how far have we fallen with televsion and music since the 50's?

Published:

since the 50's up until the 2000's i think music and television shape a big part in kids thinking growing up.all throughout this city i live in you see kids wearing tacky stuff and saying the things they say because of what they are influenced by in music and television.when people imitate trash they become trashy.like someone said it might drive up ratings for advertisers but at the cost of gullible kids being influenced by questionable subject matter and repeating the things they see or hear thinking its cool.i might've had long hair from being influenced by hard rock music back in the 80's but i'd hate to have been growing up these days influenced by all this gang stuff infesting the airwaves.

Entry #1,320

Comments

Avatar Tenaj -
#1
The same thing is said with every generation.   Look how long rap music has hung around.   It just didn't come, stay a little while and go away like disco music and other genres. Music, dress, ideas, art, etc. are the reflection of the society.   It's what's going on in the world.
Avatar emilyg -
#2
Then it's sad if that's what the world is becoming. Rap to me is not music.
Avatar Coin Toss -
#3
In the 1950's TV had a lot of Westerns. Good guys went after the bad guys and got them.

Look at the old series Combat vs today's The Unit. Combat was about an infantry squad in Europe in WW II, and the story line stuck to that.

The Unit is about SF soldiers but has to throw in the home front and a soap opera element to appeal to the females.

And rap indeed is not music. It's just noise.



Avatar LOTTOMIKE -
#4
a lot of people won't believe this but somewhere around the start of the 90's i literally stopped watching televsion for about 14 or 15 years until the last few years.never saw an episode of friends,seinfeld,etc. none of it.people that knew me well knew i just didn't care for television,if i wanted news i read the newspaper every day.i love seinfeld re-runs that come on because i watch what i missed all those years but i'm still not a big t.v. person. right now i don't even have cable and won't have it.
Avatar LOTTOMIKE -
#5
late at night now i'll catch stuff like seinfeld,king of the hill or news but for the most part i'm content with a book or renting a movie.
Avatar spy153 -
#6
I think rap is just talking ---to bad repetitive music. I love to dance, and anything with a good beat melts my heart right away, but rap was never my thing.

And what you are talking about, lottomike relates to what I was trying to say in Justx's blog about the media. I usually don't watch the news, because I find it too disturbing. But my hubby has a bad habit of doing it while I'm in the room anyway. Six cheerleaders beat up one little girl for supposedly making a bad comment on their blog. They recorded the whole thing hoping it would become a viral video. The girl they beat up on lost her hearing in one ear and is going blind in the other. This was done in the name of sensationalism for today's punks. These girls actually thought this was okay. They almost killed her and left her for dead. It made me just want to be violent to them. I want to hurt them still., in part because it struck a nerve with me, being a mother. And this kid's mom and dad were doing nothing about it. And I know what it is like to be left helpless.
I know it isn't fair to blame all of this on tv and the media... but they did play their part in this. The parents should have raised them better. And the local government should make them examples (which I don't think will happen because the sheriff has already gotten a gag order to not talk to the media, but I am hoping for it.) These girls wanted publicity and now that they're getting it, they are trying to shut it up. Can you believe they thought this would be okay? They thought this would make them look cool? The news story I am talking about can be found on CNN or watch the videos and local news broadcasts on youtube.com by searching "six cheerleaders."
Avatar jarasan -
#7
Wonder why they don't do a RAP night on American Idol? Do ya think it's because it isn't music? Anyone who can't carry a tune can be a rapper.
Avatar Tenaj -
#8
Rap is very much music and art. It's vulgar, disrespectful to woman, and women are disrespectful to themselves. It disrespects authority, it tells the story of how they have fun, it gets their dance on, it tells how they feel about the world, people, etc., what they like, what they don't like, what they drink, what they smoke, how they dress, their reaction that sometimes results to crime, how they fight, what kind of drugs they use, how they get their freak on and it's bold and honesty and is a good way to get the know the youth through the lyrics. They tell you.

That's where they are and how they see the world. It belongs to them. Main stream adopted it and even the Pillsbury dough boy dances to it.

