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Running head: SAVE THE CHILDREN 1
Save the Children: The Parents’ Music Resource Center and Media Activism
Joseph Roskos
MSCH-C552
May 5, 2016
SAVE THE CHILDREN 2
Introduction
“You feel so helpless and you try everything,” stated Sandra Ellis of San Pedro about her
14-year-old-daughter Shannon, who immersed herself in the punk rock and heavy metal scenes
in Los Angeles in 1985. Shannon was ostensibly transformed by the music, albeit temporarily,
into a behavioral menace to her mother, who did not know what to make of her daughter’s
transformation from an A-student into someone who began staying out late and not checking in
with her parents (McLellan, 1985). The LA Times writer Dennis McLellan wrote, “They are the
extreme--the young people for whom punk rock or heavy metal music has become a way of life:
Bizarre clothing and hair styles... Satanism. Violence to themselves and others. Rebellion--
against all forms of parental and societal authority.” Then, there was the story of “Rick,” a
teenager whose unfortunate and abusive familial circumstances led him to the punk scene after
his abusive father died, for Rick “had his hair cut in a punk style and dyed orange. He started
wearing swastika armbands and purple high-top tennis shoes, along with the rest of the
paraphernalia associated with punk” (Bodenhamer, 1983, p. 36-37). They were the scourge of
suburbia, disrupting its alleged pleasantries and staining the lily-white gardens of illusion of
domesticity in American society during the 1980s. Some parents were disturbed by such stories.
From their perspective, the safe days of supposedly clean and fun rock’n’roll had descended into
sex, violence, and general debauchery and excess. Stories about punk rockers and heavy metalers
were the extreme cases of the many moral scourges faced by socially conservative parents across
the country.
Tipper Gore (1987) writes, “In concert, the most strident bands not only play their music
at the highest decibels, but perform what they describe as ‘vaudeville acts’ that glamorize explicit
sex, alcohol and drug use, and bloody violence” (p. 50). Parents were ostensibly worried about
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losing control of their children to spectacular performances that persuaded their children to bend
and break societal norms. If they were unable to guide constructively the development of their
children’s mental well-being, then there was little hope for the future as their white children fell
under the insidious spell of punk rock music or heavy metal. Hence, it was imperative for
concerned parents to channel their energy towards constructive activism, which tied these
rational and emotional concerns for their children’s well-being to consumer advocacy and the
societal organism. With the creation of the Parents Music Research Center in 1985, concerned
parents and politicians battled music artists who contested bombardments against free speech;
the PMRC’s supporters hoped to stem the tide of unclean culture and protect the (white) body
politic. The PMRC successfully influenced the Recording Industry Association of America to
adopt warning labels and encourage record companies to display them on their products.
Previous scholars have examined diverse topics such as the PMRC’s place in the history
of censorship (McDonald, 1988; Nuzum, 2001), its role as a semi-successful public interest
group (Fontenot & Harriss, 2010), and the voice for the defense of the dominant values in
American society (Garofalo, 1994). My research intervenes by focusing on the implications of
decentralized media policymaking, using contemporary Billboard and Radio & Records
magazines, and newspaper articles to historicize the censorship debate in the US and analyze the
competing discourses deployed in the PMRC debate. I explore how the PMRC’s integration of
emotional and rational arguments helped to persuade music industries insiders, politicians, and
parents across the nation and create support for parental oversight mechanisms of children’s
music purchases. Thus, I argue that the PMRC debate conveyed how socially conservative
lifestyle and moral politics benefitted from the reformulation of the public sphere as a private
-parental space where gradually media policy decisions were negotiated between private citizens
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and corporate entities within neoliberal society. In making this argument, I assert that the leaders
of the PMRC performed a feminine neoliberal subjectivity and conceptualized American society
as inextricably tied to a white heteronormative body politic, which necessitated hybridization
with corporate structures in order to engage efficiently in media activism and police popular
tastes in order to maintain the wellbeing of the societal body. Through the interaction of moral
and emotional politics, the PMRC was ultimately able to perform and realize a neoliberal
subjectivity while legitimating emotional reasoning.
Methodology
My paper employs historical methodology and uses textual analysis to examine
contemporary news articles about the Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC) and articles from
Billboard and Radio & Records to compare how mainstream media and trade press depicted the
PMRC. Thus, my research heeds Hilmes’ (2009) call for further investigation into media
activism as an ancillary dimension of the media industries. To my knowledge, no previous
research has looked extensively at the discourses used throughout this year in Billboard
Magazine and Radio & Records in relation to what was being said about the PMRC and the
censorship debate. I use these sources because they are rich in insight into how music industries
issues are framed and understood, and I think they are excellent sources for gathering
information about events whose documentation is not available. Hence, this paper examines
these news sources from 1985 when the PMRC mobilized its media blitz and ultimately
succeeded in persuading the RIAA to adopt voluntarily the use of warning labels for the major
record companies under its dominion. My analysis is divided into three sections. First, I utilize
contemporary newspapers to recount the founding of the PMRC and its activities until the end of
1985, when the PMRC and PTA struck a compromise with the RIAA over the labelling issue. I
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analyze the major themes discussed by the historical actors, which pertained to family,
censorship, and freedom of speech, and situate them within broader conservative cultural
concerns. Second, I examine the discourses circulating within Billboard Magazine and Radio &
Records about the PMRC and the censorship debate and pay close attention to gendered
discourses. In my conclusion, I synthesize my findings and discuss their implications for the role
played by emotional politics within media activism within neoliberal society, demonstrating the
importance of emotional politics.
