One day last week, I was feeling a little subversive and decided to go to Walmart to buy Jay-Z’s newest album, The Blueprint 3. Employees told me they didn’t sell Jay-Z and that it was unfortunate since there would be nowhere else for me to buy CDs in Starkville.
I was a little surprised that Walmart had no Jay-Z albums, although according to the store’s Web site, they do carry edited Jay-Z albums, including The Blueprint 3. Of course, I don’t want a so-called clean version with pauses and dumb-butt, monkey-fighting dubs. Joker, please!
Since I usually buy music on iTunes and hardly ever have a reason to go outside of my apartment and lay hold of a physical object, my recent quest was the first time I’ve been exposed to the controversy behind the way Walmart sells music.
According to a PBS “NewsHour” report from 2004, Walmart has a history of not selling CDs with parental advisory labels due to “its roots in the southern Christian heartland of Arkansas.” And Walmart’s music content policy on its Web site also confirms they do not carry recordings so offensive as to have the advisory labels.
Basically, Walmart has tried to commercialize a small-town, family-oriented, morally upright image that is absolutely bull. um. oney.
Not only has Walmart sold its soul to cheap labor in China and other places abroad, its family values way of selling products is contradictory and flawed.
For instance, I can’t go to Walmart to by a non-edited Jay-Z album, but I can buy movies like “Team America: World Police,” a movie that features marionettes not only cursing but also having vaginal, anal and oral sex. Walmart also has any number of ridiculous teen flicks that are sexually explicit.
Furthermore, a lot of the movies Walmart sells, whether they are R-rated or not, are mind-numbing and have no significant point to make anyway, like a lot of movies out of Hollywood. I’m not saying they shouldn’t be sold or that people shouldn’t watch them. But what’s the point of censoring rap music with explicit lyrics when plenty of Walmart’s other entertainment products are even more offensive? If we’re going to take music CDs on a case-by-case basis (which is what Walmart has done in the past), why not go through the movie catalog and eliminate the most offensive movies?
Besides, Jay-Z seems to me to be one of the least offensive rappers in recent history. After listening to some of Jay-Z’s music and someone else’s copy of The Blueprint 3, I’ve come to realize that Jay-Z does not fit the stereotypical (and perhaps prejudicial) image of the rapper who is all about expensive jewelry, prostitutes and drugs. In fact, The Blueprint 3 often condemns hip hop cliches. His raps have meaning, at least more meaning than any given chick flick Walmart may have on its shelves.
So, what are these family values to which Walmart is catering? I’m not exactly sure, but they are definitely oversimplified values. They’re the kind of values that scoffs at mere four-letter words spoken by a black artist but not at violent movies or equally offensive country music lyrics.
In 2004, someone filed a class-action lawsuit on Walmart and Wind-up Records for not labeling an Evanescence CD with a parental advisory. The parents’ child bought it and heard a dirty word while listening to it with the parents. The horror! The horror!
In third-world and developing countries, people go to the markets to buy meat. They actually have to look at the meat to see if it has maggots and whether or not it can be eaten.
In other words, they actually have to make decisions on what they buy. We here in America have gotten so spoiled with the way we spend our money that we would rather have Walmart decide what our family values are and what should be sold.
Matt Watson is a graduate student majoring in Spanish. He can be contacted at [email protected].