Metal Mania

I've grown a kind of grim fascination with these Christian "Media is bad" Videos from the 80s and early 90s since I downloaded a couple last year. This one, as is clear from the title, details the ways in which heavy metal is destroying the youth of America. As someone who was raised in South Yorkshire by a mother who trusted my intelligence and judgement to give only the barest set of rules (essentially amounting to "don't get hurt, don't hurt anyone else, don't get arrested") I can only pity the poor kids who's parents were taken in by these tapes and subsequently had their adolescent years trampled over. The host of this video, Bob Larson states near the start that his video will "help to break down the barriers that heavy metal has built up between you and your children", showing a bare-faced unwillingness of the makers and their audience to even try to understand their children.

He shows a clip in which he talks to members of the band Laaz Rockit, who tell him that the music they make and the themes it contains are only entertainment and flavour, and that they're not only on the same label as the Christian band Stryper, but they are also friends with them. The video then cuts to the host alone in his own studio, where with a stony face, he tells the camera "Laaz Rockit seem like a nice bunch of guys, but remember that they've sold their souls to rock and roll."

As I said in the first paragraph, Bob just can't understand why metal contains themes of destruction, demonology, the occult and so on. He's completely incapable of imagining that anyone could take listening to metal as a positive experience. He says that musicians are manipulated by Satan to sow seeds of rebellion in teenagers and youths. He goes on to say that metal musicians and fans don't come from families or backgrounds with "a strong bond of love", which feels entirely like a weaselly way of leading into his real agenda: the motive of this video is entirely to cajole parents into being stricter, more controlling and less forgiving to their children.

Later in the video, he talks to teenagers, who tell him to his face about the positive effect metal has had on them as people, and who are mostly thoughtful young people. The only truly "negative" thing he can say about these kids is that they aren't Christians, or at least, they aren't the kind of literal interpretation Christians he'd like. Metal has given them self-esteem, and one girl talks about how metal has turned her life around after she attempted suicide. After this, there's another one of Bob's solo spots where he disregards all this and extolls the virtue of "tough love" and that any "harsh words" between parents and their children are only temporary and are needed to get kids back in line.

Other videos of this genre I've seen that tackle subjects such as action cartoons and Dungeons and Dragons have been almost laughable in their ineptitude. Though I'm sure they caused as much bad parenting as this video, those always seemed like the creators were just out to make a quick buck, with no regard as to who might get hurt in the process. Metal Mania and Bob Larson seem completely sincere and completely malicious. It's insensitive to those who might have been affected by these sorts of videos, but I admit, I usually watch these as a kind of bizarre psuedo-entertainment, as the hosts will make bizarre connections between media they don't understand and all kinds of extreme phenomena. Metal Mania doesn't have that kind of value, it just feels like a nasty, malicious video with a potential for causing real harm to innocent people.