Can you imagine if our government operated like the Canadian government when it came to music regulation? Our elected officials have a hard time agreeing on what day it is, it would be pure insanity if they had to debate each other over one word in one song. It was just announced that Canadian radio stations can resume playing Dire Straits' Money For Nothing after a ban on the song was lifted.
The 1985 hit single was taken off the airwaves in January after a listener in Newfoundland complained about Mark Knopfler's use of the word "faggot". The song lyrics were determined to be in a breach of a human rights clause in Canada's broadcasting code. The Canadian Broadcast Standards Council now says the word was used satirically and have overturned the ruling. "The composer's language appears not to have had an iota of malevolent or insulting intention."
The organization took into account the origin of the lyrics, which Knopfler wrote after observing a shop worker complaining about the differences between his lifestyle and that of musicians he watched on MTV. The council ruled that "the story told in this song, developed at some length over more than eight minutes, provides sufficient plot development, story line and context to justify" the lyrics. Eight minutes! Americans fall asleep if they have to listen to songs longer than three minutes any more.
The Council upheld the section of the previous ruling stating the offensive word was inappropriate for broadcast under normal circumstances. It added that "alternative versions of the song (without the challenged word) by Dire Straits exist and have existed since 1985, the year in which the song was first released". Canadian radio stations now have the option to play the original version or any of the alternative versions.
(9/1/2011 5:54:14 PM)
Whilst taking the view that censorship is undesirable, I have to correct you headline in that the case here is not one of government censorship -- those who care to read the decision will note that the Codes concerned are industry ones (Those of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters) not government ones.
The decision - at http://www.cbsc.ca/english/decisions/2011/110831.php - is finely nuanced, perhaps something Canadians are more intellectually used to taking in than those North of the border where shades of grey seem less common.
As to censorship does not the US government via the FCC (administering FCC regulations subject to congressional approval and sometimes changed with an intent to impose retroactive penalties after mass e-mail hissy fits over indecency) actually censor formally? Maybe when the US has scrapped the current system and allowed the market to decide there is a point here but until then this headline is more like talk-radio comment than a fair assessment.
Perhaps you should launch a follow-up discussion of whether the FCC should scrap its obscenity and indecency rules?
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