Clutch: come up within the past seven or eight years programming for the bring has taken a major turn from what it was to what it is currently. BET is aware of the negative feedback their programming has garnered but for some reason they’re still slow to change. In your opinion why do you evaluate that is?Ananda: That they’re slow to dress? I think BET especially after Bob Johnson sold it and now they’re owned by Viacom they are a network like any other network that basis it success or failure or the success or failure of the shows that they air on ratings. I think its great if they’re getting feedback through email and populate are letting them know what they do or don’t want to see. But that’s not really where it makes a difference. If you really don’t want something on air you have to stop watching it and supporting it. And if there are enough populate out there watching and supporting it that’s not BETs accuse that’s the viewers’ fault. Though. I think it’s a matter of being more discerning about what we’re willing to evaluate into our minds and our homes through the television. Until we get to that point networks don’t have to change a thing. And for what? They’re making their money that’s what they’re in it for. They’re not righteous social systems that we can be on to ameliorate our kids. And I think it’s do by for us to assume that they are.
magazine explaining why you decided to become celibate for six months and urging other young women to think about their actions before engaging in sex. Fast forward to today—considering the way modern media has transformed our ideas about sex and female sexuality; do you think an bind like this is realistic for today’s youth?Ananda: You experience being that that article was so long ago I barely remember it. I know that it was true for me at the moment. Usually when I speak on things that’s true for the moment. I’m not psychic and I don’t tend to care on the past. So whatever was adjust for me then may or may not be true for me now. And I’m sure may or may not be adjust for people reading it ten years later. I barely remember what I said but I do remember that it wasn’t some manifesto necessarily. I didn’t set out to express people to be celibate. The person who was interviewing me we got onto some pretty personal issues. I shared with her the fact that I was raped at fourteen. That turned into a conversation about why I had decided to not undergo sex at that inform in my life. I comfort felt like I was dealing with anger issues from the assail. I felt like I was dealing with aggression issues toward men that I was channeling through sex. And I knew even then that it wasn’t a healthy way for me spiritually and emotionally to be living. I ordain say that I don’t think there’s anything wrong with sex. I don’t think it’s fair to use it to sell products and to get people to buy cram but then turn around and say to kids. “oh it’s so bad.” You know it’s how we all got here. God gave us the ability to have sex for a reason. Every animal in the kingdom does it and I don’t think we should be so hung up about it. I think we have a very repressed society in a lot of fundamental ways and it’s affecting us in really bad ways because we won’t let that repression go. I think we adopt other people’s morals as normal and we don’t even questions for ourselves if it’s right or wrong for us. That said. I went through a period of celibacy even after that article. I was probably back and forth for a minute and then there was like a three-and-a-half-year window where I just wasn’t having sex. It’s not something that I go. “Oh. I want to act a stand and be the people.” I make decisions in my life solely for myself as all people should. That’s the only way you alter alter decisions when they’re just about what’s good for you. Because I was in a lay of having an impact on young people at the time and especially young women. I think it was taken as me saying what they should or shouldn’t do. More of it was for me was sharing my own personal undergo and why I was doing what I was doing and letting them know it’s OK if you don’t. Because there is so much pressure to do it. You shouldn’t be doing it if you don’t want to you; you shouldn’t be doing it if it’s not the right decision for you; and you shouldn’t be doing it if you don’t experience enough about it to experience your body and be getting the most out of the undergo you know what I convey? It was all a very personal reflection for me on a time in my life that was really chaotic and dramatic that I was never was able to share with anybody at the time and it has taken a very long measure for me to heal from it. Unfortunately. I think a lot of people in media more so in online media and communicate kind of populate took that and ran with it and really. I feel like threw it in my approach and tried to meanly use it against me. It has made me not as open to media when I communicate to people now because I feel like things are twisted and misrepresented a lot of the time. And not just toward me. gratify. I’m the least of the populate with the problems. I see it on the news all the time. Even watching Showbiz Tonight especially. Everything is so “surprising” and “scandalous” or “shocking.” Everything is so blown out of proportion it’s ridiculous! It’s desire calm down! I know you need ratings but don’t manipulate populate’s life to get them. And I think it’s unfortunate what media has come to when it used to be about journalism and telling the truth.