Previous research on the PMRC and the censorship debate does not address the emotional
dimension of the arguments forwarded by the PMRC and the role they played in successfully
persuading the music industries to adopt a self-regulatory policy concerning the vicarious
monitory and arbitrating role of the musical tastes of young Americans. Policing and overseeing
children’s musical purchases and tastes were important because of the supposed threats posed by
sexually explicit or violent music. Ultimately, emotionally charged music necessitated an
emotionally charged counterattack by concerned parents and it was necessary for the
counterattack to be situated within a framework that connected to an established tradition of
consumer activism, which was ultimately undergirded by the belief that moments of emotional
intensity could profoundly shape the moral and rational well-being of the people.
Prior to analyzing and examining the themes and discourses employed by mainstream
media and trade press, I address relevant literatures and situate my research within them. My
literature review is organized as follows. First, I review the secondary source literature pertaining
to social movements and the use of emotional discourses within them and relate this research to
relevant academic works about media activism. Then, I discuss prior examinations of the PMRC
and the censorship debate in 1985, ultimately situating the PMRC as a socially conservative
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movement that advanced emotional and rational arguments to appeal to political and music
industries policymakers.
Literature Review
New social movements research centers on questions of autonomy and the cultural
politics of identity within a socioeconomic and political environment where faith in government
and its institutional apparatuses for democratic change was/is low and government policies
threatened to depoliticize and privatize public life (Touraine, 1981, 1985; Offe, 1985; Melucci,
1985). Concerning the role of emotions in social movements, Jeff Goodwin, James M. Jasper,
and Francesca Polletta (2007) write that affects provide guides for how people perceive their
worlds, affecting whether they participate in movements or not, which is based on how
emotionally intense (positively and negatively) they feel towards something or someone (p. 418).
Moreover, Polletta (2002) writes that collective social movements might attempt to exploit the
pre-existing social ties of current members in order to expand their reach into the social networks
of their members and recruit people. Group decision-making gives members a stake in
movement organizations and responsibility for its success (p. 209-210). This paper views the
PMRC as a media activist group, which is defined as “organized ‘grassroots’ efforts directed to
creating or influencing media practices and strategies, whether as a primary objective, or as a by-
product of other campaigns” (Hackett & Carroll, 2006, p. 84).
The PMRC certainly did not struggle to gain a following of concerned parents because it
was able to deploy a rhetoric that resonated with them, for the group presented itself in a manner
where concerned parents (or at least policymakers) believed what they said about the dangers of
the musical content that concerned them. The PMRC presented itself as authentic and they
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performed convincingly the role of concerned parents (Alexander, 2011). Grossberg’s (1992)
definition of affect as a force that creates a sense of belonging or identification amongst a group
of people informs my understanding about how emotional ties were constructed and maintained
among supporters of the PMRC (p. 81-84). One can imagine a group of parents listening to
Tipper Gore (1987) tell how she was taken aback when she listened to Prince’s best-selling
album Purple Rain with her daughter, and heard the song “Darling Nikki,” in which Prince sings,
“I knew a girl named Nikki/Guess [you] could say she was a sex fiend/I met her in a hotel
lobby/Masturbating with a magazine” (p. 17).
PMRC and Media Activism Literature
Several scholars have addressed the PMRC and the censorship debate over the past two
decades. This literature review is divided into three sections, which focus on censorship rhetoric
and its emphasis on the dangers posed by “porn rock” to the American family, the disparagement
of “the masses” who were purportedly unable to withstand the evils of rock-n-roll, and the
importance of “porn rock’s” effects on the body. Within this section, I incorporate literature
about media activism as a social movement.
Research has also centered on the deployment of censorship rhetoric by the PMRC,
which centered the American family as pivotal in the battle to withstand the destruction of the
family. Prinsky and Rosenbaum (1987) and Walser (1993) have respectively written about the
PMRC from social-scientific and critical-cultural perspectives. For example, contrary to the
assertions of parents groups and the PMRC, Prinsky and Rosenbaum (1987) found that
adolescents offered multiple simple interpretations of a collection of songs, attributing their
surface level interpretations to lack of cognitive development for understanding metaphor, but
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acknowledging life experiences as moderating factors in influencing how songs were interpreted.
Prinsky and Rosenbaum (1987) suggest parents possessed more knowledge about certain topics,
which is why they were more likely to hear explicit and implicit sexual references or allusions to
drugs, violence, and the occult (p. 393). Moreover, in his study about how power circulates and
manifests through heavy metal music, Walser (1993) argues that the PMRC’s campaign for
music censorship was premised on “assuming the universality of ‘the American Family,” an
institution of mythic stature but scant abundance, provides an absolute norm that can be
righteously defended” (p. 138).
Within the discourses used throughout the censorship debate, the family was imagined as
one of the main organizing components of American society and it existed away from public life.
Prinsky and Rosenbaum (1987) and Walser (1993) discussed the family as part of the public
sphere, yet not necessarily absorbed within it, or embedded within its functioning. Rather than
view the PMRC as attempting to separate politics from the personal, the PMRC politicized the
family within the public sphere. In my paper, I conceptualize the PMRC as a movement/family
that attempted to inhabit or remake the public-private sphere into itself as the imagined
“American family.” The “Washington wives” or “Washington mothers” were the guardians of
American morality and the purity of the nation’s children, yet they were also agentic in their
deployment of hybridized emotional-rational discourses, which were drawn from notions about
traditional gender norms.
