Purple+Rain


 * Purple Rain**

Janine Mosley Wednesday, January 27, 2010 Mass Media and Children Dr. Renee Hobbs Week 1: Media in My Childhood

Sometime when I was between the ages of 9 and 11 years, the movie “Purple Rain” starring the recording artist known as Prince premiered in theaters. Though I can’t remember specifically, I believe the movie rating was ‘R’ or possibly ‘PG-13’, ratings that would require an adult to accompany me into the movie. Although I had both an older brother and sister who were old enough to take me, my mother’s strict middle-class thinking caused her to forbid me to attend at all. I remember her telling me that there was nothing “worth seeing” in the movie. My mother not only possessed a strong disdain for Prince but also disapproved of the audience she thought would attend the movie. She shared that anyone in the audience would be “sneaky kids looking to do nasty things.” Unfortunately, instead of causing me to feel the same disgust for Prince’s new movie and the “sneaky kids,” I only became more interested in what I was missing out on.

As a devout Christian and daughter of a Pentecostal pastor, my mother had been raised in a strict home. Not only were there strong religious boundaries but also as both of her parents were entrepreneurs and considered successful amongst family and friends, my mother had been indoctrinated with the thoughts typical of middle-class parents concerned with the inability of working-class parents to properly raise their children with high morals and discipline (Livingstone, 2002). Though not as strict as her parents, my mother still held those middle-class beliefs and therefore often kept me from participating in many activities that my peers did. My mother often used secular artists and music media as a scapegoat for what she considered the loss of moral values in society (Livingstone, 2002).

My brother was 9 years older than me and was a huge fan of Prince so I had been secretly exposed to his music and pictures by hanging out in my brother’s room and snooping through his magazines and albums. While Prince dressed differently than other men I had seen on TV, I loved his songs and wanted to see the movie. I knew this would only be possible through some covert operation. On the weekend it came out, I contacted my cousin and asked to spend the weekend with her. My cousin, Karen, was 15 years old and had very liberal parents. Though they were considered working-class, because they were family my mother allowed me to spend time there with no regard for my activities while there.

On the Saturday of the weekend I spent with Karen, she snuck me into the movies to see Purple Rain. Even though she wasn’t old enough to get in, she could easily pass for someone older and had done this before. I don’t know if this was my first time going to a movie theater but it sure felt like it. I walked into the dark room both excited and scared. Eagerly anticipating seeing this movie but also fearful of the “sneaky kids” my mother had told me about. I didn’t know if they would do something bad and somehow I get in trouble for it or if they would do something bad to me. After all they were “sneaky” and that meant something really awful in my mind. We had to sit in the last row because the theater was so crowded. I waited in the dark to somehow catch a glimpse of something sinister going on in the corners or for a fight to break out but there was nothing of the sort. Instead, I sat next to mature adults that watched the movie, enjoyed it and left without incident.

Though the movie was good, I left a little unimpressed with the natural behavior of the “sneaky children.” There weren’t any fights, no crowd shoving, not even an outburst during the show. I realized they were much like me, which was no one to fear. At the same time though, my mother had shared her thoughts about Prince being an unfit role model that would somehow contaminate the minds of anyone who listened to his music. Though to me, I found both his music and his movie to be more thought provoking than contaminating as well as great works of art.

Bibliography Livingstone, S (2002) Young People and New Media Thousand Oaks, CA SAGE Publications Inc.

Edited by Charles Nicolai