Censoring Strong Images for Girls

I heard a mention on the radio yesterday of poet/performer/playwright/activist Sarah Jones (website is Flash heavy, be aware), who a few years back was the victim of perhaps the first wave of Bush-era FCC censorship.

In May of 2001, the FCC ordered a $7,000 fine against Portland's non-commercial KBOO-FM radio station for airing "indecency" in the form of Jones' Your Revolution (mp3 and text available at this link--text available in the Extended Entry section of this post), a response to Gil-Scott Herron's groundbreaking hip hop work "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised".

I grabbed it on iTunes this morning, and having heard it again after a couple of years, I have to say I'm quite angry at the powers that be for determining (okay, the FCC reversed itself in 2003, but the line of thinking here remains valid) what constitutes an "indecent" message when it comes to the images that popular culture provides to girls.

your revolution will not be you
killing me softly with Fugees
your revolution ain't gon' knock me up
without no ring and produce little future MCs
because that revolution will not happen between these thighs

I am reminded of two scenes in the movie Mean Girls where the chief Mean Girl walks through her house and the camera settles on her younger sister, possibly eleven or so, standing before the television practicing the grinding dance moves she's watching on MTV. I'm pretty sure the song that was playing on the television was Milkshake, which provides us high-end writing such as this:

La,La,La,La,La
Warm it up
La,La,La,La,La
The boys are waiting
La,la,La,La,La
Warm it up
La,La,La,La,La
The boys are waiting

My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard
And they're like, it's better than yours
Damn right it's better than yours
I could teach you but I have to charge

What do we want our daughters to see in the culture?

More to the point, is "Milkshake" the only kind of cultural training we want our daughters absorbing? Is "Milkshake" less indecent because "Your Revolution" is more graphic, less teasing, and less coy? In other words, is it the honest, straight up piece that shows us a portrait of a strong woman who owns her own body that is indecent, or the far more slutty, but somehow suggestive and not quite outright depiction of the neighborhood ho?

your revolution
will not find me in the
backseat of a Jeep with LL
hard as hell
ya know, doin' it & doin' it & doin' it well
ya know, doin' it & doin' it & doin' it well

your revolution will not be you
smackin' it up, flippin' it, or rubbin' it down
nor will it take you downtown or humpin' around
because that revolution will not happen between these thighs

I'm also reminded of when I worked in group homes with adolescents who obviously had ended up in the group home/foster care system through one way or another. Every single one of the girls the I worked with in the system had been victims of sexual molestation, rape, or other degradations, most from the time they were infants. For most, it was an ongoing situation for years or more of their lives. They were teenagers who knew both too much and too little about sex and sexuality. As teenagers, they were voracious consumers of pop culture, and I was horrified by the images they were receiving from the culture of what women are supposed to be.

I worked closely with one girl in particular, and got tired of her exposure to the kind of crap referenced above (this was before "Milkshake" was released, but she was into similar kinds of garbage). I began letting her listen to performance poet Alix Olson, whose lyrics are as explicit as you could want (and teenagers do), but are, well, written by a very strong, intelligent, and accomplished woman. These are traits that Olson (like Jones) values. These are values that both women promote in their work.

Eventually, I burned a copy of Olson's "Built Like That" for my teenage client. It went into her pile with Korn, Marilyn Manson, and a variety of other people I don't think I'd even heard of. But I know she listened to it. Sometimes when taking her to school, I could hear it in her headphones.

See, it's far more scandalous to hear the word "cunt" coming out of a woman's mouth as a positive, reaffirming statement than hearing a man say it derisively, because let's face it, we've all heard men (and women) say it derisively.

In the much vaunted marketplace of ideas, the winning idea today isn't the cleanest one, it's the one that takes all that dirty and, like some kind of miraculous epiphany, is able to shift it into a positive framework. It's "Your Revolution" and "Eve's Mouth".

And girls need these images to counter the majority of images in the culture. Boys need these images to understand that, by far, the most exciting women are the ones who are quite capable of biting back.

There was something so troubling about the scenes in Mean Girls, and about having to explain to my boss, who was in all respects a terrific manager and role model for the kids, why I had provided "indecent" material to our teenage charge.

But I told him something like this post, and he nodded and said, "Okay, good work," and never mentioned it again. Girls deserve to hear more than what commercial culture tells them. To make good decisions, they have to hear more than that. I'm not saying that we should go purchase x-rated material for 11-year-olds, but when the government levies fines against radio stations that dare to present an empowered portrait, something is very, very wrong. Revoking the fine and reversing the decision was the correct shift to make, but as we move into a more censored society, let's make sure that we're conscious of the distortions that the marketplace creates, and let's make sure that our kids get healthy doses of positive voices, too.

Jones' piece is reproduced below the cut.

This material is an original work by Sarah Jones, who owns the copyright. This is reproduced without permission. To complain about this use or request Your Revolution's removal, contact me here.

Your Revolution by Sarah Jones

your revolution will not happen between these thighs
your revolution will not happen between these thighs

the real revolution
ain't about booty size
the Versaces you buys
or the Lexus you drives

and though we've lost Biggie Smalls
your Notorious revolution
will never allow you to lace no
lyrical douche in my bush

your revolution will not be you
killing me softly with Fugees
your revolution ain't gon' knock me up
without no ring and produce little future MCs
because that revolution will not happen between these thighs

your revolution
will not find me in the
backseat of a Jeep with LL
hard as hell
ya know, doin' it & doin' it & doin' it well
ya know, doin' it & doin' it & doin' it well

your revolution will not be you
smackin' it up, flippin' it, or rubbin' it down
nor will it take you downtown or humpin' around
because that revolution will not happen between these thighs

your revolution will not have me singin'
ain't no nigger like the one I got
your revolution will not be you
sending me for no drip drip VD shot

your revolution will not involve me feeling your nature rise
or helping you fantasize
because that revolution will not happen between these thighs
and no, my Jamaican brother, your revolution
will not make you feel boombastic and really fantastic
have you groping in the dark for that rubber wrapped in plastic

you will not be touching your lips to my triple dip of
french vanilla butter pecan chocolate deluxe
or having Akinyele's dream
a six-foot blowjob machine

you wanna subjugate your queen;
think I'ma put it in my mouth
just 'cause you made a few bucks
please brotha please!

your revolution will not be me tossing my weave
making believe I'm some caviar-eating, ghetto mafia clown
or me givin' up my behind just so I can get signed
or maybe have somebody else write my rhymes?
I'm Sarah Jones, not Foxy Brown

your revolution makes me wonder, where could we go
if we could drop the empty pursuit of props and the ego
we'd revolt back to our Roots, use a little Common Sense, on a Quest to make love De La Soul, no pretense...but

your revolution will not be you flexing your little sex and status
to express what you feel;
your revolution will not happen between these thighs
will not happen between these thighs
will not be you shaking and me faking between these thighs
because the revolution, that's right, I say the real revolution, you know the real revolution, when it finally comes, it's gon' be real.