Also discussing the role of the family within these discourses, Chastagner (1999) argues
that the PMRC subtly advocated censorship by using the distraction of consumer advocacy for
ultimately upholding the hegemony of white heteronormative family values and racial norms by
appealing to collective socially conservative indignation (p. 180). Napoli (2007) notes how
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scholarly attention towards media reform activism as social movement generally perceives media
reform activism as an outgrowth from the civil rights movements, rather than connecting it with
consumer activism. Napoli writes that research situating the media activist and reform
movements within the framework of consumer activism are needed (p. 56). Scholars of media
reform social movements such as Carroll and Hackett (2006, p. 84) have noted that conservative
and reactionary media activists tend to reinforce hierarchy and exclusion through their
campaigns to influence media. Yet, the PMRC’s agenda was not simply a collection of
unreasonable demands, but rather historically aligned with decades of consumer activism
(Cohen, 2003) and a step towards the privatization of media activism within American society.
Rather than focus their efforts towards the federal government to become involved in regulating
content, activists directed their energy towards corporate structures that influence and oversee the
production of cultural documents. While their arguments might be based in rationality, I contend
that emotional affect is an integral component to enacting change within the media environment.
Moreover, the RIAA and other music industries organizations adopted the PMRC’s language of
emotional affect because it enabled them to stem partially criticism towards them, for arguments
about potential profit losses resultant from any form of music censorship did not resonate with
the public.
In Adolphson's (2014) essay about how cultural elements can become flashpoints for
conflict within the framework of the culture wars, he writes that the ambiguous terrains and
undefined boundaries of things such as sexual identity, high and low brow culture, and race make
them susceptible to points of contestation within the culture wars. Moreover, Adolphson (2014)
argues, "Since there are no neutral grounds in the culture wars, the battle lines are drawn deeply
into the moral character of the individual. It then becomes the duty of citizens to engage in
SAVE THE CHILDREN 10
perpetuating a certain lifestyle by voicing their opinions publicly and without resolve” (p. 204).
Jasper (1998) argues that social movement activists attempt to cultivate a cluster of emotions,
which make up “attack mode,” or the build-up of anxieties and fears that are converted into
outrage that is directed towards concrete policies and decision-makers. Moreover, the cultural
stakes of the PMRC’s campaign were high as they sought to prevent the further deterioration of
family life. Perlman (2016) writes that media policy advocacy is a gradual process in which over
time advocacy groups develop skills and gain resources that are necessary to interject themselves
within media policymaking decisions while adjusting their expectations in accordance with
particular historical moments (p. 260). For example, the Parent Teachers Association (PTA)
originally wrote to thirty-two record companies in 1984 about possibly implementing a labelling
system for music products that contained sexual content, violence, and profanity. However, the
PTA only received responses from three companies (Gore, 1987, p. 23). The failure of the PTA to
attract the attention of individual companies was rectified with formation of the PMRC in May
1985 challenged the RIAA instead of focusing on individual companies (Gore, 1987, p. 22-23).
In addition, Jasper (1998) writes, “The prospect of unexpected and sudden changes in
one’s surroundings can arouse feelings of dread and anger. The former can paralyze, the latter
can be the basis for mobilization” (p. 409-410). In addition, although focusing on the family
within this debate, Grossberg (2004) argues that the PMRC adopted a strategy of discriminating
between the acceptable and unacceptable while policing the boundary between them by “locating
rock within the relations of domestic power” (p. 195). The PMRC’s rhetoric of attack
successfully deployed a binary between early rock and contemporary rock, which situated the
PMRC as arbiters of taste and helped make superior their youth culture while disparaging
contemporary youth culture. Ultimately, advocating the voluntary labels became a way of
SAVE THE CHILDREN 11
empowering parents within domestic spaces (Grossberg, 2004, 195-196). Thus, I argue that the
discourses of the PMRC and its supporters were situated within the realm of emotional reasoning
in the confines of the home as a site of consumption, and they simultaneously intensified the
cultural stakes of the debate.
Scholars have also criticized the lack of intellectual rigor within the discourses deployed
by the PMRC, claiming listeners possessed more agency than the PMRC imagined them to have.
For example, McDonald (1988) demonstrates in his article that the PMRC's actions reflected
those of previous rock-n-roll censorship attempts since the mid-1950s, arguing that the PMRC
indulged in emotionalism and made big claims about the effects of rock-n-roll music yet was
unable to substantiate them with intellectual analysis (p. 308-310). Also, Walser (1993) argues
that consultation received by professors who supported the PMRC was largely based on the idea
that media exerts mass effects on receptive audiences, who do not exercise agency, which made
“fans into dupes without agency or subjectivity, without social experiences and perceptions that
might inform their interactions with mass mediated texts" (p. 73).