It says, this is what you are doing but is dishonest about it and hide it. It says I got woman, money, and great sex. It says, I feel good about myself and go to hell because you are a fake. I give it great respect. (not always have - because I didn't understand) Everything you hate about it is their response to the world.

Maybe when the world comes to respecting woman, and woman respecting themselves, the heads start making honest money, and there's a place for everyone regardless of their ethnic background and the youth can feel like they are getting a fair shake they will start singing and dancing differently. Like I said music and art is the reflection of the society.
Avatar justxploring -
#9
Tenaj, why is it that so many of the "artists" are involved in gang activity? Tupac Shakur is dead and so is "B.I.G." Both of them were victims of drive-by shootings. Do you want these young men to be role models for your children? How can people blame the cops or society when there are rap rival wars? Correct me if I'm wrong, but the companies have names like Murder Inc. records.

I was recently talking to a friend about this and she doesn't want her son to listen to hip-hop, but he's 18 and in college. She believes it has taken everything she fought for and set back the clock 30 years.
Avatar jarasan -
#10
If anything RAP is a form of poetry. Have you ever seen sheet music for a RAP "song"?
Avatar Tenaj -
#11
I'm sorry y'all don't understand and open your minds to other people culture and the farthest your mind can get is what you hear from the media. I am truly sorry. And for jarasan to think that there is no sheet music for Rap music is just beyond me. It's interesting that it's exactly what others said about music from long ago right before they stole it.

Avatar Rick G -
#12
Don't get too worked up about it. Every generation has its "thing" and in 20 years we'll be watching the History channel and laughing at ourselves.
Avatar LOTTOMIKE -
#13
something i noticed also is every generation also has a 'shock value' thing where they try and get kids to love them and parents to hate them.it was elvis hips in the 50's,the beatles hair in the 60's,kiss spitting blood in the 70's,heavy metal lyrics in the 80's and in the 90's for the first time rap music started outselling rock because more kids were liking the shock value and alternative rock wasn't pissing off the parents as much as rap.rap in the 90's started shocking with the drug use,the degrading of women,the use of violence such as guns which is why biggie and tupac are dead and on up into this decade right here lately with the gangster images,the money,nice clothes,cool cars.the kids feed into that even though its mostly bad.
Avatar Rick G -
#14
Mike, I kind of agree with your "shock value" thing, but I think it's more of an "identity thing". In a world with six billion + people, we as individuals want to be unique and kids need the individuality more than the oldsters. Encourage your kids' individuality when they're young so they won't have to show their boxers when they're 18.
Avatar Rick G -
#15
I'm going to add one more thing here. If a parent beats down their kids all of the time, how is that child going to grow up to be a self-confident adult? Adults with low self-confidence or self-esteem cause most of the problems in the world.
Avatar Rick G -
#16
Wish we could edit our blog replies...when I said "beat down" I didn't mean physically but rather, mentally.
Avatar LOTTOMIKE -
#17
i wonder how far things will go.i overheard these two teenagers in a restaurant a year or so ago talking about killing some guy and i laughed and they looked over at me real serious and said they weren't playing.i told them they needed to go play some more video games instead or go jog off al that negative energy.seems like there are a lot of negative vibes floating around with young kids these days.for instance at work i trained a fewsh 18 year old security guy i came back and the word murder was scratched all over the desk in different spots.he was listening to a walkman and repeating these rap lyrics,i wish i was dead,i'm gonna die anyway,murder murder murder is how i live.i told him that those lyrics were pretty scary to older people even someone like me.he said its just words but i told him it affects the way people look at you though by the way you dress and act.
Avatar LOTTOMIKE -
#18
i need to edit mine too,i said fewsh but meant new.
Avatar justxploring -
#19
Aha! Fewsh sounds like some kind of new religion. "I was Catholic from a family of 8. My husband was Jewish from a family of 6. We got married and have 1 child. We're Fewish."

