Four letter word just to get me along...

What's the fuss?

The LEP features on these pages again. This time, they tell of a mother angered by hearing Rage Against The Machine's Killing In The Name played by a member of staff in the entertainment section of the store, "right next to an aisle selling kids' toys." The song uses the line "F*ck you, I won't do what you tell me" 16 times. Ooh-er.



On one level this is understandable enough - people don't want their children to be subjected to rude words in an uncontrolled environment - and Asda should probably have some policy of vetting the music they have playing in their stores. A bit of HSM here, some Tinkerbell there, all within the confines of copyright laws that is. At the same time, I think people are taking up arms at nearly everything these days - there's nothing approaching a "laissez-faire" attitude on LIFE anymore.

I'm all for looking at the efficiency of social services when children die, examining the salaries of celebrities paid by public corporations in a global recession, and looking at both sides of the debate on assisted suicide. These are serious issues, which warrant the attention given to them.

What's the big deal?

Surely the days of musical censorship are over. It's not like anyone is being objectified here - the complaint seems to be over one simple word (albeit one that is repeated 16 times). If Asda were playing hip-hop tracks or videos that were violent or misogynistic I'd understand the criticism. But complaining about a 16-year old song that, if anything, encourages its listeners to question bigotry and institutionalised corruption, seems a little misguided, if not reactionary. It reminds me of the scene in Donnie Darko where a teacher suggests removing a Graham Greene short story from the curriculum, all the while confusing the author for television actor Lorne Greene.

There's a time and a place for everything

On a related note, I read an interesting piece by Frank Skinner about cutting down on his use of profanities on stage. Sometimes it worked, as his routines were just as effective without the use of naughty words. Sometimes it didn't. Without the use of profanity, which would normally lend to a given routine a shock factor and added "oomph," for want of a much better word, the routine fell flat. What his piece really shows is that a measured approach to language can render the most effective usage, so complaining about the use of four letter words is, to flirt with cliché, neither big nor clever.