Meier's (2008) article explores the bodily dimensions of "porn rock," the music
implicated by the PMRC and other critics, and asserts that criticism stemmed from this body
genre of music was deemed "'bad' music, largely due to the excesses associated with their
performers and fans" (p. 255). Excessive sexuality or violence transgressed the boundaries of
decency. Framed within discussions about body genres, I would argue that the excesses of the
condemned music were viewed as corrupting influences on white male and female bodies. The
PMRC and concerned parents likely feared the possibility that behaviors developed during
adolescence would become ingrained in the minds of American youth. For example, the inability
to refrain from indulgence in excess violated the social constructedness of the white body as
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unperturbed by corrupting influences. The PMRC's connections with religious groups (Gore,
1987) indicate a subtle acknowledgment of the idea of the body as a site of sanctity and
abstinence, which was likely promoted by different religious groups. Richard Dyer (1997) writes,
"[W]hite people are something else that is realized in and yet is not reducible to the corporeal, or
racial... " (p. 14-15). Furthermore, Dyer (1997) notes the unattainability of pure whiteness in the
Judeo-Christian sense, arguing to be purely white would be to attain divinity (p. 15-17). By
connecting morality with emotion, the PMRC simultaneously existed on the plane of bodily
existence while maintaining an objective self.
The Wives, the Women, the Mothers: PMRC News Coverage
When a group of mothers, which included Pam Howard, Susan Baker, wife of Secretary
of the Treasury James A. Baker III, and Tipper Gore, wife of Senator Albert Gore, called out
music companies for producing records that contained questionable content, they indicated how
high the cultural stakes were for the nation’s soul. In addressing the Washington Post, the
spokeswoman for the group of women, Pam Howard, stated, “The floodgates opened when I
heard Prince singing about masturbation.” In a letter to music companies, the women outlined
their concerns about the nature of the music industries in 1985, writing "Rock music has become
pornographic and sexually explicit, but most parents are unaware of the words their children are
listening to, dancing to, doing homework to, falling asleep to…” (Radcliffe, 1985).
Within this framework, “pornographic and sexually explicit” contemporary music was
believed to organize the everyday lives of children. Music slowly occupied the senses and bodies
of the listener by first attracting the attention of person, then affecting body movements (a
physical immediate response), afterwards becoming part of a cognitive learning process, and
finally invading one of the most private spaces within a home: the bedroom. It was believed this
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genre of music exerted a profoundly negative influence on children, for it interfered with
children’s learning and their innocence and modesty. Thus, the PMRC had to discern who was
responsible for the production of this type of music to address the problems they saw.
Implementing the power of their connections to politically influential leaders, the PMRC
emerged as a formidable organization against the music industries in 1985. Over the year, the
PMRC successfully waged battle against the music industries in persuading the major
organizations, the RIAA and National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), to bend to their will
and partially submit to their call for supporting labelling musical content that contained
questionable lyrics. Within the first couple of months of its existence, the PMRC was able to
persuade Stanley Gortikov, president of the RIAA, to meet with them and Eddie Fritts, president
of the National Association of Broadcasters, who they persuaded to send letters to 45 recording
companies, which requested that they provide written lyrics for the albums they sent to
broadcasters. (Raspberry, 1985). Tipper Gore (1987) indicated how a public meeting at St.
Columba’s Church in Washington, D.C. on May 30, 1985, was instrumental for making a
connection with Martha Dale Fritts, wife of Eddie Fritts (p. 19).
Congregating at the church for a public meeting was important for establishing the
trajectory and image of the PMRC and its supporters. Within Judeo-Christian religions, the body
metaphor functions as a unifying component among churchgoers, which reflected the spiritual
and physical health of a community’s congregants (Lindberg, 1993, p. 102; Turner, 2008). In this
context, the body was viewed as a living organism, for the different people each made up an
integral component of the body. If one part of the body/organism were affected, then the body’s
other parts would be affected too. Therefore, people were expected to treat themselves with
dignity, and to refrain doing harm to themselves in order to serve the whole. In this sense, the
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PMRC projected the image of itself as concerned with American society as a body that needed
protection from questionable music.
Frith (1981) argues that criticism towards the mass media for the ruin of children is
grounded in the theory of mass-media effects on the audience, though as he points out, this
argument is weak because the effects of a heavy dosage of rock-n-roll on youth cannot be
attributed to a single cause (p. 268). While Frith is correct in stating that the effects cannot be
conclusively determined or attributed to a single source, the PMRC employed language that
spoke to experiences that appealed to the emotions of listeners. A perceived threat, even if it is
constructed, is no less a threat if it provokes an emotional response instead of a rational response.
As previously noted by Grossberg (1992) and Goodwin, Jasper, and Polletta (2007), the sharing
of this emotional response forges an affective bond among those who experience it. For example,
in making their arguments about the dangers posed by contemporary rock’n’roll music, the
PMRC and its supporters pointed to the unusual increase in suicides among young male adults
(15-19) within the few decades. In 1985, researchers at the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta
noted how there was a startling trend of suicides among young people since 1955, as the youth
suicide rate tripled. The growth rate of suicides among young males between 15 and 19 were
particularly troublesome, for between 1970 and 1982, the suicide rate among them rose 60
percent (Kornblum, 1985). At worse, explicit music could lead to the absolute destruction of the
self. In particular, parents who were concerned about heavy metal music attributed it as a cause
of suicide among young adults. One highly publicized instance was when the suicide of
nineteen-year-old John McCullum was attributed to Ozzy Osbourne’s song, “Suicide Solution,” a
song allegedly listened to by McCullum prior to his suicide. McCullum’s father was especially
critical of the record companies that produced this material, for he stated, “The record companies
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are more at fault than the artists. They know what they are putting out…. [T]hey have no
hesitation to sell your kids down the drain” (Gore, 1987, p. 106-107). The PMRC utilized
effectively this anti-corporate/anti-heavy metal discourse by clothing its arguments in academic
respectability of the group’s academic representative Dr. Joe Stuessy, who argued that music
affects people’s psychological and physiological well-being and that heavy metal music was
threatening because “hatred” constituted one of its “central themes” (“Record Labeling,” 1985,
p. 117).
