Timidity in filk
Sep. 20th, 2021 02:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
madfilkentist posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
filkThe Festival of the Living Rooms has gone in a disturbing direction, and I refrain from participation in it. While anyone's free to organize any kind of filk event, I hope that others won't imitate this aspect of it. I'm referring to its call for "content warnings" on songs.
First, the positive. The Code of Conduct says "We have no wish to regulate content of songs." The call for content warnings is listed as a guideline rather than a requirement. Even so, it could discourage controversial content and doesn't do a good job of addressing any issues listeners are likely to face.
The guideline says: "When in doubt, precede a song with a content warning. In particular, please do this for any song not appropriate for children, containing R rated words, about suicide, about eating disorders, about violence against women, about abuse, about harm to animals, or with political content."
This is mostly a list of topics, but topics as such aren't what usually make people feel grossed out or want to flee. The details and their manner of presentation are what does it. "Not appropriate for children" and "R rated words" go in the direction of details and manner. Given that you don't always know who's watching an online concert, expecting warnings about songs that aren't suitable for children is reasonable.
The rest of the list concerns subject matter. It's a strange list, as much in what isn't there and what is there. Why don't songs about violence against men need a warning? (Do the makers of the list think women are less capable of handling such matters?) What about racial violence or religious persecution? "Abuse" is vague. Is it talking about substance abuse, abusive treatment of people, both, or something else? To cover everything that upsets listeners, the list would have to be huge or use even broader categories.
It seems as if the list was thrown together hastily, perhaps based on what especially concerned a few people who had spoken up. Taken together, the general idea they convey is that people are urged to give a content warning about anything controversial.
I've mentioned my song "Mary Dyer" in Filk Haven a couple of times as an example. No one disagreed with my thought that it would need a content warning. It would probably need two: one for violence against women and one for politics. If you added my suggested category of religious persecution, it would need three.
Why? Are there really people in filk who can't stand to hear that terrible things happened in our history? Do they want just "On the Spaceship Lollipop"? (I don't know if that song exists, but it should, especially if we could recapture Cacie's 6-year-old voice to sing it.)
I don't object to the idea that certain songs are best preceded with a warning that they may be upsetting. I object to using broad swaths of subject matter as the basis. Controversy is part of filk, and singers shouldn't apologize for it.
First, the positive. The Code of Conduct says "We have no wish to regulate content of songs." The call for content warnings is listed as a guideline rather than a requirement. Even so, it could discourage controversial content and doesn't do a good job of addressing any issues listeners are likely to face.
The guideline says: "When in doubt, precede a song with a content warning. In particular, please do this for any song not appropriate for children, containing R rated words, about suicide, about eating disorders, about violence against women, about abuse, about harm to animals, or with political content."
This is mostly a list of topics, but topics as such aren't what usually make people feel grossed out or want to flee. The details and their manner of presentation are what does it. "Not appropriate for children" and "R rated words" go in the direction of details and manner. Given that you don't always know who's watching an online concert, expecting warnings about songs that aren't suitable for children is reasonable.
The rest of the list concerns subject matter. It's a strange list, as much in what isn't there and what is there. Why don't songs about violence against men need a warning? (Do the makers of the list think women are less capable of handling such matters?) What about racial violence or religious persecution? "Abuse" is vague. Is it talking about substance abuse, abusive treatment of people, both, or something else? To cover everything that upsets listeners, the list would have to be huge or use even broader categories.
It seems as if the list was thrown together hastily, perhaps based on what especially concerned a few people who had spoken up. Taken together, the general idea they convey is that people are urged to give a content warning about anything controversial.
I've mentioned my song "Mary Dyer" in Filk Haven a couple of times as an example. No one disagreed with my thought that it would need a content warning. It would probably need two: one for violence against women and one for politics. If you added my suggested category of religious persecution, it would need three.
Why? Are there really people in filk who can't stand to hear that terrible things happened in our history? Do they want just "On the Spaceship Lollipop"? (I don't know if that song exists, but it should, especially if we could recapture Cacie's 6-year-old voice to sing it.)
I don't object to the idea that certain songs are best preceded with a warning that they may be upsetting. I object to using broad swaths of subject matter as the basis. Controversy is part of filk, and singers shouldn't apologize for it.
no subject
Date: 2021-09-21 10:28 pm (UTC)