Hysterical Edinburgh University Union bans the song Blurred Lines

[-:Undertaker:-]

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/br...-pc-sauciness/

The hysteria over Blurred Lines shows how zealously intolerant we've become of un-PC sauciness

Robin Thicke (right) in the video for Blurred Lines

When it comes to being zealously intolerant of anything remotely saucy, student unions put even the stiffest, most archaic religious institutions to shame. In recent years unions around the UK have banned everything from Eminem songs to The Sun to Zionist speakers, lest students' pristine, childlike minds be permanently corrupted by anything so foul as witty rap, Page 3, or a man saying – horror of horrors – that Israel is not such a terrible place. Why there hasn't been a student uprising against this top-down infantilisation, against this Mary Whitehouse-style covering of students' eyes and ears by joy-loathing, debate-allergic union reps, is one of the great mysteries of modern times.

Now, Edinburgh University's student association has banned the best pop song of the year so far – Robin Thicke's Blurred Lines – from being played anywhere in uni. As part of its policy to "End Rape Culture and Lad Banter" on campus, it has squished Blurred Lines on the basis that it "promotes an unhealthy attitude toward sex and consent".

I genuinely can't decide what is the most depressing aspect of this sad act of petty censorship: the fact that Edinburgh's student association has an actual policy to "end lad banter", as if unions have the right to tell students how they should speak; or the fact that student unions now consider their male charges to be so morally fickle, so animalistically automaton, that they think one song might be enough to push them towards committing rape; or the fact that Edinburgh's students have been denied the basic human right to twerk to a song that has been No1 in 40 countries and which is loved by youth everywhere (with no evidence that it has caused any global spike in rape).

Like every censor in history, from Torquemada to the Twittermob, Edinburgh's student union is driven partly by prudish disdain for certain words and images, but more profoundly by a fear of what impact those words and images will have on certain people's putty-like, impressionable minds. The motor of censorship is always a misanthropic fear of the unpredictable mob, a super-snooty concern that some people – Them, not Us, obviously – are so bereft of moral conscience and so weak-willed that one video nasty might be enough to turn them murderous or one glimpse of a Page 3 girl might forever warp their view of womankind. So it is at Edinburgh Uni, where the ban on Blurred Lines seems driven by a view of male students as latent robotic rapists, whose brutish instincts might be unleashed as soon as they hear the funky opening beats of Blurred Lines.

Of course, Edinburgh's ban comes after six months of non-stop hysteria over Blurred Lines. No other song of recent times has attracted as much venom and ire as this one, particularly from feminists, who have branded it wicked, misogynistic and – get this – potentially damaging to the "wellbeing of half of the global population".

I find this shrill campaigning against Blurred Lines depressing, because what it's really saying is this: there is no area of life that can be free of PC strictures. Not even pop music. It is one thing to ask that people speak respectfully and correctly at work, in school, and in professional public engagements – I agree with that. But surely there can still exist realms of life where we can shake off the strictures and speak foully, gruffly, incorrectly, for thrills or larks? Surely popular music – that one-time arena of rebellion against social mores and experimentation with new forms of expression – doesn't have to comply to the same codes of thought and conduct we'd expect when at a board meeting or talking to school kids? Actually, it seems it does. Just as football fans in rowdy stadiums are increasingly being asked to speak as if they were taking tea with Edith Sitwell, so pop music makers are now called upon the send the "correct" message about women, gender, sexual equality and speech codes.

I'm sorry, but if you look to popular music for moral guidance, you're an idiot. That's not what it's for. Its aim should be nothing more than to make you hum, sing, smile, tap your toes, and maybe even swing your pants. Blurred Lines does that in spades and that is the only basis on which it should be judged. Leave it – and our pop and private lives more broadly – alone.

Another nutty left-wing students Union.

Anybody who goes to university on this forum will probably see the same with the kind of people who are involved in their university union - have you ever noticed that the people involved in it are usually insufferable control freaks, usually the kind who study Politics?

Anywho, what do you make of it?

[lemons]

ridiculous

[FlyingJesus]

It's an attempt to play safe over an "issue" that feminists have made up completely and gotten very angry about. They claim that Blurred Lines is about blurring the lines of consent and therefore attempted rape, when the actuality of it is that it's about the blurred lines of a relationship status because a girl with a boyfriend is flirting with him. Add to this the fact that internet feminism seems to be mainly about shrieking propaganda and rarely if ever actually examines or polices itself or its claims and you get this hysteria over a non-issue. Interestingly the controversy they caused made the song stay at number 1 for longer... keep on smashing that patriarchy

[AgnesIO]

Absolutely ridiculous decision, although the song is ****, and I dislike the artist.

But yeah, couldn't believe this when I read it - absolutely crazy.

[RyRy]

I go to a neighbouring university in Edinburgh and I've gotta say I've had a good chuckle and also a stab at EUSA for this. Parenting should be done by parents, not by student unions. You're there to represent students, not tell them what they shouldn't listening to.

I didn't hear of many feminists getting crazy about this song:



or

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If you listen to the lyrics in them, they're just as "rapey", if not worse, than Blurred Lines which has been banned. I'm more concerned that the NUS will get behind this ban and encourage other unions to do the same, but I will be fully against my union going for this. They've alienated a massive amount of students in doing this, people can make their own decisons and education is the way forward, not censorship.

Just to further add onto my post, here's some Edinburgh University logical thinking.

"Sub Focus - Tidal Wave is a song which encourages young girls to lose their virginity earlier"

http://www.lyricsfreak.com/s/sub+foc..._21048847.html

They're the lyrics, that is how absurd this all is...

[Special]

i'd love to see how they enforce this ban

[GommeInc]

Good, it's an awful song.

In all seriousness, isn't the music industry filled with obvious sexual content that could be sexist towards both genders or suggestive? I watched The Hunchback of Notre Dame the other day - it references threats of rape and that's a U rated Disney Film.

Don't be angry at the University of Edinburgh. Pity them. Pity them for being uneducated.

[peteyt]

The world just gets worse and worse. I remember when the world brainstorm was banned because it was apparently offensive to those with brain difficulties and how some people have to sing baa baa multi coloured sheep.

The funny thing is, usually the people they are trying to protect don't give a damn but people, governments etc are so scared and bring these stupid rules out rather than growing a pair