Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Chris Brown bows out of Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards for 2009

I was very excited earlier today when my friend Anthony sent me the story that said that Chris Brown had decided to take his name out of consideration for the Nickelodeon Kid's Choice Award.

This made me very happy. Especially after Nickelodeon released a statement saying that they decided to stand by the nomination since he was who kids voted for.

When I posted about the nomination for Chris Brown on Saturday I was bothered by the news. I wasn't bothered in the way I would be bothered if Brown received a Grammy nomination, but the Kids' Choice Awards is a program geared towards children, and for Nickelodeon to throw their hands up in the air saying "well, the kids did vote for him" was really a lame excuse.

On Sunday I spent time not only sending online letters to Viacom/MTV Networks/Nickelodeon, but also to sponsors of the Kids' Choice awards, including Cheerios and Dreamworks Animation (producers of Monsters vs. Aliens).

I was pleased to get a response from Cheerios expressing their dedication to supporting family oriented television.

Chris Brown won the award for best male singer at the awards show in 2008, and I hope that him pulling out was due to extensive pressure and bad press, and maybe (hopefully) the request of network execs at Nickelodeon. Brown's exclusion should lead to conversations in families discussion how Brown's actions are inappropriate under any circumstance, and how Rihanna needs to remove her self from dangerous situations of this nature.

I appreciated the comments on my Chris Brown/Kids' Choice Award post, the frustration expressed by Michael Parson, Aaron Covey, William Petruzzo, Goon Squad Sarah, and Ando. Each of these commented validated that Nickelodeon's failure to respond only served to validate that domestic abuse was acceptable behavior, and no response on their part was wrong and inappropriate.

3 comments:

Fox said...

This is purely out of business trend curiousity, but I am so curious how these horrible situation is gonna affect Chris Brown's career. Will it blow over? Will fans brush it aside like they did R. Kelly?

Of course, the variable at play here is that Chris Brown mainly appealed to teens and pre-teens. They might have a very different reaction to older R. Kelly fans.

What's been bugging me about Brown lately is that he seems so "whatevs" about the whole thing. He's jet skiing and recording an album while this is going on??

Dad said...

To start, I'm not knocking anyone's efforts to get Nickelodeon to oust Brown from the awards. It did make me think about how I would handle it from a corporation's point of view. For Nickelodeon to take a stand and bar Brown based on his conduct would be a reaction based on morality. In other words they would appear to be making a judgment about his behavior. This, in turn, would suggest that Nickelodeon considers all of the other nominees to be great role models free of disqualifying characteristics and actions. I wouldn't want this if I were them. They'd have to make a lot of decisions that go into some gray areas. In a society with (as some claim) no absolutes this is tricky business. If they barred brown why not bar Miley for posing in Vanity Fair? Or why not bar people because they got a divorce or committed adultery or defaulted on a loan?

Of course the right thing to do would have been for Brown to remove himself immediately citing personal reasons. Then Nick could have issued a statement reiterating their commitment to family and condemning violence and domestic abuse. I guess that is kind of what ended up happening, but it sounds like there was a lot of armtwisting involved.

Lorna said...

Good for you. I love people with the courage of their convictions.