So said Bob Pittman, creator of the Network That Formerly Played Music Videos. If anybody deserves to be picketed, it’s MTV. And the teens and young adults at Stand True are going to do just that tomorrow morning at the network’s headquarters in Manhattan’s Times Square. At the protest, they’ll also be distributing flyers with the message:
Does MTV own you? For years, MTV has believed that they own this generation. And maybe they do. After all, the eager eyes of the American youth have silently watched MTV exploit their minds and bodies for profit, never questioning the product they’ve been sold. But what if we looked closer? What is MTV really selling? And what is it really costing us? Young ladies, what kind of standard is MTV setting for you? Many of their shows encourage the falsehood that women are defined by their appearance, and that their worth is grounded in an ability to seduce. But what if beauty has nothing to do with sex? The network also provides girls of any age with free information about abortion, emergency contraception, and STD’s. Their website is covered with links to Planned Parenthood, the country’s largest supplier for the killing of human persons through abortion. It seems rather strange for a music network to offer such information, unless that network is attempting to compensate for peddling sex to teenagers. Young men, if girls are merely objects, what role does that create for you? MTV shows men to be collectors. Cars, money, women—they’re all the same, an empty, emotionless fulfillment of ‘the American Dream.’ But what if human beings are not objects? What if MTV is ignoring relationship simply to sell sex? Our generation deserves better than this. No matter how many reality shows it produces, MTV constantly fails to portray anything real. The value of a human person, the passion and beauty that accompanies true romance—these things do not exist in the world of MTV. Instead, we have become just another worthless commodity, and our voices have been lost, reduced to simply repeating every word MTV says. “If you can get their emotions going, make them forget their logic, you’ve got them. At MTV, we don’t shoot for the 14-year-olds, we own them.” –Bob Pittman, creator of MTV. …still want your MTV?