Parents Group Should Avoid Publicity

The story was published by many news sites. Here is one such story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090122/music_nm/us_spears_2

The lowdown is that the Parents Television Council¹, sought to ban the Britney Spear's song "If You Seek Amy". One, because the title phrase, if said quickly can be a likened to "F-U-C-K Me". As well, if you listen to the lyrics, they can be alluded to sexual promiscuity. At least that is what I got out of hearing the song.

Now, as a mother myself, I can understand the view of the PTC. However, they should not have made it so public. They were probably trying to spread the word to parents across the country, as so many parents are completely unaware of what their children are really listening to, but in my opinion, by making the story so public they actually hurt their cause. How is it hurting their cause? The record label distributed an edited version to radio stations², so they won right? In that respect, yes, but it is with the young people who hear and read the news stories that the PTC has lost their fight.

By making the story public, the PTC has made thousands of young minds aware of the quirks to the song. A large majority of those teens and pre-teens would probably have never even noticed the slight-of-ear reference, or the sexual undertones of the whole song. Sure, there would have been a few groups that spread the word around, but it the numbers would have been a lot smaller than the groups that will spread it now. By publicly pointing out what is wrong with the song, they have now piqued the interest of thousands of young people who will now download, purchase, and spread the song around simply BECAUSE OF those very things that are "wrong". It has now become a "thrill" or "a cool oddity" because of its newfound status as a "bad for children" song.

So where they won their fight in cleaning the air waves of a phrase that could be misheard and construed as naughty, they have lost the larger battle of cleaning the minds of the majority. Radio is only ONE area where kids can listen to music. You cannot eliminate the song from every available avenue. Had they quietly petitioned the radio stations to also quietly petition the record label, they probably could have still won the radio fight, but without calling attention to the obscenity of the song in the public ear and eye. Then the song would have gone the normal course of appearing on the top charts, and then slowly fading into history as they all eventually do.

1. http://www.parentstv.org/
is a non-partisan education organization founded in 1995 to ensure that children are not assaulted by sex, violence and profanity on television and other media.

2. Britney's record label Jive issued an edited version of the track...http://preview.tinyurl.com/cssc4o