When I heard my 4 year-old-boy say to his little sister, “You’ve been a bad girl Ga Ga. A very bad girl”, I knew a seismic shift in the distribution of art and culture was under way. Well, at least I knew he had seen the same Lady Ga Ga mini-movie I had enjoyed, I mean been disgusted by, the day before. Predictably, I flew into rage. “The moderated media pathways are being eroded!”, I shouted like Charlie Brooker. I drafted a letter to that woman at the Daily Mail who was happy when Stephen Gately died.
Once I had calmed down enough to act rationally, I asked the poor boy where he had heard such filth. The answer, to my disgust, was on afternoon television. And I thought we could trust TV again after the Russell Brand/Jonathan Ross/Manuel/Phone Line Ripoffs scandals.
The bare naked fact is this. Ga Ga’s mini-movie was the most exciting, visually dynamic media-chunk that had passed by him that day and it stuck. Just like it did for me. Kids like the things grown-ups like too. Of course, he wasn’t unsettled by the emaciated nearly naked women in a prison setting, as I was. The slideshow of Auschwitz and Abu Graibh is not something he has seen on afternoon TV.
Now here comes the moral, as a parent in the modern age my fear is not about a music video, intended to cause mild shock. My moral foundations didn’t crumble when I saw Madonna dance before a burning cross or kiss a black Jesus. I just thought, this song is rubbish. What is my point? I fear moralisation and censorship around the arts. The arts has its own way of dealing with these things. As a parent, I see the challenge as being to make sense of man’s inherent inhumanity and cruelty, while preserving my child’s sense of wonder about the world and its infinite possibilities.
For a much more sensible, simpering, intellectualisation of the Ga Ga movie, go and look at this article by the miserable, doom-mongering Telegraph. I couldn’t be bothered reading it all but if you’re feeling conflicted about why you enjoyed the video in the first place it might help.
Award-winning art director Jonathan Gould can build a brilliant website in the time it takes most people to tie their shoelaces. He is never, ever grumpy.
