Rock Groups Getting Religion Or Are They?
Sex still sells rock music. But a growing number of pop stars apparently are turning to religion - or at least religious imagery - to promote their musical stylings on MTV.
In fact, four out of 10 videos shown on the immensely influential pop music channel contained overtly religious imagery - and a majority of these mixed religious and sexual images.
“Rock groups have increasingly embraced religious imagery and symbols in a seemingly ironic attempt to identify themselves, to defy convention, and perhaps to shock traditionalists by placing what have been regarded as sacred symbols into an overwhelmingly secular arena,” wrote Carol Pardun of Kansas State University and Kathy McKee of Berry College in the latest issue of the scholarly journal Youth and Society.
The two researchers and their assistants examined 160 rock videos shown on MTV in late 1992 and meticulously categorized the types of images shown.
Not surprisingly, sex rules: About six in 10 videos included sexual imagery. But they also found that 39 percent contained at least one clearly religious image such as a church, someone praying, an angel, reference to the Bible or Koran, or a person outfitted in religious garb. And 28 percent featured both religious and sexual imagery.
Sometimes the visual reference is fleeting, as when a Bible verse floated across the screen in a recent Pearl Jam video. Other times religious imagery is central to the video, as it was in REM’s video “Losing My Religion,” a song about religious doubt.
Then there’s hell’s house band, Guns N’ Roses. Their 1992 video “November Rain” featured a Jesus figure replete with a bloody crown of thorns juxtaposed against a bimboesque bride in a Frederick’s of Hollywood-style wedding dress and backup singers in tight black dresses wearing oversized crucifixes. (Does Bob Dole know about this? Did Phil Gramm invest in this?)
The Gunners’ song, Pardun and McKee noted, had exactly nothing to do with religion. In fact, they found that much of the religious imagery in music videos is gratuitous - unless, of course, the intent is to offend or befuddle.
Fading rock diva Madonna demonstrated that blasphemy can be a good career move. The Material Girl’s hits have included the song “Like a Prayer” and the hit CD titled “Immaculate Collection.” Madonna once acknowledged, Pardun and McKee wrote, that she wore a crucifix with her see-through blouse “because of her affinity for ‘a sexy man on a cross.”’
Putting women in their place
A woman’s place is in the House - and Senate and Folketinget and Althigi and in dozens of other elected legislatures around the world.
From Italy to New Zealand to Bangladesh, the legal and social barriers that have kept women from national office are falling, with a few notable exceptions, reports the Worldwatch Institute in the book “Vital Signs 1995,” released last month.
Currently, four out of 10 members of the national legislatures of Sweden, Finland and Norway are women, reflecting the activist role of women in those countries. In the United States, 11 percent of the House of Representatives and 8 percent of the Senate are women.
The news isn’t all good for women, reported Worldwatch staff researcher Anjali Acharya.
The proportion of women in elected legislatures dropped from 14.6 percent in 1988 to 10.8 percent last year, largely because of a precipitous drop in female lawmakers in formerly communist countries. Today, women make up 10 percent of the Russian Duma, down from 34 percent in 1985.
xxxx Rock video’s ungodly racket While sexual imagery still predominates, four out of 10 music videos shown on MTV contained religious imagery. Percentage of MTV rock videos containing: Both sexual and religious imagery……28% Religious imagery only……………..11% Sexual imagery only………………..35% Neither…………………………..26%