The connection between suicide and heavy metal music was tenuous, but what mattered
was that it resonated with some people. Hence, the construction of the heteronormative white
body was foundational for positive emotional arguments about the need to protect children
because they were most vulnerable to bursts of emotion. Within these arguments was an
underlying rationality. If the children could not keep control of their bodies, then they would
subsequently affect the whole body (i.e. the idealized white middle-class family) in presumably
negative ways. In this way, the PMRC appealed to the public obligations of the nation’s citizens
while accounting for the necessity of protecting the private family against harm. Thus, the
PMRC needed to protect itself from the people who directly or indirectly threatened the body.
Throughout the year, several musicians and music industries professionals adamantly
opposed any form of censorship enforced from outside the music industries and generally
supported self-restraint. For example, Spencer Proffer of Quiet Riot stated, “Anything is open to
interpretation because music is fundamentally an interpretive art form. The best censor is still
personal judgment. We as an industry should resist any outside attempts to impose restrictions on
our art” (Grein, Sept. 7, 1985, p. 68). The musician Mtume and Billboard Magazine writer
Nelson George, who recognized the potential damage to be done to black-owned radio stations
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and musicians, suggested a more sinister agenda. For example, Mtume stated, “This is a false
morality being preached here by a small group of old white decision makers. They haven’t
canvassed the black and young white audiences as to their views” (Grein, Sept. 7, 1985, p. 68).
Furthermore, Nelson George wrote, “Black music has always been one of the places in American
culture where the issues of sexual warfare and romantic love have subtly, and sometimes not so
subtly, been explored. It is this quality that makes black music…particularly vulnerable to
attack” (George, Sept. 21, 1985, p. 50).
In these counterarguments against the PMRC’s attempt to arbitrate tastes (Bourdieu,
1979) and thus arbitrate who was included and who was excluded, each person to some degree
operates within the discourses set by the PMRC. Whereas the PMRC advocated that the music
industries take responsibility and provide warning labels for consumers, Proffer appealed to the
personal taste of individual consumers. George and Mtumbe directly address what is at stake in
the censorship debate by appealing to the importance of policing the body. In this way,
censorship would constitute another form of systemic oppression in which not only would the
affective and emotional expressions of African American musicians be denied, but the
psychological and bodily expressions of musicians would be policed too. Censorship would
constitute a psychological and physical white hegemonic assault on black performative
declarations of self, thus further subjugating black bodies under white domination (Yancy, 2008).
In addition, Danny Goldberg, president of Gold Mountain Records and chairman of the
Musical Majority, a group of record companies that were opposed to labeling, stated ''All of us
worry most about freedom of speech when it affects our own outlet. Rating records would
undermine the creative process and undermine the economic structure of the business. A lunatic
fringe minority is trying to subvert one of the most wonderful aspects of our culture'' (Pareles,
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1985; Sutherland, Oct. 4, 1985, p. 68). Steve Chapple and Reebee Garofalo (1977) have argued
that the commodification of music and the concentration of music production within the hands of
a few music companies undercut diversification of creative expression, potentially leading to the
standardization of formulaic music that imitates the corporate logic and ideology (p. 300).
Garofalo (1994) posits that the PMRC's campaign for music censorship was framed within the
political economic context of the RIAA's efforts to secure passage of the "Home Taping Bill,"
which would have enabled record companies to collect lost revenues on the sale of blank tapes to
consumers (p. 88-89). During the proceedings at the New Music Seminar in New York City on
September 26-28, 1985, music journalist David Marsh was quoted as saying, “They don’t need a
ratings code, because Stanley’s going to give them what they want through the back door,”
arguing that the RIAA’s integrity was undermined by its desire to secure passage of the Home
Taping Bill (“Lyric Controversy Dominates,” 1985).
By late August, the PMRC and PTA partially succeeded in convincing the RIAA to adopt
a warning label, for both sides expected a more comprehensive rating system and the “PG”
(Parental Guidance) label was viewed as too mild. In addition, there were disagreements between
the PMRC and PTA, for according to spokeswoman Tari Marshall of the PTA, "They're [PMRC]
getting involved in what radio stations play on the air and asking labels to reconsider signing
artists with explicit material and we don't agree with that at all” (Harrington, Aug. 29, 1985, G1).
Furthermore, Marshall pointed out how the PTA was not deliberately targeting rock music, but
rather insisted that the labels should apply to all music. President of the PTA Ann Kahn re-
emphasized the importance of enabling consumers to be informed about music products in order
to make wiser purchases, stating, “We don't want to censor. We are not saying whether we think
this is good or bad, just that if it has explicit material on it, say so and let the consumer know
SAVE THE CHILDREN 18
that.” After many debates over the next two months, the RIAA and PMRC agreed to a warning
label and a lyric sheet option for companies that did not wish to use the warning label. Non-
members of the RIAA would be encouraged by the RIAA to adopt the labels and the PMRC
would direct criticism towards them if they were unwilling to do so (Goodman, Nov. 9, 1985, p.
