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MTV is one of the most controversial channels on television. Decried by critics, adored by fans, MTV almost single-handedly created the demand for music videos. Music was the mainstay of MTV for most of the 1980s. The channel also was a pioneer of the use of computer graphics which are featured in its on-air logos and promotions. In the 1990s MTV has moved away from just featuring music and has created original real-life dramas, animation, news, documentaries and even sports programming.
Although MTV appeals to youth, its intended audience is much older than that of Nickelodeon or Disney. MTV was created to be controversial and, not surprisingly, it is. The issues in videos that earned the wrath of early critics, such as sexual themes and images of women as objects, are less in evidence in the 1990s. An analysis of MTV's programming must take into account the context of the entire channel and what MTV's brand name (like Disney's) means to the viewers.
Videos make up an ever-shrinking part of MTV's programming. Each weekday evening at 8:00 MTV runs a two-hour block of music videos in a program appropriately titled Primetime. The show features music videos mostly from well-known performers such as Boyz II Men, Aerosmith, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and Madonna. More obscure or less mainstream music appears in some of the other video shows. Most of the videos do not raise any issues of violence or graphicness. There are some exceptions. A video called "California" by the group Wax shows a man on fire running down the street. This image runs through the entire video, lasts several minutes and is accompanied by the pounding beat of the music. There is no story in the video. The only context is provided by the lyrics, which are extremely difficult to decipher. The viewer never learns anything about the situation. Another video with graphic images is Snoop Doggy Dogg's "Murder Was the Case." A mini-drama, it is the story of a murder. It contains a few intense images but they are contextually appropriate. The words of the song, however, complicate the issue somewhat by making the murder case seem exciting. Yet another video with violence is Jon Bon Jovi's "Always," which contains a scene of a young man trashing and blowing up an apartment. The other video collection shows, Alternative Nation and The Top 20 Countdown, as well as the concert show Unplugged, also do not raise any violence concerns. Yo' MTV Raps, a program that features rap videos that many critics feel do raise concerns about violence, was aired outside the times monitored by this project.
Four original programs on MTV were monitored during the sample period: The Real World, Dead at 21, The State and Beavis and Butt-Head. The first three are live action programs, while Beavis and Butt-Head is animated. The live action shows have a gritty feel and do contain minor scenes of violence. All of the scenes are central to the story, are not graphic and, therefore, raise very few concerns.
Beavis and Butt-Head is probably the most famous and controversial program on MTV. It is a satire of MTV's own viewers, though it is not clear they always get the joke. Similar to The Simpsons with its primitive animation and "in your face" humor, Beavis and Butt-Head is often crude and tasteless. This is by design and is part of the appeal of the show. The show begins with the funny quasi-advisory:
Beavis and Butt-Head are not role models. They're not even human. They're cartoons. Some of the things they do would cause a person to get hurt, expelled, arrested, possibly deported. To put it another way: Don't try this at home.
On several occasions, episodes of Beavis and Butt-Head came close to raising concerns about the use of violence. The two characters are usually seen beaten up, degraded or rejected in some crude and humiliating way. Crossing the line is a distinguishing characteristic of the show. Importantly, Beavis and Butt-Head are never shown as heroes and are instead portrayed as pathetic and weak. What ultimately mitigates most of the concerns, is that MTV has placed Beavis and Butt-Head in the latest time period available in prime time. Like The Simpsons, this is satire. The difference between the two shows is that MTV places Beavis and Butt-Head in an adult time period. If Beavis and Butt-Head ran at 7:00 or 8:00, it too would raise concerns. Several years ago, an episode of the show in which Beavis and Butt-Head start a fire was allegedly linked to a real fire in which a little girl was killed. At that time, the show ran early in the evening, attracting children who did not understand the satiric nature of the program. It is more appropriately placed at 10:30.
MTV on Saturday morning consists of an unusual mix of programs. The very early programs The Brothers Grunt and Speed Racer contain a fair number of gratuitously violent scenes and raise some concerns. The Brothers Grunt is a show that tries very hard to be gross. One episode contains several scenes of fighting and a character being bashed over the head with a TV. Speed Racer is an old animated series that uses car crashes but also contains fighting and scenes with guns. Most of the rest of the morning is taken up by the Top 20 Video Countdown, which does not raise any additional issues of concern.
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