Any onlooker courageous enough to brave the recent MTV Video Music Awards subjects himself to some of the most distasteful entertainment in our society, and Miley Cyrus’s appalling performance was no exception. After a few years of stardom, Miley has joined her fellow song artists in their typical debauchery, complete with onstage twerking, grinding, and stripping.
However, the most dismal aspect of contemporary entertainment such as the VMAs is from the entertainers themselves, but rather stems from the eager anticipation of fans who accept entertainment in novel forms of all sorts. Despite this brief “shock” factor after a particularly raunchy act like Miley’s, the audience not only absorbs the entertainment but also hungers for something even more racy. Indeed, this must be the case, as the entertainment culture has progressively worsened over the last fifty years, each decade proving more decadent than its predecessors.
So when, you may ask, did this downward spiral occur? While every genre of music (yes, even classical) has had critics, the openly sexual behavior characteristic of modern entertainment would have been banned in previous generations, much less deemed appropriate for children. Miley may be gearing herself towards a more “adult” market, but, as she began her career entertaining children, her audience has simply expanded to both groups. However distasteful this may be, inappropriate entertainment and song lyrics are not new phenomena.
“Rock n’ roll,” an old colloquial term for sex, was attributed, fittingly, to the onslaught of promiscuous lyrics and cacophonous instrumentals in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Although early rock n’ roll bands appear tame in comparison to modern entertainers, they both initiated and reciprocated the lackadaisical moral standards of the times. By the mid 1960s pop culture was bombarded with such Beatles’ lyrics as “Sexy Sadie you’ll get yours yet” and “Tried to please her, she only played one night stands”—lines that would never be found in hit music of previous decades.
There certainly are much more debasing songs written today, but the aforementioned Beatles lyrics are representative of ideologies that helped pave the cultural path towards current depravity. Furthermore, bands like the Beatles were not limited to sexual innuendos, as they even penned the lyrics, “Christ you know it ain’t easy/You know how hard it can be/The way things are going/They’re going to crucify me.” This particular song, “The Ballad of John and Yoko,” was clearly not intended as a respectful prayer, especially coming from a group of men who behaved like adolescents at best. As for the cultural influence and example the Beatles set, songs such as “All You Need Is Love” were clearly written with the intention of an anti-war message and did indeed possess a degree of social impact.
Modern pop-culture originates in the rock n’ roll movement, and contemporary music has not forgotten its history. True to its roots, modern “artistry” continues to shock, scandalize, and influence impressionable minds, particularly those of children. As each generation ages, however, entertainment worsens by demand, for the audience can be entertained only by something more scandalous than that to which it is accustomed. And the worst part is that the audience generally includes young children.
Whatever happened to presenting an audience—particularly children—with lovely, harmonious music? While it might not be immoral to expose children to rock n’ roll, there remains so much beautiful music in the world that it seems tragic to subject them to anything else. Plato noted in “The Republic” that the most important part of education is being exposed to the beautiful, and this is, perhaps, the wisest course to make with music and entertainment choices.
The problem with modern entertainment is that beauty ceased to be a priority five decades ago.