Ice – T: Is the lssue Social Responsibility …

(1) How did the company that publishes this magazine come to produce a record glorifying the murder of police?

I got my 12-gauge? sawed off

I got my headlights turned off

I’m ‘bout? to bust some shots off

I’m ‘bout to dust some cops off

Die, Die, Die Pig, Die!

(2) So go the verse to Cop Killer by the rapper Ice-T on the album Boby Count. The album is released by Warner Bros. Records, part of the Time Warner media and entertainment conglomerate?.

(3) In a Wall Street Journal op-ed piece laying out the company’s position, Time Warner co-CEO Gerald Levin makes two defenses. First, Ice-T’s Cop Killer is misunderstood. “It doesn’t provoke or glorify vio-lence … It’s his fictionalized attempt to get inside a character’s head … Cop Killer is no more a call for gun-ning down the police than Frankie and Johnny is a summons for neglected lovers to shoot one another.’’ Instead of “finding ways to silence the messenger,” we should be “heeding the anguished? cry contained in his mes-sage.’’

(4) This defense is self-contradictory. Frankie and Johnny does not pretend to have a political “message” that must be “______.” If Cop Killer has a message, it is that the murder of policemen is a justified response to po-lice brutality. And not in self-defense, but in premeditated acts of revenge against random cops. (“I know your family’s grievin’ — f ---’em.”)

(5) Killing policemen is a good thing — that is the plain meaning of the words, and no “l(fā)arger understand-ing” of black culture, the rage of the streets or anything else can explain it away. This is not Ella Fitzgerald tell-ing a story in song. As in much of today’s popular music, the line between performer and performance is pur-posely shadowed. These are political sermonettes? clearly intended to advocate the sentiments being expressed. Tracy Marrow (Ice-T) himself has said, “I scared the police, and they need to be scared.” That seems clear.

(6) The company’ s second defense of Cop Killer is the classic one of free expression: “We stand for creative freedom. We believe that the worth of what an artist or journalist has to say does not depend on preapproval from a government official or a corporate censor?.”

(7) Of course Ice-T has the right to say whatever he wants. But that doesn’t require any company to provide him an outlet. And it doesn’t relieve a company of responsibility for the messages it chooses to promote. Judg-ment is not “censorship.” Many an “anguished cry” goes unrecorded. This one was ______, and promoted, be-cause a successful artist under contract wanted to record it. Nothing wrong with making money, but a company cannot take the money and run from the responsibility.

(8) The founder of Time, Henry Luce, would pour scorn upon the notion that his company should provide a value-free forum? for the exchange of ideas. In Luce’s system, editors were supposed to make value judgments and promote the truth as they saw it. Time has moved far from its old Lucean rigidity — far enough to allow for dissenting? essays like this one. That evolution is a good thing, as long as it’s not a handy excuse for aban-doning all standards.

(9) No commercial enterprise need agree with every word that appears under its corporate approval. If Time Warner now intends to be “a global force for encouraging the confrontation of ideas,” that’s good. But a policy of allowing diverse viewpoints is not a moral free pass. Pro and con? on national health care is one thing; pro and con on killing policemen is another.

(10) A bit of sympathy is in order for Time Warner. It is indeed a “global force” with media tentacles? around the world. If it imposes rigorous standards and values from the top, it gets accused of corporate censorship. If it doesn’t, it gets accused of moral irresponsibility. A dilemma. But someone should have thought of that before deciding to become a global force.

(11) And another genuine ______. Whatever the actual merits of Cop Killer, if Time Warner withdraws the album now the company will be perceived as giving in to outside pressure. That is a disastrous precedent for a global conglomerate.