Anyway, to clear up what I was saying...I don't think all rap is bad. I just think some of the "gangsta" style is giving kids the wrong messages.   Remember the contest that a member (DucksAFloat I think) asked us to vote for? Those were rap songs. It can be a poetic way of expressing yourself, but I wouldn't call it music, but that's just my opinion. A gang member who was in prison was on Fox (I can't believe I'm actually quoting Fox news) Anyway, he was a member of a gang called the Bloods and goes around saying things like "...when you're saying something that encourages thousands of people to go out and kill people and have a negative input, that's wrong. I realize that it's business, but still and all, you have this music that's encouraging people to be gangsters. And I am a real gangster. I mean, you know, I've been to prison. I've been shot."



Avatar LOTTOMIKE -
#20
i agree justx about the rap,i've always loved music and i love rock,pop,country and heavy metal plus some rap as long as its not the gangster stuff.back in the mid 80's i started liking rap and all the kids thought i was very strange but then five years later all of them were then listening to it too after giving me crap about it.i used to like stuff like tupac,coolio,biggie,etc. but i really quit listening about ten years ago and i'll listen to the older stuff but the new stuff is just not listenable anymore but thats my opinion.
Avatar justxploring -
#21
Does anyone remember the Blondie song "Rapture?" Deborah Harry started to rap about a man from Mars who was eatin' cars.   That was weird. I think then it was called New Wave. Hey, I'm a White girl from the burbs, so I am not judging anyone. However, I was a big James Brown fan and I never heard him tell people to go out and shoot cops or call women whores. Yet he inspired a whole generation ..just look at the lyrics from "Say it Loud."
Avatar LOTTOMIKE -
#22
i was a big fan of james,brown,michael jackson,the commodores,stevie wonder,etc. and still are to this day and i've even read interviews where lionel richie denounced a lot of rap music as trash because of the lyrics.rap only got vulgar as the years went on because when it first came out run dmc and groups like that didn't cuss much on the records or talk about dope.
Avatar jarasan -
#23
Not that it matters @T, my point is, there is no melody, that is all, very rudimentary, it all has the same feel, just different words, that is why I said poetry. Scratching and rapping as form of expression is just that scratching and rapping. Sampling and setting a jam box to slap an electronic beat and rap to it is just that, beat and more beat with differing words.

@lottomike, yeah it had a good beginning but didn't evolve, it went the way of the devo. Everybody wanted in; Eminem as an eg. it became about the word, message etc.. not the music.
Avatar Tenaj -
#24
I think ya'll got gangsta rap mixed up with Hip Hop. Justx, when James Brown did "Say it Loud", I'm black and I'm proud" it was a whole different generation. What was it 1968? Black folks were still being lynched in the South.

We were throwing food and chairs in the caferteria from school integration so we can go home early and high fived on the bus cause we pulled it off. It's a different world. Get a clue. Music is the reflection of the society. And Jarasan, yes I felt the say way you did about Hip Hop until I learned to dance it and it ain't nothing rudimentary about it.

Both my kids grew up with Hip Hop and Rap but they also listened to Gospel, Funk, Blues, Disco, Jazz and R and B, Motown Love Ballads, and musicals. Both were straight A honor students, student council, cheerleaders, letter girl and won many awards and accolades and they heard the gansta rap and watched HBO and Cinemax.

My grandson is into Hip Hop and can dance like a pro to it but I introduced to him Jazz, Blues, Disco, and old school, Funk, and Motown. He requests Eddie Harris. I also introduced him to the white musicians that deserve merit like wild cherry, elton john, the eagles, and edgar winters from back in the day to teach him about music so he wouldn't be ignorant to what he was listening to.

He's a straight A student just like his momma was. He goes to church every sunday, knows love, knows how to give it and love and respect everyone.

So ya'll need to get a clue and stop being so ignorant. Oh yes, I like swing, classical, know all the lyrics to the musicals and can appreciate music and I like so country too.
Avatar justxploring -
#25
Tenaj, please tell me why it is "ignorant" if someone disagrees with you. Is this Black scholar ignorant?
http://www.city-journal.org/html/13_3_how_hip_hop.html
(good article)
I enjoyed watching Kayne West perform at the Grammy Awards and was touched by the song he wrong for his mother. There is good and bad in everything.

