he said, “is being able to cen ter all my attention to what I think I should be doing, which is performing music.” Going on the road with ZZ Top gave Moore a chance to expose his band to more people. “That kind of stuff makes you feel good,” he said. “You know, It’s nice to know that you’re up there, but it’s only a means to an end. It’s a tool that allows me to make my music on my own terms.” He said he rarely hears a band that per forms the music it wants. And since his music gained popularity slowly, he said he was able to avoid the group mentality of the music industry. “In music like in everything else, you should walk your own path and be an indi vidual,” Moore said. “Be a freak. It’s impor tant to belong, but it’s more important to believe in the individual.” The Ian Moore Band is set to go back to the studio in late November. Texas rocker Ian Moore said his influences include Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Al Green and The Beatles.