The American people today, are a highly informed and
technologically advanced set of peoples. With our culture being so tied to the
media and technology, we have the privilege and curse of having every bit of
information and current events directly under our fingertips. Today’s youth,
who are highly influenced by popular icons in music, sports, movies and television,
are at this same cross roads of advantage and disadvantage. With our children
“plugged in” almost constantly throughout the day, they are exposed to
something every waking second. Music, celebrities, and all other sorts of media
legends can do a lot of parenting for our children, but as we know there is
good and parenting and it solely depends on what the child is exposed to. For
many children, they have the opportunity to expose themselves to whatever they
please, most of it is the more popular and mainstream music, sports and TV that
their parents or older siblings are engaged in, while the older and mature
crowd is capable of distinguishing between right and wrong or to make up their
own minds, children or adolescents are not, they simply follow the “monkey see
monkey do” practice. If they see or hear a pop icon participating in drug or
alcohol use they see it as an accepted behavior and tend to follow suit, which
is why I question, what are we really exposing our children to?
An article by The Guardian,
an online database that posts information regarding
our currents events and situations throughout the world, tells us that progressively;
drugs have been moving their way into song lyrics the past few years. A drug
that has been mentioned repeatedly recently, the drug Molly, or a pure form of
MDMA, is in 7 different billboard chart songs that have been published within the
past 2 years. One of the most recent, We Can’t Stop – Miley Cyrus, mentions
that she is “dancing with Molly”, to the average listener one would think the
lyrics refers to a person, but someone who is educated or involved in drugs,
hears the reference to a street drug. Marijuana, speed, adderall, meth and
alcohol are all mentioned frequently in popular songs of all genres, where rap,
R&B, rock and pop all lead the pack with drug references in their song
lyrics.
Aside from music, TV and movies as well as sports idols are
also in the spotlight when it comes to drug references. Movies like “Scarface”
and “Blow” both depict heavy cocaine use by the actors, where the movies “Up in
Smoke”, “Cheeks and Chong”, and “Pineapple Express” all show the celebrities engaging
in marijuana consumption, both illegal drug and both being portrayed as acceptable
acts. Personally, it has been a long time where alcohol hasn’t been referenced
or shown in a movie that I have seen, so this is obviously a growing and
present concern as well.
Trevor J.S.
Sources
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