Reassessing sex and violence in the media

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By: Kaiwen Song

You literally owe your life to sex. Your parents at some point in time decided to do the nasty and voilà: you were conceived. You know what you don’t owe your life to? Violence, which is conversely responsible for the ending of many lives. If this is true, why does our society condone messages of violence over those of sexuality, especially from female celebrities?

This May, Taylor Swift released her highly anticipated music video for “Bad Blood.” The video featured Selena Gomez pushing Swift out of a window, and Taylor subsequently enlisting a squad of assassins (complete with machine guns and other weapons) to exact revenge. Despite these graphic depictions of violence, the video was celebrated as a feminist statement and Swift maintained her status as America’s sweetheart. In comparison, this year Nicki Minaj and Miley Cyrus released popular music videos for “Anaconda” and “Wrecking Ball,” respectively. Instead of being violent, these videos showed Minaj and Cyrus in various stages of undress being sexually provocative. Responses to these videos were less than enthusiastic, with critics deeming Minaj’s video as “vile” and “desperate” and claiming that Cyrus had “finally gone too far this time.” Swift assembling assassins with dangerous weapons is female empowerment, while Minaj taking off her clothes is vile?

This unbalanced attitude towards violence and sexuality is prevalent across all popular media. This year, the American Family Association called for a boycott of Fifty Shades of Grey for being “an incredibly unhealthy view of relationships and sexuality.” Whether this accusation is true or not is debatable. Still, I can’t help but notice that no one protested other gratuitously violent summer blockbusters such as Furious 7 and Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation. Where was the American Family Association then? In fact, when was the last time that a violent movie without an overt sexual component was admonished, much less boycotted?

Why are we more tolerant of the media displaying acts of violence than sexuality? It’s certainly not because the former is more morally acceptable as killing is universally inappropriate.  However, parents are much more likely to allow their children to witness such behaviour than even the briefest hint of sexual activity. What will viewing sex do to your child? Will they start asking questions? Although that may be a difficult topic to discuss, how is that any worse than the impact of viewing violent behaviour on children?

The media’s stance on displays of sexuality is in need of a major overhaul. Unlike violence, acts of sexuality are perfectly normal behaviour and should be treated as such. In a world where violent imagery is widespread and unchallenged, it is mystifying that depictions of sexual behaviour are treated with disgust and indignation. Tell me, would you rather have sex or kill someone?

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