MTV Whipping Post

I wrote this response to an MTV agent on Nov. 2nd, the day of the 2004 Presidential election. I decided to put this letter on the blog. Be forewarned: A different tone from much of the posts.


Dear MTV:
I am a 24 year old recent college grad raised in the progressive MTV culture and now working in the entertainment industry in the southeast. Thank you for the reminder to vote. I appreciate your efforts to encourage the young voter but I am deeply concerned about the underhanded partisan leanings in your campaign. Using scare tactics concerning a "back door draft" which have been denied by both candidates during repeated debates and campaign rallies and incenuating that the draft will be more readily supported by the Republican incumbent is misleading. Your representation of the facts on the MTV Rock the Vote "Why Should I Rock the Vote" section are very partisan in their support of Kerry and misleading in that they present only one side of the equation. The scare tactics used by your "awareness" campaign do not promote a bi-partisan education of the young voter near as much as a mobilization of the young voter and many young adults such as myself, hopefully, see through this. The repeated use of celebrity endorsements by artists such as Eminem and Samuel L. Jackson on drafts and the war, Cher, Bruce Springsteen and Brad Pitt on stem cell research and countless others such as Usher and the band members of R.E.M. and Green Day to promote a definite partisan appeal is very irresponsible. The agendas of these artists is never discussed. The continual challenges by the FCC to encourage art that is more socially responsible is seen by many of these artists as an effort to undermine their creative energies. They decry much of this Administration as a suppressor of free speech. In reality, free speech is not freeing to a sociey when it irresponsibly and unabashedly promotes a one-sided leftist view of reality that never concedes the possibility of an absolute and objective code of ethics by which one may live. I know that doesn't sell as well as the whole "free yourself" and "do what feels good with no realistic thought to the implications of your actions" ideal that the MTV network and culture promotes to young America who is psychologically looking for that free license to live without restraint. These are entertainers (not individuals with a career or a lifetime of following socio- political issues and the many complexities of foreign policy and other foreign engagements) who are held in high esteem by many in a young audience of impressionable youth. Choose or Die might just as readily be used as a slogan for the moral fallout in young America. I doubt many of us would even recognize that fallout.
Sincerely yours,
Joel A. Foster