Music Video Regulations

The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) are an organisation responsible for regulating and restricting music videos by adding age ratings in accordance to the videos content. More recently the BBFC have worked in partnership with Youtube and Vevo to pilot a scheme age rating all music videos from artists signed to Universal Music UK, Warner Music UK and Sony Music UK. In August 2015 the Government extended the scheme introducing it to independent music labels.

Some of the issues considered by the BBFC when classifying music videos are:

• Drug misuse
• Dangerous behavior presented as safe
• Bad Language
• Sexual Behavior and Nudity
• Threatening behavior and violence

The debate surrounding should we classify music videos and how should we do this is ongoing over many decades. Music videos such as 'Like a Prayer' by Madonna in 1989, 'Heart Shaped Box' by Nirvana in the 1990's and more recently Blurred Lines by Robin Thicke have sparked controversy. 

The case of Blurred Lines is one that displays the regulations of the BBFC in full effect. The original video featured a parade of nude women walking around the artists in a studio setting. This was classified as adult content and deemed too inappropriate for any media outlet such as TV to show. This lead to the demand of a new clean version to be created where the women were less exposed and fit the BBFC regulations. However, the explicit version of the video is still linked below the clean version and accessible by anyone. This raises the question, is the production of a new video enough?

Taking into consideration the regulations placed on existing videos and the limited distribution of these videos I have decided that my video will have no adult content or anything that may arouse the need to classify the video. If the video was to be classified, it would not be able to reach a large audience limiting the message it is trying to promote.

Based on examples I have researched, artists that produce controversial videos also lose credibility, perhaps because the audience lose respect for them or because they would rather avoid the controversy at risk of supporting it. It can however, contribute to an artists image such as Nicki Minaj with her single Anaconda as she herself always wants to push boundaries and attract attention. Therefore by producing a song and video that would spark such a debate and have such mixed views put her in the media eye and increased her word of mouth.

Bibliography:

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/aug/23/will-age-rating-classifications-music-video-work
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-13639487
https://noisey.vice.com/en_uk/article/age-rating-music-videos
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/rockandpopfeatures/11585580/The-10-most-controversial-music-videos.html