87).
Record Company Interests
What is perhaps lost in these discourses are the reasons why the music industries
responded in the ways they did towards the threats posed by the PMRC. Providing historical
context will demonstrate why the music industries eventually adopted labels for music that
contained explicit content. Over the 1960s and 1970s, the music industries underwent a series of
mergers that occurred during structural changes that affected how music production was financed
and operated. Tschmuck (2012) writes, “Music productions had to be financed in advance, and
large sums of money had to be invested in complex marketing operations” (p. 151). As part of
this consolidation and merger process, large record companies attempted to minimize financial
risk by utilizing small independent companies as testing grounds for bold and innovative
musicians (Tschmuck, 2012, p. 151). Hence, small independent companies carried the potential
burden of handling parental concerns about controversial musicians who had not yet proved
profitable in the eyes of the large music corporations (Negus, 1992, p. 40). In this way, the large
record companies could maintain that they were not directly culpable or accountable for what
musicians the small independent companies promoted. This was evident in the failure of the PTA
to garner the attention of the music industries in 1984 when they did not successively petition
record companies to provide warning labels on explicit content (Gore, 1987, p. 22-23). Although
the record companies covered themselves from being culpable from issues that might arise from
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among the small independent companies, it also made the large record companies and
corporations vulnerable to attack because it was simultaneously centralized and de-centralized.
In one sense, the corporate body was vulnerable to the family/consumer/private body of the
PMRC. Vertical integration, like CBS-Columbia’s move to control distribution through
controlling wholesale stores and distribution centers, and horizontal integration, like the merger
of EMI and Capitol, resulted in concentrated planning (Tschmuck, 2012, p. 147). Production,
marketing, and distribution of records were tied together, thus necessitating careful financial
planning in order to make the industries less vulnerable to fluctuations and unexpected market
threats. Hence, damage done to one part of the corporate body would result in the harm of other
parts of the music industries corporate structure.
Assuming Control: Controlling Censorship Discourses
Music industries officials were mostly open to some form of self-regulation for various
reasons, though there was an underlying tension between the PMRC and music industries
officials, which was exhibited in the gendered and sexist language deployed or conveyed within
music industries trade press. In researching articles from Billboard Magazine and Radio and
Records from 1985, it was evident that Billboard Magazine was more prolific in regards to
information pertaining to the PMRC while Radio and Records had comparatively less articles.
Much like mainstream newspapers, Billboard Magazine and Radio and Records included mostly
moderate tones, leaning on the side of caution. Few articles gave room for oppositional voices
within the debate (Nelson George’s articles were in the back of Billboard), though eventually
articles included viewpoints from concerned producers and musicians. Nonetheless, the
dominance of female voices was significant because their arguments were well articulated and
they were organized well. The various publications compromised by granting agency to the
SAVE THE CHILDREN 20
PMRC while emphasizing its emotional dimension. The adoption of gendered language by
editors and writers, which situated women within the boundaries of traditional norms of
femininity, was an attempt to contain the potentially radical elements contained within those
voices and render their activism intelligible to readers while positioning men of power within the
music industries the opportunity to control the discourses. As the powerful and symbolic fathers
of this corporate family, they felt obligated to assert their dominion over consumers who were
infantilized.
In the first substantive article about the PMRC, the editors of Radio and Records detailed
radio broadcasters’ reception of National Association of Broadcasting’s President Eddie Fritts’
call for record companies to send lyric sheets to broadcasters along with new albums. According
to the article, Fritts wrote that it already difficult for broadcasters to sort through “the sheer
volume of new records (and videos) made available to broadcaster.” Access to more information
was viewed as a solution to programming inefficiency. Coherent information could potentially
allow programmers to make informed decisions, which could possibly lead to the expansion of
audiences and therefore revenue from increased advertisement sales. The ability of radio
programmers to assess community tastes was necessary for financial success. Charlie Kendall, a
program director at WNEW-FM in New York stated, “An astute programmer knows where the
lines of his community are drawn, and that’s the key” (“NAB Asks Labels,” 1985). Kendall
emphasizes the ability of radio programmers to know what audience members desired. In this
sense, the radio programmer was viewed as a public figure who served the public’s interest.
Radio programmers were the barometer of public sentiments and thoughts. Moreover, it is
important to not idealize this position because of the increased concentration of
radiobroadcasting stations during the 1980s. Perlman (2012) writes that deregulatory policies
SAVE THE CHILDREN 21
were “enshrined in policy decisions” that were implemented during the early 1980s, resulting in
the glorification of the “marketplace of ideas” approach, which undermined the localism of
radiobroadcasting stations and positioned larger companies to buy stations under loosened
ownership rules (p. 360).
In the first article that directly addresses the leaders of the PMRC and their activities, the
editors of Radio and Records are unsure what to make of the PMRC because “They give the
appearance of feeling their way along—with no clear game plan at this point—but carried
forward by their own strong feelings, and the natural momentum of an issue that, quite literally,
has sex appeal” (“Parents Ask Industry,” 1985). Interestingly, the editors do not indicate the
gender of the leaders of the PMRC, yet imply that they are female by way of describing their
various activities as haptic and sensitive to their environment. In describing the leaders of the
PMRC, the editors use language that evokes imagery of a group of women who are naturally
predisposed to discovery, for they are unconcerned with planning and live moment to moment.
