The Australian government has ignored a senate proposal for stricter advertising and classification laws for sexualised music videos and ads aimed at children. The proposal came from a senate committee investigating the sexualisation of children in the media, who concluded that “the inappropriate sexualisation of children in Australia is of increasing concern.” On Friday the government decided to not to act on the report, stating that the “complaints statistics indicate a low level of community concern about music videos.”
Julie Gale, Generation Next speaker and founder of Kids Free 2B Kids, slammed the response, saying it “fails to address many of the concerns of child development professionals and increasing evidence from research.”
The Sydney Morning Herald is running a poll on the topic, which Julie Gale recommends all who are concerned to vote on. “Free TV are under the impression that because they haven’t received many complaints, then there isn’t a problem,” she says. “We know that most people don’t bother to submit ‘official’ complaints because the system is too difficult or confusing – or they feel powerless to make a change. However we also know that research indicates that sexualised music video clips are impacting negatively on our kids.”
SMH poll: Are sexualised music clips too sexy for kids?
Writer Tristan Boyd, Editor Ramesh Manocha.
Hi Julie
Heard you on the radio today, wonderful to hear someone of like mind on the issue of the sexualisation of society.
I have recently taken issue with my gym (fitness first) on the showing of over sexualised music videos (invariably it is the female body being objectified). I have had some success (after many chats, emails to head office and beyond) in that there is a reduction of them being shown recently. The argument from the gym has been that alot of the offensive videos are videos which are all legitimate in relation to advertising and classification laws. If these are the sorts of videos being shown on music shows on mainstream tv it undoubtedly warrants action. If this is what children could be watching on a Saturday morning then i am appalled.
Happy to lend my support.