Queen: Watch the first music video to be banned by MTV
Very few institutions have influenced visual culture to the extent that MTV has. It facilitated the fusion of music, dance and fashion, providing a highly engaging visual framework for the world of music. Although social media platforms like YouTube and TikTok dominate the landscape now, that was the effect MTV had when it was first launched.
The first music video to be aired on MTV was a broadcast of ‘Video Killed the Radio Star’ by The Buggles in 1981. These broadcasts changed the industry forever, playing a significant role in shaping the sociopolitical sensibilities of popular culture.
Not just music, MTV revolutionised cinema in a lot of ways as well. Filmmakers in Asia, such as Wong Kar-wai, were heavily influenced by the distinct visual style of the music videos featured on MTV, and it informed their cinematic vision as well. In fact, this influence can be readily observed in some of Wong Kar-wai’s early works like As Tears Go By.
While MTV was undoubtedly significant for popular culture, it also had a complicated relationship with censorship. It routinely cut out references to controversial subjects such as weapons, sex, drugs, violence and other issues that caught the attention of parent media watchdog outfits.
Interestingly, the first music video that was outrightly banned by MTV was Mike Hodges’ short for Queen’s 1982 song ‘Body Language’. Although the members of Queen were clothed, the video was banned for nudity because it had erotic undertones and showed too much skin and sweat.
In an interview with Hodges, the filmmaker said (via Money Into Light): “While recording the music for Flash Gordon, I became friendly with all the members of Queen. They were fantastic fun to work with. In fact, shortly afterwards, I shot the movie’s music video. Then Freddie Mercury approached me to do the same with a song he’d written, Body Language.”
While talking about the origin of the erotic idea, Hodges added: “There’s the eroticism you talk about – in the song itself. The concept was Freddie’s, and I was only too happy to capture it on film. We completed it in a Toronto studio after a truly exhausting 24-hour shoot!”
Watch the video below.