Also, you obviously raised your kids right. Many parents don't and they just know what they hear from the popular songs that are played all the time. That goes for both White & Black families. Same with TV and the movies. The influence of a good parent is very important. My sister also let her children listen to anything they wanted, including hip-hop, and both graduated college with honors.
Avatar Tenaj -
#26
Justx. If I didn't know Hip Hop, the lyrics, the history, what they are saying, I wouldn't be able to have the kind of relationship I have with my grandson and other young people. People have preceived ideas about things they don't know about. You don't have to like something to understand it. Hip Hop and Rap is bad for those who don't get anything else to balance them.

Justx, you would have to understand the community before you can understand the music and that's just a small part of the big picture. That's what I call ignorance to say something about something you don't know about.
Avatar Coin Toss -
#27
Personally I don't see any good coming from hip hop or whatever you want to call it.

These kids see these "artists" as heroes and become wannabes, but no one tells them that without connections they aren't getting anywhere, just like with a lot of other things.

I may not understand the "music" (it''s NOT music, it's anger put to a voo doo beat) but I do understand that for all the wonderful things being claimed about it here that the people who play it assume that the rest of the world wants to hear it, too and that's hardly the case.

I'm hoping someone invents "RAP ZAP", kind of like a remote control, and when you're sitting in traffic and some cretan is blasting their "sound system", you just take out your RAP ZAP, point it at their car, and it takes their sound system down to .00001 decibel.

(Hopefully it would render cell phones in autos useless, too).


Avatar truecritic -
#28
(C)rap.

If it represents society, then that is exactly what Mike said. It is a mess. It is a subculture that should be illegal. I am for freedom of speech just so far.
Avatar justxploring -
#29
Well, this could go on forever. I said I didn't grow up in a Black community, but there are many people who did and don't like rap. Oprah said that she doesn’t have any problem with rap music or hip-hop but she has a problem with people who use music to degrade people. Then some rappers knocked her and said she only caters to White women.

I don't think it's just a Black or White thing anyway, I once read that the majority of teens who buy rap are White, but I can't confirm that statement. After all, 2 big rappers were Emimen and Vanilla Ice. The latter was just released from jail in FL again.

I don't want to misquote anything, so I'll cut & paste something from Julian Bond I heard last year. "We don't believe it's a violation of the First Amendment to say to somebody you ought not to talk that way, you ought not denigrate women, you ought not condemn people because of the color of their skin. I heard somebody say that when Jay-Z talks about ho's, he gets a gold record. When Don Imus talks about ho's, he gets fired. We believe in equal justice and equal justice for everyone."
Avatar LOTTOMIKE -
#30
i read something on a website about the new rage with kids in gangs is something called a potshot.where they get real high,listen to music and go shoot at random people walking down the street or sitting on porches.the rules of the game is 'subject' where they'll say blue shirt and they'll go shooting at people just in blue shirts or maybe the next 'subject' is red hair so they go shooting at just people with red hair.whatever it is it makes me very uneasy that kids are really getting off on different forms of violence as sport.
Avatar LOTTOMIKE -
#31
i'll go ahead and say its damn near getting unsafe in some places to even walk out your door and thats sad.
Avatar Tenaj -
#32
I have no problem with Hip Hop. Like I say before, they tell us what's on their mind - good and bad. As far as degrading women, you didn't hear that before integration. You heard songs like, "Have you seen her", "Hey There Lonely Girl", those I can't live without you love ballads that will always be classics. You figure it out.
Avatar justxploring -
#33
Tenaj, in a way I think I do know what you just wrote. In the 60s when the so-called hippie movement was all the rage, a lot of rich kids dressed up like poor people and "hung out" to look cool. There were teens/college students from nice homes on street corners asking for spare change. So for some what was reality and a way of life was a fad to others. Not long ago someone said to me "Why is it that when I had a dollar in my pocket at 18 I didn't worry and at 45 I'm terrified?" I said "Because back then you had somewhere to run home to."

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