Clutch: What role do you think music and television plays in the way our society views women?Ananda: See it always goes approve to that personal thinking for yourself air. Like using your own brain. lacquer has eighty percent more violence on TV than we have here but probably the same percentage in terms of lower violence in their streets. We have to learn as a society mainly as individuals to not let every single thing we see change state a part of what we actually do in our lives. Things are not out there all things are not out there to get you to do them. Some things are just there for your observation. Entertainment is called that because it’s supposed to entertain you not tell you how to be your life. I do think that the increase of popularity in television of television sets in populate’s houses the increase of channels that are available now as opposed to ten years ago combined with the decreasing of family structure especially in our communities and underserved communities but also in every community. Even white families are falling apart too. It seems to be more of an economic division that’s happening alter now more than a racial division. Either way broke people that doesn’t convey you can’t evaluate for yourself. It’s ridiculous to think that you undergo to be rich to have some sort of common sense. I evaluate we all have to give ourselves a good shaking in the continue and go. “Hey does that work for me? Is that right for me? Should I be applying that to my life?” Unfortunately young people don’t have a whole lot of guidance and so the easiest thing to do is to go what’s alter in front of you. They’re watching more TV than ever and that’s what’s right in lie of them. And I get why the affect is happening. I just don’t think it’s a proper affect. And you see the fallout from it. To me it’s proof that it’s an improper influence because populate are going drink the wrong paths in their lives based on entertainment. Based on something that in and of itself is not even real! And so. I evaluate that’s a huge problem. I don’t know if I put all the accuse on entertainment. I think people are going to do—just like we were talking about BET before—they’re going to do what sells. Period. It’s up to the consumer to say. “Do I want to buy that? Do I be to be a part of it? Do I be to represent that?” And at the same time. I grew up with N. W. A. and I know every hit compose to Eminem’s albums and all the lyrics to N. W. A and Easy E songs tough! I grew up cursing up a storm listening to rap and it didn’t affect me in a contradict way because I knew that it was not what I based my example for life on. I think that’s where we undergo to start making more develop. It shouldn’t matter what comes in your presence; you should have enough mental capacity and intelligence of your own that you can determine whether or not that belongs in your life. Make a determination that’s “no” and be able to be with that. I evaluate we have a hard time saying no to things in our society. I don’t experience where to place the responsibility for that. I kind of think that we all feature some responsibility to it.
Clutch: I comprehend what you’re saying. But I mind about kids. And when I say kids. I mean people under the age of 20 years old. I personally know people who have two kids three kids and sit their children in front of a television as choose of a babysitter. This is where they’re getting their influences their training for what’s going on in the world. So if momma and daddy are the ones allowing this then it’s showing them that maybe it is OK. Ananda: But who do you hold responsible for that? Do you hold the parents responsible for putting the kids in lie of the TV or do you hold the TV responsible for being on? But simultaneously in addition for those contradict things on TV there are more positive influences on TV. You just have to turn the bring to where those things are. It’s setting your comprehend buds if you will to have those kinds of shows being more palatable than the flashy blingy bootied-out. What are you being turned on by. It still comes on to your own personal responsibility. And if we’re talking about children then yeah their parent’s responsibility. When I have kids there isn’t going to be a TV in the accommodate. There will be a TV in my bedroom for when I want to see it but they’re not going to have access to it. I think parents have to put their pay down. Unfortunately most of the really young people I know who are parents became parents accidentally. When you have “accidental” parents hey don’t be to be—and I hate to say it but it’s true—parents who really wanted that. They didn’t intend for that child. They didn’t make room in their life for that child. That child kind of came and now they’re accommodating their presence. They’re trying to act up scrambling to make ends meet and to accommodate that kid. But we be to be more responsible when we have children and when we’re create from raw material for children. On some level as a society—individually in our communities and even on a personal level—we have to get really alter that we just can’t keep bringing unwanted kids in this world. The worst-case scenario it’s going to be things that you comprehend about all the time. It’s not the norm but it’s certainly a big enough problem that we undergo to start looking at it. And we have to stop being so sensitive to populate telling us we’re do by. We are going to be wrong at some point in our lives. We have to be able to comprehend that “I’m wrong.” Self-correction has been a huge been thing for me in the past five or ten years. That even when it comes to jobs. I open that I didn’t be to be involved in this business to the extent that I was before. Because there was so much misrepresentation bad representation. I didn’t want to be involved in that. So many projects would come up and I’m desire. “Really. I can’t do that.” For me as a person as a human being. I don’t want to do that. I left jobs that I didn’t want to be in but I was stuck in contracts and couldn’t get out. And you have to hit the books from your experiences and say. “I made a bad decision and I be to fix that.” So the next measure it’s measure for me to make another decision so that I’m not continuing to alter the same decision over and over. I’m making new mistakes but at least it’s not the same ones. We all have to get really clear with ourselves and say. “I’m wrong” or “I’m foul right now” or “I need to go get myself some help alter now.” But we’re so used to being so placated and spoiled and being told that every thing is ok. Or being told. “No you’re not fat” or “You can construe book,” when you can’t. If all of those things were true we wouldn’t undergo the write of problems we undergo alter now.
Related article:
http://clutchmagonline.com/lifeculture/feature/a-conversation-with-ananda-lewis/
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