Parental Advisory: No Rat’s Ass
A label for stupidity
The Parental Advisory Label (PAL) shares a very close relationship with popular rock and R&B music. Sex, drugs and violence have been subjects of debates and sometimes rejected right away, in the modern entertainment industry throughout the globe. Historically, some disgruntled American parents believed that a warning label on audio tapes and CD covers can keep their kids away from the big, bad things of this big, bad world. That was the Eighties. We did get some impressions of the self-righteous parents in ‘Detroit Rock City’. Yes, that’s how people all over the world keep redefining absurdities. Back home it is no different; like elsewhere, rock music is equated with drugs and all things bad, apart from the belief that it is an unimpressive copy from other societies.
The Parental Advisory Label (PAL) shares a very close relationship with popular rock and R&B music. Sex, drugs and violence have been subjects of debates and sometimes rejected right away, in the modern entertainment industry throughout the globe. Historically, some disgruntled American parents believed that a warning label on audio tapes and CD covers can keep their kids away from the big, bad things of this big, bad world. That was the Eighties. We did get some impressions of the self-righteous parents in ‘Detroit Rock City’. Yes, that’s how people all over the world keep redefining absurdities. Back home it is no different; like elsewhere, rock music is equated with drugs and all things bad, apart from the belief that it is an unimpressive copy from other societies.
If image could kill
In one of the ridiculous progresses of human evolution, we have an example in the government diktat to put smoking-kill labels on cigarette packets. All it does is to make the design of the packets ugly. We never care to check it but just carry on smoking as always. Now if we look at the bigger picture, all of these are just a tiny part of our daily life. There is nothing good or bad—we only label it to suit our conscience. If the PAL is about taking up the best steps to inform and warn the young impressive minds, the moral police can continue for continuation’s sake. And we do it for one simple reason: we are just relatively better than other animals and we will continue to live our way. For the sake of carrying on the tradition, the labelling has extended to some randomly selected book titles.
In one of the ridiculous progresses of human evolution, we have an example in the government diktat to put smoking-kill labels on cigarette packets. All it does is to make the design of the packets ugly. We never care to check it but just carry on smoking as always. Now if we look at the bigger picture, all of these are just a tiny part of our daily life. There is nothing good or bad—we only label it to suit our conscience. If the PAL is about taking up the best steps to inform and warn the young impressive minds, the moral police can continue for continuation’s sake. And we do it for one simple reason: we are just relatively better than other animals and we will continue to live our way. For the sake of carrying on the tradition, the labelling has extended to some randomly selected book titles.
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Scum
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The killing
The fucking
Anything’s so possible
In the garbage
Anything’s impossible
Life’s a piece of paper
It’s no different from a toilet paper
Blank and wrinkled
They do what they want
You do what you want
Let me do what I want
Anything’s so possible
Anything’s impossible
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| An old PA-cum-Facebook cover image for the Imphal Talkies, created in January 2013 |
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