Still, they are described as giving “the appearance of feeling their way along,” which suggests
there is more than meets the eye. Feelings drive the actions of the women, yet unexpected
success follows in their wake, as the editors indicate, “Although barely a month old, the resource
center is already having an impact. It’s proven especially adept at garnering national publicity,
like a segment this week on the “CBS Morning News.” The article also indicates Gore stated, “I
think there’s been a lot of frustration out there in the country. People don’t know how to
approach the mass media if they have a complaint. We tell them how to do that.”
The PMRC and concerned parents were struggling to find outlets for expressing their
grievances towards the music industries because the bureaucratic structures of the industry
hindered communication between consumers and producers. This sense of powerlessness in the
SAVE THE CHILDREN 22
face of neoliberal corporate structures incentivized the use of emotional verbal and visual
rhetoric because they could potentially be spectacular. The spectacularization of the PMRC's
public relations campaign build-up to the Senate committee hearing in September 1985
effectively appealed to journalists and reporters across the country and the general populace.
Fontenot and Harriss (2010) write, "The PMRC's media campaign was so massive that when
news of the hearings broke, it quickly became the largest media event in Congressional history
up to that time" (p. 576).
Over the year, the PMRC empowered themselves and helped others realize a power
within themselves that they did not perhaps recognize. In creating outlets for emotional moral
concerns about the well-being of their children, the PMRC hoped to create a channel with the
music industries that would enable them to affect or partake in at least some portion of music
industries policymaking. The PMRC utilized radio call-in shows around the country and
communicated the organization’s messages to parents and people across the nation (Molotzsky,
Sept 29. 1985, p. 60). Thus, the group positioned itself within a location of power by addressing
listeners across the country. In a recent article, Fontenot and Harriss (2010) argue that the PMRC
successfully utilized the media to popularize its stances and garner superficial support for its
crusade against the recording industries, yet ultimately failed to "convince the masses, or at least
the core audience for these products..." (p. 577-578). Although the PMRC did not acquire the
full-fledged backing of “the masses” or music consumers, it is apparent the organization
succeeded in influencing the music industries policymakers who mattered. Likewise, it is
apparent they persuaded enough people to have the music industries respond by adopting
warning labels. By using radio, the group received various small donations and few large
donations. It was important for the PMRC to distance itself from the shadow of the political
SAVE THE CHILDREN 23
power behind it. Hence, the group made certain that it would not use the fund-raising money
from their husbands’ campaign funds. Moreover, the leaders signed their names over their
husbands’ names. This declaration of self was a recurrent theme throughout the debates in 1985
because the group’s success was occasionally attributed to their access to their husbands or male
authority figures. Acting based on reason could not be fathomed because the subjectivity of the
leaders of the PMRC was not recognized (Molotzsky, Sept 29. 1985, p. 60).
Genderly Backlash: Music Industries and the PMRC
Gradually, the tone of articles about the PMRC began to change as supposedly outlandish
and hyper-sensitive articles about the effects of “porn rock” were becoming more prevalent
throughout the mainstream media. For example, almost from the beginning of the censorship
debate, the discourses were gendered because of the labeling of the PMRC as consisting of the
“Washington mothers” or “Washington wives.” Staff writer Donnie Radcliffe of The Washington
Post wrote, “Prince may be the next thing to God in the eyes of some of his fans but to a group
of Washington mothers who have had no trouble whatsoever understanding his explicit lyrics, he
represents what's bad about rock 'n' roll” (Radcliffe, 1985). In short, mothers knew best. Less
obvious were the deeply racialized meanings behind the general concerns about the dangers
posed by sexually explicit or violent music. If the suggestive music overran the mental faculties
of children, then their capacity to think logically and control their actions would be lessened.
Hence, the children of America might never know life outside the body, for they would be
entrapped by their inability to exist outside of it and thus overcome by their passions and
emotions (Dyer, 1997, p. 14-18).
SAVE THE CHILDREN 24
Moreover, in an article on July 5, 1985, record producer and broadcaster Ken Barnes
wrote, “You have to dig pretty deep, with a sensitive shovel fine-tuned to detect double entendre
and interpret ambiguity, to find anything at all to get upset about,” indicating how it was not the
role of the music industries to dictate moral standards to the public (p. 28). Again, the word
selection emphasizes the feeling of touch and circulation of emotions. The use of the phrase
“sensitive shovel” genders the activities conducted by the PMRC while also granting it the
capacity for some sort of labor, albeit a form of agency circumscribed by traditional notions of
femininity. By turning the recording and radio industries in the mainstream media’s “favorite
whipping boys,” the PMRC was imagined as the influence behind what were/are news industries,
which are dominated by white men (Barnes, 1985, p. 28). In this sense, the PMRC was implicitly
depicted as the voice behind male figures, which reluctantly followed the advice of women and
disparaged the music industries.
