MTV: Far From Music Television

[University of Michigan, 2006]

On December 2, 1983, Michael Jackson’s Thriller music video aired for the first time on MTV.  It was fourteen minutes long, the most expensive video of its time, and forever changed the way music videos were made.  In 1984, Madonna’s then-risqué music video Like a Virgin paved the way for sexually indecent music videos to come.  In 1986, the era of the music video showed its first signs of fading when spring break shows hosted in Cancun, Miami Beach, and the Bahamas aired on MTV, featuring barely-dressed women and celebrity hosts.  In 1988 music was once again brought to the forefront with the premiere of Yo! MTV Raps, the first show to feature hip-hop performances.  In spite of this, the beginning of the end of real music television manifested in 1992, with the premiere of a reality television series called The Real World.  The series had absolutely nothing to do with music; seven strangers were picked to live in a house, work together, and have their lives taped.  From dating shows to make-over shows, MTV has been going downhill ever since.  It is now television of poor quality, because not only does the network fail to show mostly music videos and music-related content, but it also instills negative morals on its young viewers, including inappropriate ideas about sex, image, and perception of others.  

MTV was launched in 1981, with the purpose of airing music videos, music news, and music events.  The original MTV was modeled after Top 40 radio, with video jockeys (instead of disk jockeys) introducing the videos being played.  By the late 1990s, however, animated comedies and reality shows such as Beavis and Butt-head and Road Rules were infiltrating the network at an astounding rate.  In response to criticism, MTV launched Total Request Live (TRL) in an effort to put the music back in music television. However, MTV cheated the music itself by airing only thirty-second clips of the videos on TRL.  The rest of the show was a display of screaming fans and promotional interviews with artists.  Today, the network has strayed so far from its original purpose that on any given weekday, only about 10% of what is aired between 3 p.m. and 2 a.m. is actually music-related.  MTV programming is almost entirely disconnected from music.

Television is just television, and some may argue that people watch MTV merely for entertainment purposes.  Viewers should understand that even reality television isn’t always really real, so how could a plethora of alcohol, foul language, and promiscuous sex on television have harmful effects?  It’s just entertainment, after all.  But consider MTV’s audience.  According to the Nielsen Media Research, 73% of boys and 78% of girls age 12 to 19 watch MTV.   On average, boys watch about 6.6 hours of MTV per week, and girls watch about 6.2 hours per week (Williams).  MTV specifically targets pre-teenagers and teenagers, and they are extremely effective in drawing in young viewers.  With so much exposure to MTV, the ideas and morals suggested by the programming becomes a part of the daily lives of its young viewers, continuously enforcing its negative content.  What may start out as entertainment for teenagers may soon turn into a model for behavior, because teens and pre-teens simply don’t know any better.  “Adolescents follow trends more than any other age group,” says Julie Baker, associate professor of marketing at Texas Christian University (Dick Jones Communications).  With millions of viewers daily, MTV is most certainly a trendsetter.  Because MTV is made just for them, young viewers watch MTV and use it as the quintessential guide to being “cool” by emulating the characters they see on their television screens.  Just as Sesame Street teaches four and five years old to count and recite the alphabet, MTV has the power to influence adolescents in disturbing and profound ways.   One experiment showed that adolescents that watch MTV have more liberal attitudes about sex than adolescents that do not watch MTV.  In addition, seventh and ninth graders that watch MTV for one hour are more likely to approve of premarital sex than those that do not watch MTV (Greeson).  Indeed, the influence of MTV on its young viewers is significant, and the ways that MTV chooses to influence its viewers (the network is surely aware of its impact on young viewers) is both astonishing and unacceptable. 

Sexual promiscuity and premarital sex are promoted on MTV.  A survey conducted by the Parents TV Council followed 171 hours of MTV Programming; they found 1,548 sexual scenes containing 3,056 depictions of sex or nudity and 2,881 verbal sexual references (West).  Clearly, sex is a common theme of most MTV shows.  Sex is treated in a casual manner, and appears so often that viewers may become used to the idea of having sex or participating in sexual behaviors.  The more exposure they have to sex, the more likely young viewers are to think of it nonchalantly and as something that is common to everyone. 

