by Lisa Fager Bediako | Special to CNN
(CNN) -- Rihanna's "Man Down" video was the motivation for Industry Ears -- a media watchdog group I co-founded -- to recently join forces with the Parents Television Council to hold media corporations, in this case Black Entertainment Television, accountable. We argued that the graphic violence aired in the video was inappropriate for the age group that makes up nearly half of BET's "106 & Park" video show's audience: 12- to 17-year-olds.
Our concern lies not with Rihanna as an artist, but with BET and its parent company, Viacom, as purveyors of violence. Over the last several weeks, however, I have witnessed our original concern with the video become twisted from a national discussion about protecting children into one of feminist empowerment and free artistic expression.
The first moments of the "Man Down" video show a man in a crowded train station being shot in the head and falling into a puddle of his own blood. This grisly image is, to us, the most questionable part of the video.
Our suggestion to BET is that they edit the "too graphic for kids" portion of this video, roughly the opening 45 seconds. We have all seen guns, drug paraphernalia, and T-shirt logos blurred out or whole scenes edited out of music videos that appear on music channels. MTV and BET routinely require record labels to edit videos, so why not this one?
Some argue that the discovery later in the video that the man being shot is a rapist, and that the woman shooting him is his victim, makes this depiction of violence acceptable. We disagree.
In his 30 years of viewing BET, Paul Porter, Industry Ears co-founder and former BET video programmer, says he has never witnessed "such a cold, calculated execution of murder in prime time." Cable television content is not regulated like broadcast television, but most cable networks have adopted the broadcast television standard of airing sexually explicit, violent and mature content after 10 p.m. and adding disclaimers, especially if the program attracts younger viewers. "106 & Park" airs weekdays at 6 p.m.
Read the Full Essay @ CNN.com
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Lisa Fager Bediako is president of Industry Ears and formerly worked for Capitol EMI Records, Discovery Communications, CBS radio and other entertainment media outlets.
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