Sexually suggestive and aggressive language directed towards the leaders of the PMRC
was also prevalent within dialogues about the PMRC and in reference to it throughout the
labelling debate. Most of the words used to describe the leaders of the PMRC was sexually
oriented or innuendo. For example, when it was announced that the PMRC/PTA and RIAA
would cancel a meeting because information about a labelling compromise had been leaked,
RIAA’s president Stanley Gortikov stated, “The ladies have evidently been loose [in talking to
the press about the points to be announced in the press conference], but I don’t choose to be that
loose so I have nothing more to tell you.” In deciding to describe “the ladies” as being “loose”
with their talk about the compromise, Gortikov paints “the ladies” as potentially sexually
promiscuous and gossipers. Thus, it is unsurprising that Bill Holland adds that the word “loose”
SAVE THE CHILDREN 25
was used in reference to how the leaders of the PMRC supposedly leaked details to the press
(Holland, Oct 19, 1985, p. 6).
Executive vice-president of Camelot Enterprises Jim Bonk was particularly incensed at
the potential damages caused by a labelling system, which he suspected would threaten the well-
being of stores located within shopping malls because mall owners might prevent music stores
that sold explicit music from renting mall property. Bonk believed that women were responsible
for disrupting the flow of music sales and commerce because they questioned whether some
music content was appropriate for children. Bonk stated, “If a parent in Middle America is upset
because his kid brings home a song like ‘Darling Nikki,’ she’s unlikely to call label headquarters
in Los Angeles or New York, and certainly won’t be able to find a phone number for Prince
(Bonk, Oct. 11, 1985, p. 10). When Bonk refers to “his kids,” he positions men as the head of
households while he positions women as shoppers and caretakers of the father’s children.
Furthermore, Bonk writes, “We let it happen to ourselves. Some popular performers have gone
beyond the bounds of good taste. And now we are being held accountable.” This implicitly
connects women to consumer activism and the role of moral teacher when Bonk writes, “The
irate parent will, you can be sure, turn up in the record store to vent anger on one of our
salespeople,” also suggesting that the “irate parent” will most likely be unable to control her
emotions (Bonk, Oct. 11, 1985, p. 10).
In these different variations of gendered and sexist language, music industries’
professionals, and executives framed the PMRC and its supporters as emotionally unstable, for
they were supposedly prone to illogical bursts that undermined their credibility. In this sense, the
different speakers attempted to co-opt this emotional language and re-deploy it as a
counterattack, albeit one situated within the boundaries of traditional gender norms of what was
SAVE THE CHILDREN 26
deemed respectful. Gortikov and Bonk could afford to deploy such arguments because they were
operating from positions of power and they potentially viewed the disruptions of power by the
PMRC as invasive on parental territory, which undermined white male patriarchy. In fact, during
the Senate hearings on the censorship debate, Gortikov stated, “The members of the PMRC are
parents. I and many of my colleagues are parents, too. The PMRC has no monopoly on love and
concern for kids. Child supervision is my personal parental responsibility…” (“Record
Labeling,” 1985, p. 87-88). In this sense, Gortikov and others potentially felt threatened by the
wielding of agentic power by the PMRC and its followers because it struck at American society’s
gender hierarchies and white hegemonic masulinity (Connell, 1987; Connell, 1990; Messner,
2004). Moreover, Journalist Ellen Goodman was one of the few people to point out the gendered
language used to describe the leaders of the PMRC, writing “The women of the PMRC have
been attacked with such lethal epithets as "Washington wives," "ladies" and, gasp, "housewives,"
as if they were swinging pocketbooks at the heads of rock stars.” (Goodman, Sept 4, 1985, A19).
Furthermore, she wrote, “Ratings are nothing more or less than a modest way of reintroducing
something called standards. It is a way the collective community of adults can say, ‘We
disapprove. We disapprove of violence, we disapprove of sexual exploitation.’” Within these
terms, white men and women could work alongside as long as the music industries’ stakeholders
viewed the PMRC’s media activism as legitimate.
Conclusion
As shown throughout this paper, the PMRC utilized a combination of logical and
emotional arguments to influence the music industries and convince them to self-regulate or
police questionable content. The PMRC appealed to concerned parents across the nation by
illustrating the supposed dangers of children’s listening to songs with sexually explicit lyrics and
SAVE THE CHILDREN 27
lyrics that advocated violence against women or rebellion against authority. The PMRC’s
arguments were geared towards white middle class parents who may have felt overwhelmed by
the cultural environment surrounding them. Parents also had to closely monitor music video
content. Moreover, the PMRC appealed to the sensibility and rationality of parents by imagining
them as smart and sophisticated consumers who could reasonably discern what content was
appropriate for their children. Moreover, the PMRC’s arguments were premised on the idea of
society as an organism. Using rational and emotional arguments, the PMRC sought to hybridize
itself with the corporate body in order to formulate a relationship in which parents would have a
say about regulating music content. In this way, the PMRC sought to “parentalize” corporate
enterprises (Berlant, 1997, p. 76) and potentially rejuvenate an environment marked by
bureaucratic work conditions through sensualizing and moralizing work conditions (Bruck &
Raboy, 1989, p. 5-6). Therefore, the collapse of public and private parental spaces would
encourage a type of neoliberal corporate family model within work environments and potentially
home environments, thus modifying and replicating illusions of white middle-class domesticity
within the workplace and public life. Although their opponents questioned their motives, the
PMRC forged a relationship with the music industries, which served as a generative negotiation
process (Deetz, 1992) between corporate entities and private citizens that resulted in the
implementation of policies favorable to a group of citizens who imagined themselves to reflect
the will of the white American public.
SAVE THE CHILDREN 28
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