Monday, February 20, 2012

Music Monday: He Said What?!

This is just a quick post on something that seriously disturbed me recently.

Now, as many of you know, I'm a pretty hardcore Anglophile/Hibernophile. I like a lot of the entertainment (music, films, tv shows) that come out of England and Ireland. If you follow me on twitter than you know my love of Downton Abbey and Liverpool FC as well as the Ireland national rugby union team. Because of my love for the culture, I like to stay on top of trends which includes music. I will give most music a try. When I heard of one particular boy band that had taken the UK (and apparently the rest of the world) by storm, I was curious. I listened to their music and, despite being kind of a music snob, I liked it. It was fun, upbeat... it's a boyband. I'm not a crazy fanatic but I like listening to the songs in the background when I have things to do.

A few weeks ago I stumbled across a blurb a fan posted from an interview the boys did. I thought "well, I have a minute to spare and I wonder how these boys present themselves" so I went ahead of read it. It started off innocent enough until I came across a blurb in which two of the young men basically sang the joy of watching pornography. My reaction was "he said WHAT?!" While two of the other band members told them to be quiet and how pornography was degrading towards women, these other two agreed... but then said that it was "fun" to watch and made it seem like it was not a big deal. This worries me for several reasons.

We all know the dangers of pornography and how damaging it is to one's soul. The Knights of Columbus posted a great article on their website late last year regarding this. It's worth a read if you already haven't. Anyway, these young men (who were 17 and, I believe, 19 at the time of the interview) made it seem like it was okay despite the two other young men trying to quiet them down. We all know that this is a horrible pandemic and we know that my generation (so-called Generation Y) and the next generation are more prone to fall for this soul destroying virus as more and more young men and women are falling away from God (I will share my findings with y'all once I'm done with my Thesis -- it's not pretty). What I never expected was to see someone so young being so vocal about it. From what I've seen, they are insanely popular so you know that millions of young women who obsess (also not healthy) over this band will read these interviews and think that it's okay. Btw, I also saw another blurb in which one the young men also talks about being caught with a girl in bed by a parent. I'm very serious.

All of this got me thinking: "what is life going to be for my future children?" "Will they be exposed to this?" "Will it get worse?" "What can we do to make it better?" I am not so old that I don't remember what being a teenager was like. I'm 26 so I do... vividly. I know that as teenagers, we didn't like hearing adults tell us what to do and what not to do. I also know that most of us did the opposite of our parents told us (even if it was only once) because we didn't like being told what to do. But as I get older and think about my future children, I feel more determined to educate and prepare myself to help them. If the world gets uglier (and it just might by the looks of things), I feel like we need to arm the younger generations to stay strong to combat these issues (as well as the pro-abortion cult) and to not lose Faith in the process.

I could get into it more but I'm cutting it short on time. I have to read for tomorrow's courses (and I have to finish the first act of Hamlet for my Lit course by Thursday morning) and work on my Thesis some more. I just wanted to share these thoughts I've been having since I read these interview blurbs.

Before I go, I have one more question: if you knew the things that (some of) these young men do/think/watch/say were sinful and if you enjoy their music (but not their personal lives)... would you just stop listening to the music or would you listen to the music but ignore their comments? I'm interested to see what y'all think.

Anyway, I hope y'all had a great weekend and have a great week. Hope all your Lent preparations are in place as it starts in two days. :)

As always, thanks for reading and God Bless.

1 comment:

Lindsay @ Lindsay Loves said...

That's a toughie. I've struggled with that question myself many times. I think it depends on how willing you are to support one aspect of a person's life while so heartily disapproving of another. I don't think I have a good answer, but I at least share the question.