Take Parental Control, for example.  A teenager, Jon, makes extremely crude sexual references to his girlfriend’s parents, insisting that he “got on” their daughter the previous night, and that “the only thing she likes to ride is me.”  He openly admits that he and his girlfriend are sexually active, and kids watching the show may get the idea that premarital sex is the cool thing to do, and therefore is acceptable and safe.  After all, Jon and his girlfriend have sex, and they’re on MTV, the most popular channel for teens and pre-teens. If they’re having sex, teens might believe, everyone else is, too. 

Next is another show on MTV that promotes sexual behavior.  One episode of Next is titled “Doggy Style.” Although Trent—the main character—is accompanied by his dog, the title alone still implies a “style” of sex, and encourages sexual behavior to its young viewers.  Next is a show in which a number of girls each go on one date with a boy, and as soon as he becomes dissatisfied with the date, he “nexts” the girl, eliminating contestants until he finds a suitable date.  In “Doggy Style,” Marissa is so anxious to win Trent’s heart that she gives him an open-mouth kiss within seconds of meeting him. Later, about a half hour into the date, she kisses him again.  This time the kiss is longer, more passionate, and much more graphic. After seeing this kind of behavior on MTV, girls may be more inclined to exert sexual behavior more quickly when spending time with boys.  Since Trent ends up choosing Marissa as his perfect date, girls get the message that performing sexual acts, even on the first date, is essential in attracting boys.  In addition, boys watching MTV may expect more sexual acts from girls earlier in a relationship.  None of the sexually active characters on MTV deal with the negative consequences of sex, such as AIDS, pregnancy, STDs, or emotional strife.  Furthermore, none of the characters promote safe sex by mentioning condoms or other methods of contraceptives, and all of the characters that are involved with sexual activities are very happy as sexually active people.  This is very unrealistic, and fails to inform teenagers of the negative consequences that often come with sex. 

The ideas about image and perception of others that MTV presents to its viewers are not appropriate by any means.  Nearly all of the characters featured on MTV programming are skinny and good-looking.  Furthermore, when characters on MTV are not as skinny and good-looking as other characters, they are often depicted as failures.  In the show Next, Trent declares at the commencement of the episode that he prefers a girl with a “smooth stomach.”  Young girls watching this show may assume that because Trent likes flat stomachs, all boys prefer skinny girls.  While Trent is not representative of what all boys look for in girls, he is nonetheless featured on a dating show on MTV.  Because MTV is a program targeted specifically at young people, and teenagers and pre-teenagers are more likely to follow trends, the things that Trent and other characters on MTV does and says can be considered trendsetters for teenagers.  Girls may get the idea that being skinny is the another key part of getting boys, and extreme dieting, anorexia, bulimia, or even depression may result in this must-be-skinny mindset.

Alexandra, one of the contestants on Next, is eliminated in only eleven seconds.  Trent makes no attempt to converse with her, and bases his decision to “next” her exclusively on looks (she wasn’t as skinny or pretty as the other girls).  Trent displays

extreme signs of shallowness, judging people entirely on outward appearance.  Girls watching MTV that aren’t beautiful and skinny might develop extremely low self-esteem—Trent, a good-looking boy on MTV, doesn’t even give Alexandra a chance.  If Trent ignores girls that aren’t perfect in body and appearance, why would any other boy pay attention to a girl that is less than perfect?  In addition, boys watching MTV might come to the conclusion that it is okay to judge a girl solely on looks, accepting only skinny and beautiful girls as datable. 

While popular culture has always been considered controversial by some, MTV has gone above and beyond the cutting-edge of what ought to be considered “cool.”  From Elvis Presley and Rock N’ Roll to Britney Spears and her too-sexy videos, history has shown that new trends will always be developing and that kids will always adhere to what is presented to them through the media.  But how far is too far?  When the ideas presented on television encourage sexual promiscuity and infuse inappropriate ideas about image and perception of others, it is clear that today’s programming needs to be closely reexamined.  MTV programming needs to be immensely revised so that it adheres to the proper values and morals that we wish to instill into young people—and reflects its original intention of music in television—because it is the values and morals of MTV that kids are absorbing and applying to their lifestyles.  And do we really want the future leaders of our country to be raised in a world of sexual promiscuity, image-obsessed people, and superficiality?  I think not.