LYT's Weblog

The plot of the video is as follows: A one-legged man enters a tall building to find that the elevator is broken. He hauls his way up the stairs, and as he does so, is haunted by visions of the woman who betrayed him. He makes it to the top (where Fozzy happen to be performing), crawls to the edge, and throws himself off the roof.

Unfortunately, it seems that MTV has a policy against showing depictions of suicide. So now he only crawls to the edge. There's no point to the journey, and the story has no arc.

One must presume that MTV has this policy as a result of some of the heavy metal lawsuits in the '80s. Judas Priest, Metallica, and Ozzy Osbourne were among the rockers accused of promoting suicide in their lyrics, and causing actual suicide in their listeners.

Still, is it MTV's job to be a babysitter? If Fozzy want to risk similar suits (which would be unlikely to be filed nowadays, and even less likely to succeed), shouldn't it be on them? MTV has the right, and the mandate, to ensure that their programming is FCC-safe, but suicide hasn't been a taboo topic on TV for as long as I can remember.

Technically, one could argue that Jesus committed suicide. By most accounts, he could have saved himself but didn't. Judas is certainly described as killing himself, and Judas has been portrayed on TV.

MTV is a private company that can do whatever they want, but it's still kinda asshole-ish to trim a video without consulting its director.

As I told Paul, though, posterity will preserve the director's cut. As will ifilm and yahoo launch.