Wal-Mart sued over Evanescence lyrics (1 Viewer)

[Todd Hochard]

Not the same comparison. F-Bomb can go three times in a movie that's ALREADY rated PG-13, before being bumped to R.
Wiggles is clearly G material. Nobody cusses out Jeff for being such a lazy f*ck, for instance.

 

[Jeff Ulmer]

Who says I'm a lazy f*ck? I'll sue your ass mother&*^%$#@*!

 

[Michael Pineo]

Great. Now I can't get the image of all of the Wiggles yelling "Wake the f*ck up Jeff!!!!" out of my head

If this is such a big deal to these parents, they should have investigated Evanescence's lyrics before letting their daughter buy the CD. This is just another case of parents refusing to do their own job, just brought to the insane level of actually suing a corporation for not doing it for them.

MikeP

 

[SarahG]

People will do anything to potentially make a buck. It's not really fair to the system.

 

[Jeff Ulmer]

Hopefully their lawyer is charging them a huge retainer before the courts throw it out.

 

[Eric_L]

If only there were a similar feature for music CDs. It is eaither labled or it is not.

Expecting a parent to listen to all of a CDs before allowing their children to purchase it is along the same line as my sipping every can of coke illustration from earlier.

 

[Matt Stone]

But suing over one "fuck" is 100 times more over-the-top than expecting a parent to listen to all CDs before buying them. Besides, parents don't have to listen to everything before a purchase. They could have bought the CD and listened to it before allowing their child to. That's not too insane of a request. If these parents are going to act like hearing fuck once is going to soil their children for life, then they should be spending more of their own time sanitizing their childrens' worlds...not expecting the ratings boards to do it for them.

 

[MikeH1]

Thats absolutly true Matt, however it goes against the number one rule for the poor man's lottery, and that they would actually have to be responsible

 

[Ravi K]

These kids are now scarred for life from hearing that word.

 

[Chris Farmer]

I hate Wal-Mart's policy of editing CDs that contain "explicit lyrics" and in fact refuse to buy and music there at all just to be safe. that said, they only edit CDs that have the "explicit lyrics" label to begin with, which is an iffy proposition to begin with. None of Iron Maiden's CDs have the EL sticker, despite all their live albums containing numerous F-bombs. Same goes for early Metallica and plenty of others. Stupid law suit.

 

[Alan Erceg]

The lawsuit is a joke. This child is not going to be scarred for life or anything from hearing the "F" word, when she has probably heard it many million times before that.

The guy should have to pay the court money to hear this stupid case..its a waste of the court's time/money...period.

 

[Jed M]

I love it. I hope WalMart loses their ass and is forced into bankruptcy. I know that will never happen and most likely this will get thrown out of court, but I love to see leaders of censorship get it right back at them. Nobody ever wins with censorship. It would be nice, but will never happen, if WalMart would just ditch this whole censorship thing and leave these "moral" nut jobs high and dry.

That said, I do feel really bad for the girl. Not because she heard the f bomb but because she has to grow up with such greedy/lunatic parents.

 

[Dave Poehlman]

I would bet Wal-Mart employees are dropping F-bombs more than Evanescence.

 

[MarkHastings]

I can't believe you guys! As much as I despise Wal-Mart, where is all of this "down with Wal-Mart" attitude when THEY are the ones being sued?

In fact, isn't this EXACTLY what you were asking for? You wanted Wal-Mart to not sell censored items, they accidentally do and you're AGAINST them? :rolleyes

Sure, Wal-Mart may not have relized it, but if that's the way they want to conduct their business, then so be it, lay off and go elsewhere.

The point is, some lazy parent is trying to make a quick buck by exploiting Wal-Mart. And the other issue is, some sleaze at the record company is trying to surpass Wal-Marts 'culture' by trying to sneak their way in.

As much as I hate Wal-Mart, they really haven't done anything wrong and don't deserve this law suit or the backlash this thread has given them.

 

[Colin Dunn]

Wal-Mart sells R-rated movies on DVD with (much more of) the same kind of language as the song in question. I wonder why they are more worried about the "offensiveness" of explicit music as compared to movies.

 

[ThomasC]

Because there was no label on the CD saying there was any explicit content, whereas all movies have rating information on the back.

 

[Malcolm R]

Right, but the point is that IF there was a label on it, Wal-Mart wouldn't sell it or would demand a censored version. But they do not demand the same of the movies they sell.

 

[Colin Dunn]

What Malcolm said is exactly the point I was trying to make. Wal-Mart doesn't refuse to stock R-rated movies even though they may contain "unwholesome" content. While almost every mainstream picture carries an MPAA rating, the rating doesn't guarantee parents that their kids won't hear a "bad word." There are plenty of PG-13 movies with the "F" word in them. As far as I know, Wal-Mart wouldn't stop a 13-year-old girl from buying a PG-13 movie with a single "F" word in it. And if that is the case, why would they be obligated to stop the same girl from buying a CD with the same amount of vulgar language in it?

Hopefully, this frivolous lawsuit will be tossed out of court soon. Do these parents really think their daughter hasn't heard similar obscenities at school, on the street, or in a movie? Has she never seen obscene graffiti in a bathroom?

There are plenty of other CDs (besides the Evanescence CD) that have this kind of language but no "Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics" sticker on them. I still don't know how the labels decide which recordings get this label and which don't. It obviously isn't solely dependent on the language or themes in the lyrics. Unlike movies, I don't think there is an independent ratings board, comprised of parents, which decides whether or not to label a music recording. Does anyone know if there are any rules / criteria that come into play?

 

[MikeSerrano]

I think an independent ratings board would be a good idea. For nothing other than to make it easier to figure out which albums to avoid, because, I am confident, that any album "the industry" decides is important enough (read: marketable enough) to require rating would not be worth my time.

I suggest the following music ratings:

C: for Corporate standardized programming. This is the kind of "music" that you hear on broadcast radio and is sure not to contain any of the 7 dirty words (but may contain overproduced, bland, hook-filled, sexually-explicit, tripe).

I: for Immature. Pointless rage-filled recordings (cannot really be classified as music) with multiple instances of profanity and/or discussion of depraved behavior.

N: for Non-offensive. Classical, oldies, children's music, etc.

and everything else. The non-rated music. Music that may offend some but does not pander to some corporate idea of what music should be. Music that can have the word "fuck" in it but the people who listen to it can handle it and can educate their children on the usage of language and why "fuck" can be offensive to some and why they should avoid it in most situations (both the word and the act--but that's a different discussion).

-Mike

 

[MarkHastings]

Well, with the PG-13, they are allowed to say it as long as it isn't in relation to a sex act...

"What the Fuck?" (allowed)
"Let's Fuck!" (not allowed)