(12) The Time-Warner merger of 1989 was supposed to produce corporate “synergy?”: the whole was sup-posed to be more than the sum of the parts. The Cop Killer controversy is an example of negative synergy. Peo-ple get mad at Cop Killer and start boycotting the movie Batman Returns. A reviewer praises Cop Killer (“Tracy Marrow’s poetry takes a switchblade and adept slices life’s jugular?,” etc.), and TIME is accused of corruption instead of mere foolishness. Senior Time Warner executives find themselves under attack for — and defending — products of their company they neither honestly care for nor really understand, and doubtless weren’t even aware of before controversy hit.

(13) Anyway, it’s absurd to discuss Cop Killer as part of the “confrontation of ideas” — or even as an au-thentic anguished cry of rage from the ghetto?. Cop Killer is a cynical commercial concoction?, designed to tit-illate? its audience with imagery of violence. It merely exploits the authentic anguish of the inner city for further titillation. Tracy Marrow is in business for a buck, just like Time Warner. Cop Killer is an excellent joke on the white establishment, of which the company’s anguished excuse (“Why can’t we hear what rap is trying to tell us?”) is the punch line.

【參考譯文】

Ice-T：問題是否為社會責(zé)任…

(1)發(fā)行這本雜志的公司，怎么會制作出一張歌頌殺警察的唱片？

鋸短了我的霰彈槍

把我的車頭燈關(guān)上

我要幾顆子彈開花

我要轟掉幾個警察

死吧！死吧！豬！死吧！

(2)拉普歌手Ice-T的專輯《尸體清點》中的《殺警人》一曲，歌詞就是這樣。發(fā)行這張專輯的是華納兄弟唱片公司，屬于時代華納媒體與娛樂集團(tuán)的一員。

(3)　時代華納公司的副總裁萊文投書《華爾街日報》讀者來函版說明公司的立場，文中提出兩點辯護(hù)。第一，Ice-T的《殺警人》被誤解了�！斑@首歌并不燃點或頌揚暴力，……而是他以虛構(gòu)的方式嘗試進(jìn)入一個人物的心靈……《殺警人》并不是呼吁別人槍殺警察，就好像老歌《弗朗基與約翰尼》并不號召被欺騙的戀人拿槍互射是一樣的�！蔽覀儾粦�(yīng)該“設(shè)法讓表達(dá)訊息的人住口”，而應(yīng)“仔細(xì)傾聽他訊息中的痛苦的吶喊�！�

(4)　這種辯護(hù)是自我矛盾的�！陡ダ驶�與約翰尼》并未假裝有什么政治“訊息”要人“仔細(xì)聽”。要說《殺警人》有什么訊息的話，那就是：殺警察是對于警察暴力正當(dāng)?shù)幕貞?yīng)。而且不是為了自衛(wèi)，而是隨便找個警察，有預(yù)謀的進(jìn)行復(fù)仇行動。（“我知道你的家人在傷痛——Ⅹ他的�！保�

(5)　殺警察是好事——這是歌詞里表示得清清楚楚的，不管是對黑人文化的“更全面的理解”也好，街頭的憤怒也罷，不論怎么解釋都改變不了這個事實，這和埃拉?菲茨杰拉德用歌曲說故事的情形不同。今天的熱門音樂常常如此：表演者與表演內(nèi)容之間的分野被刻意模糊了。這首歌是政治宣傳，很時顯的是用來支持歌中表達(dá)的感覺的。特雷西? 馬羅（Ice-T）自己也說過：“我嚇唬到警察，警察也該被嚇一嚇�！边@點應(yīng)該是蠻清楚的。

(6)　時代華納公司對《殺警人》的第二點辯護(hù)是常見的言論自由論：“我們支持創(chuàng)作的自由。我們相信藝術(shù)家或新聞記者要表達(dá)的東西有沒有價值，并非取決于事先獲得政府官員或企業(yè)檢查人員的批準(zhǔn)�！�

(7)當(dāng)然Ice-T有權(quán)說他愛說的話，可是這并不需要一家公司來為他提供一個講臺。而且公司選擇這個訊息來促銷，就不能以言論自由來推卸責(zé)任。判斷力并不是“檢查制度”。社會上太多“痛苦的吶喊”一直沒有人傾聽。這一個吶喊之所以被錄下來，被促銷，只因為公司旗下一個成功的藝人要錄它。賺錢沒有錯，可是公司不能拿了錢就不負(fù)責(zé)了。

(8)《時代雜志》的創(chuàng)辦人亨利?盧斯，如果聽說他的公司應(yīng)該提供一個沒有價值標(biāo)準(zhǔn)的論壇來做意見交流，他一定會嗤之以鼻。在盧斯的制度下，編輯應(yīng)該要做價值判斷，同時宣揚他們眼中的真理�！稌r代雜志》離開盧斯時代的僵硬作風(fēng)已經(jīng)很遠(yuǎn)了——遠(yuǎn)到能容許像這一篇唱反調(diào)的評論出現(xiàn)。這種進(jìn)化是好事，可是不能用它作為很好用的借口來拋棄所有的標(biāo)準(zhǔn)�！�

(9)　公司企業(yè)當(dāng)然不需要對獲得公司授權(quán)而出現(xiàn)的每一個字都同意。如果時代華納公司現(xiàn)在打算做“一支全球性的生力軍，鼓勵不同意見互相交鋒”，這當(dāng)然很好�？墒窃试S不同觀念并存的政策，并不是一張道德通行證。全國性醫(yī)療保健的利弊辯論是一回事，殺警察的利弊又是一回事。

(10)時代華納公司也頗值得同情。它的確是“一支全球性的生力軍”，媒體的觸角遍及全世界。如果它由上往下冠上嚴(yán)格的價值標(biāo)準(zhǔn)，就會被批評為公司檢查言論。如果沒有要求標(biāo)準(zhǔn)，也會被批評為不負(fù)道德責(zé)任。這是兩難的局面。可是在決定要做一股全球勢力之先就該有人想過這個局面。

(11)另外還有一個無解的兩難。不論《殺警人》本身的真實價值如何，如果時代華納公司現(xiàn)在收回這張專輯，會被視為向外界壓力屈服。這對全球性的集團(tuán)來說是災(zāi)難性的先例。

(12)1989年時代公司與華納公司的合并原意是要產(chǎn)生企業(yè)的倍數(shù)效果：整體的力量應(yīng)該超過各部分的總和�！稓⒕�人》引起的爭議可說是負(fù)面倍數(shù)效果的實例。消費者對《殺警人》感到惱火，于是開始抵制電影《蝙蝠俠續(xù)集》。有一位評論家如此“贊揚”《殺警人》：“特雷西? 馬羅的詩歌拿出彈簧刀，熟練地切斷生命的頸動脈”云云。《時代雜志》也不僅被批評為愚蠢而已，甚至被稱為腐敗。資深的時代華納公司主管們因為公司的產(chǎn)品而飽受攻擊，他們還得為這些產(chǎn)品辯解——這些產(chǎn)品其實他們根本沒有興趣，也并不真正了解；而且，在爭議爆發(fā)之前，肯定是根本不知道有這些產(chǎn)品存在。

(13) 無論如何，把《殺警人》當(dāng)作“不同觀念的交鋒”來討論——甚至當(dāng)作貧民區(qū)真正痛苦的、憤怒的吶喊來討論——本身就很荒謬�！稓⒕�人》只是一項虛偽的商業(yè)制品，設(shè)計來以暴力影像刺激聽眾。它只是利用貧民區(qū)真實的痛苦來做進(jìn)一步的刺激。特雷西?馬羅是為了幾個錢在做生意，和時代華納公司沒什么不同�！稓⒕�人》對白人體制開了一個大玩笑，笑話中的笑點就是時代華納公司痛苦的辯白：“我們?yōu)槭裁床蝗ヂ犅犂�普音樂要告訴我們的訊息？”