Turning a new page in the global fight against hate
In its heyday, BBC radio was God. Every word went to air carefully considered, sensible and beyond reproach. Or so it believed. The Beeb is still benchmark television – light years ahead of the rubbish we are served. In Britain, however, official radio was left in the doldrums by racier ‘‘pirates’’ and other youth-oriented stations. The BBC became ‘‘Aunty’’, mocked for her fusty manners.
This prickly matriarch was always quick to banish ‘‘unsuitable’’ fare. Crooner Frank Sinatra offended four times – Light a Candle in the Chapel (1942), Cradle Song (1944), How Little We Know (1956), and the uncharitable-sounding You’ll Get Yours (1956).
Cardie-wearing Bing Crosby got the boot for Miss You and Deep in the Heart of Texas (both 1942). His I’ll Be Home For Christmas (1943) was banned, presumably as too gloomy for troops who wouldn’t make it home for another two years – if at all.
When fellow cardie buff Perry Como sang Somebody Up There Likes Me in 1956, he discovered that somebody down here was not so enamoured. Perry’s Till the End of Time, I’m Always Chasing Rainbows and Moonlight Love also never made it to air on the Beeb.
A strict ban on advertising, even by brand name, torpedoed Rum and Coca-Cola by the Andrews Sisters, Lola by the Kinks (until the lyric ‘‘Where they drink champagne and it tastes just like Coca-Cola’’ was changed to ‘‘cherry cola’’), Paul Simon’s Kodachrome, and Dr Hook’s Cover of the Rolling Stone.
New Zealand bristled in 1982 when Auntie pulled the plug on Six Months in a Leaky Boat by our own Split Enz during the Falklands War – doing their career no harm.
The censors went ballistic in the Gulf War, deeming 67 songs inappropriate for listeners, including Back in the USSR by the Beatles, Boom Bang-a-bang (Lulu), Brothers In Arms (Dire Straits), I Don’t Like Mondays (Boomtown Rats), Imagine (John Lennon), the lusty I’m On Fire (Bruce Springsteen), Light My Fire (Jose Feliciano), Waterloo by ABBA, The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down by Joan Baez – which suggests Aunty was getting her wars in a muddle – Sailing (Rod Stewart), Midnight at the Oasis (Maria Muldar), Killing Me Softly With His Song (Roberta Flack), Walk Like An Egyptian (the Bangles), and Killer Queen (Queen).
Elvis the Pelvis got the cold shoulder for Hard-Headed Woman in 1958. Even his saintly Brit clone, Cliff Richard, incurred the dowager’s wrath with High-Class Baby.
Ella Fitzgerald made the club courtesy of Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered, a banishment that must have left her fans feeling two out of the three. And if 1963’s Saturday Nite at the Duckpond was the Cougars’ idea of a hot date, they deserved the bum’s rush.
Love For Sale, Cole Porter’s brilliant doxy’s lament, I Want Your Sex (George Michael) and Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds (the Beatles) must have been no-brainers.
Teen Angel, Tell Laura I Love Her, Honey and Leader of the Pack are so dire the Beeb did listeners a favour, but even that hoary Irish tearjerker Danny Boy was offensive via the tonsils of Conway Twitty, according to Wikipedia.
Time is apt to make the censor look foolish, yet last Friday made noncensorship look positively evil – the mosques gunman was able to broadcast his obscenity to the world.
In our day, Facebook is God. It has now become a conduit for the Devil, and finds itself run ragged trying to stamp out the millions of ‘‘shares’’ of that footage by ghouls.
Our new media think themselves smart, but they are incredibly dumb in not heeding the hard-learned lessons from old media that you cannot give the public a platform without guardians on the gate.
Cowards love anonymity. They don’t have to be responsible for what they say. And free speech without responsibility is a road to hell.
Newspapers once allowed Letters to the Editor writers to use noms de plume. It became problematic about the 1960s, and was gradually phased out.
Your opinions had to carry your name. If you wanted to say it to an audience, you had to own it.
When online newspaper content began, the lesson was forgotten in the rush to embrace this interactive era. Abuse quickly resurfaced, and controls were reinstated.
Talkback radio has a broadcast delay to foil ratbags. That’s not just about swearing or defamation. It’s about respect.
Social media are the wilful children of the family – brats who misbehave without censure. Online forums became a weapon for nasty exes or social retards. That open slather has turned ugly.
The web is awash in hate – racial and sexual. We’ve reached medieval barbarism in showcasing murder. The public and advertisers are expressing their disgust.
Jacinda, all speed with outlawing those awful guns. Then marshal your colleagues worldwide and pursue psycho-enablers Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. No material should ever be broadcast without vetting.
They’ll scream about freedom of speech, but under threat of taxes or lost revenue, that bluster will vanish – the dollar sign is a powerful ethic.
Nobodies like the mosque shooter – he doesn’t deserve a name, as transTasman leaders agree – crave publicity for their sick philosophy. Starve them of oxygen.
The wild-child reign ends here. We owe it to the Christchurch victims. Playtime over.
Jacinda . . . marshal your colleagues worldwide and pursue psychoenablers Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.