Stanley Crouch: MTV's 25 years of destroying Black People...

[insein]

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/441492p-371749c.html

MTV, still clueless after all these years





Last week, MTV celebrated its 25th anniversary, marking a quarter of a century after having conceived of the first actually new thing in popular television entertainment since "American Bandstand" and "Soul Train."
The music video became a big deal through MTV and not only updated the old "soundies" once shown in movie theaters to feature singers and instrumentalists. It also revolutionized the making of films by acclimating its audience to the extremely fast crosscutting that had been pioneered in television commercials, where the faster the message arrived, the better. In the process, the MTV audience learned to see much more quickly and recognize what sometimes quite surreal montages were saying or what they were alluding to - no small accomplishment.

Of course, that is not the whole story of MTV, which also came to project the most dehumanizing images of black people since the dawn of minstrelsy in the 19th century. Pimps, whores, potheads, dope dealers, gangbangers, the crudest materialism and anarchic gang violence were broadcast around the world as "real" black culture.

At first, far too many black people were taken in by the cult of celebrity and the wealth that came to these gold- toothed knuckleheads and mindless hussies to realize what was happening. The lowest possible common denominator was seen as the norm. The illiteracy and rule-of-thumb stupidity was interpreted as a "cultural" rejection of white middle-class norms.

It was as if these dregs had the same heroic position in our time as the largely uneducated Southern black poor of the civil rights movement. Those Southern black people, like the marvelous Fannie Lou Hamer, proved to this nation and to the world that they not only deserved their constitutional rights, but had something both noble and soulful to add to our American understanding of the richness of the human spirit. We are a much greater nation because of the success of the civil rights movement. As they emerged from beneath the bloody rock of segregation, those Southern black people brought to our national identity a compassion and a bravery of immeasurable value.

Unfortunately, the crabbed thug culture that was popularized through MTV brought nothing big with it other than some paychecks.

Twenty-five years later, Christina Norman is the president of the network - and a black woman with a new problem on her hands. Part of that problem is Lisa Fager, a black woman who is president and co-founder of Industry Ears (industryears.com). Fager is disturbed by an MTV "satire" called "Where My Dogs At?" which has a cartoon figure strongly resembling Snoop Dogg who enters a pet store with two black women walking on all fours with leashes around their necks. At the end of the "parody," they defecate on the floor.

Fager's problem is that the spot was shown at 12:30 p.m. on a Saturday afternoon and will, no doubt, perpetuate among younger viewers the misogynist and dehumanizing images we have become accustomed to in too many rap videos.

That's the way big money goes. We can be sure that Christina Norman will have a simplemindedly liberal justification for the material, but I doubt that Lisa Fager will want to hear it. Nor will the millions of black women who oppose this kind of material and are beginning to rise into the sorts of positions that will make them an influential special-interest group. I don't know how long it will take, but change is on the way.

Originally published on August 7, 2006

 

[Abbey Normal]

That's the way big money goes. We can be sure that Christina Norman will have a simplemindedly liberal justification for the material, but I doubt that Lisa Fager will want to hear it. Nor will the millions of black women who oppose this kind of material and are beginning to rise into the sorts of positions that will make them an influential special-interest group. I don't know how long it will take, but change is on the way.

And so it goes. Whenever people object to this crap (and it looks like a video has finally gone and literally used crap), the 1st amendment cries start up. I have long felt sorry for black female children being raised by TV, whose self-image must by now be subterranean.

Juan Williams, a black man who is a contributor to Fox's Beltway Boys, has recently written a book on the subject of modern black culture, which I intend to read:

Enough: The Phony Leaders, Dead-End Movements, and Culture of Failure That Are Undermining Black America--and What We Can Do About It
by Juan Williams

Summary on Amazon.com:

From Publishers Weekly:
"When Bill Cosby addressed a 50th-anniversary celebration of Brown v. Board of Education, he created a major controversy with seemingly inoffensive counsel ("begin with getting a high school education, not having children until one is twenty-one and married, working hard at any job, and being good parents"). Building from Cosby's speech, NPR/Fox journalist Williams offers his ballast to Cosby's position. Williams starts with the question, "Why are so many black Americans, people born inside the gates of American opportunity, still living as if they were locked out from all America has to offer?" His answers include the debacle of big-city politics under self-serving black politicians; reparations as "a divisive dead-end idea"; the perilous state of city schools "under the alliance between the civil rights leaders and the teachers' unions"; and the transformation of rap from "its willingness to confront establishment and stereotypes" to "America's late-night masturbatory fantasy." A sense of the erosion of "the high moral standing of civil rights" underlies Cosby's anguish and Williams's anger. Politically interested readers of a mildly conservative bent will find this book sheer dynamite." (Aug.)

Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

 

[salvadorpringle]

I thought it might be nice to include some facts on this since Mr. Crouch couldn't be bothered to do any research in his article. Snoop Dogg did walk around with women wearing leashes and dog collars, most notably at the 2003 MTV Video Music Awards. The Awards show was covered by every newspaper in the country and seen by 100 times as many people then "Where My Dogs at?"(2006). Stanley Crouch and pressure group head Lisa Fager did not complain about Snoop's behavior. Even the poop gag was based on the 2nd season premiere of "Flavor of Love" when a woman names "Somethin" pooped on Flavor's floor. The woman who started the campaign to get the show cancelled was Lisa Fager, co-founder of the pressure group "Industry Ears". If you click on Lisa Fager's Facebook page you will notice that she lists "The Boondocks" as her favorite TV show. In December of 2005 "The Boondocks" aired an episode called "The Trial of Robert Kelly" that included footage of a 14 year old black girl constantly being urinated on and enjoying it. That episode aired 6 months before "Where My Dogs at?" premiered. Stanley Crouch was given this information in two emails and refused comment. There was also never a retraction by the New York Daily News. The Daily News also refused to comment. Lisa Fager proudly lists the shows cancellation on her resume.

 

[Tank]

This is the way black people are, don't blame MTV.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHGDP0Gvs3Q]‪2 Live Crew - Hoochie Mama (Nasty Version)‬‏ - YouTube[/ame]

 

[FuelRod]

He's probably right. For Godssake look what it did to white people.

 

[salvadorpringle]

I wasn't blaming MTV. I was blaming Lisa Fager and Stanley Crouch for the whole badly researched story and I don't think either of them represent Black America, even though they claim to.

 

[salvadorpringle]

I was wondering why Insein started this thread since it was people like him forwarding this hack article that ended up cancellng this show. If anybody on the board knows him, will you please ask him to explain what motivated him? Does he forward a lot of Stanley Crouch articles? Does he know that Stanley Crouch has a long record of sucker punching homosexuals that is well documented in the Village Voice article "Crouching Stanley, Hidden Gagsta" (Google it) and is probably not the best person to be leading a moral crusade against anything. Did he know that it appears that Stanley Crouch had never even seen an episode of the show and did no research. The cartoon did not show a woman going to the bathoom and didn't even show any poop. Insein lists "South Park" as his favorite show and yet he is offended by the idea of someone making fun of the time Snoop Dogg went to an award show with women in dog collars. Are you kidding me? Insein also applauds South Park for making fun of Tom Cruise and Scientology. Did he know that two of the eight episodes of "Where My Dogs at?" made fun of Tom Cruise and Scientology. Have you ever even seen the show? It seems like if you are going to forward badly researched articles in this group you should at least explain yourself. I am asking because this article was forwarded to about a million websites in a little over a 7 day period. It was almost like a deranged chain letter type virus that was spread all over the internet five years ago. It would be nice to know why.