By G.A. Dwyer Astaphan

This term has been coined into a mantra for the Tempo Television Network and is being used to send a message to the youths of the Caribbean.

And Tempo is carrying its message to the schools of the Caribbean. This week, it has come to the schools of St. Kitts.

The message is that youths must stay away from gangs and violence.

It’s a great message, and a necessary one. But is it complete?

For it to be complete, it also has to tell the youths to be elegant, dignified, decent, diligent, respectful and industrious, and to live values-based lives.

Is Tempo sending the complete message to our Caribbean youths? Or is it sending half-a-message? Indeed, is it sending mixed messages to our youths?

For the answer, you need to look at Tempo analytically. What will you see?

A lot of half-naked women, turned on to ‘wuk up and wine’ for male singers and putting their bodies in all kinds of submissive and suggestive, even openly crude, exposures. And a lot of half-naked female singers selling what is, for the most part, like their male counterparts, mediocre product under the veneer of crude sexuality.

You will also see some of the same ‘gangsta’ dancehall artistes who promote the same violence which Tempo is telling you that it wants to go ‘outa style’.

And you will see all kinds of hand gesticulations and hear “YOU DUN KNOW”, and hear artistes singing all kinds of asinine jingles as they praise and promote Tempo and its founder.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s great for our region’s artistes to have the market access which was so elusive before Tempo came onto the scene. And I understand their sense of gratitude and appreciation.

But that does not mean that they, or you, or I, must accept lower standards.

Of course, if you watch Tempo you will also see some gospel stuff, but only in very scarce supply as Tempo is not a gospel channel. But I would hazard a guess and suggest that the Christians in our region are unlikely to have their TV’s “locked” on Tempo, or even on Tempo for a half-hour a week. They get their sustenance elsewhere.

So, while Tempo is telling the youths, and the rest of us, that ‘badness outa style’, it is promoting the same badness of violence and ‘gangsta-ism’, and also the badness of crude, wanton sexuality and promiscuity, the ‘dissing’ of women, and other types of badness.

Its objective may really be to indoctrinate the youths and create consumers. It is, after all, a business. And some business people can be cold.

I recall having dinner with the founder of BET, Mr. Bob Johnson, some years ago, and asking him if he was in any way concerned about the negative impact that BET might be having on youths.

His response, “I run a business, Minister, not a social organisation”, sent a chill through me.

Cynicism is bad, but hypocrisy is even worse; especially if it comes under a banner which declares that it wants to reform youths and society for the better.

I might not be accusing Tempo of hypocrisy, but I will not lie: I am worried and very doubtful.
 
There is already so much mind-,and soul-, numbing  ‘dumbness’ on TV, and so many people already  “locked” on to the ‘dumbness’, that we are in danger of losing the next generation, given the belief in many quarters that the present one is already lost.

And up comes Tempo with its ‘badness outa style’.

Many years ago, while I was Minister of Information, which portfolio included responsibility for The Cable, I pushed hard internally for a new approach to programming in an effort to clean up a lot of the mind-numbing, crude and destructive crap that passes for entertainment on TV.

I argued that just as the company could put together in its packages for sale to TV consumers, it could also change the package from time to time.

A lot of people spend many hours a day watching TV, and there can be no doubt that what appears on the tube influences them, whether it be Pastors T.D. Jakes and Frederick Pryce; or the Cartoon Channel with its pervasive violence; or HBO,TMC or Showtime with their simulated sex movies; or shows of nearly all varieties in which cuss words are the order of the day; or situation comedies which try to peddle comedy under the guise of disrespect and shallowness; or MTV, Channel 28, BET, Hype or Tempo with their music-video-sales plugging all day, all night, and the crudeness and the lewdness that go with that; or the empty gossip programmes; or the news channels; and so on.

All of it influences people.

And as a responsible society, we should set some standards of acceptability and decency.

So, I suggested that some of these channels be replaced. There are a million and one good, entertaining and educational channels out there, in the region, in the hemisphere (we ‘eat’ too much American stuff), in Europe, Africa and elsewhere, offering great product.

And the Cable could have done some changing around for the better. But people thought that I was being too pushy, and the next thing I knew I was no longer the Minister.

It is again  time (it always is) to look at the TV menu that is before us with a view to improving and cutting down and out the crap that is destroying the souls and the lives of our young and our civilisation.

That is what Tempo should be trying to do.

Meanwhile, I do not buy Tempo’s ‘badnes outa style’ story, and I am not at all happy with the fact that it is to go into our schools this week to continue its efforts, because  manipulation, not emancipation might be Tempo’s mission.

“You dun know!”