You Don't Have to Take It - From Twisted Sister to Jimmy Kimmel
September 19th is a banner day for free speech rights I commemorate every year.
America’s favorite pastime in the 1980s was not baseball, but rather moral panics. D&D was Satanic and dangerous to children. (Tom Hanks’s first lead role was in a movie about how dangerous D&D is called Mazes and Monsters which I can’t recommend enough because of how stupid it is.) Multiple childcare workers were accused of Satanic child abuse. And of course there was hysteria over books, films, television, and most of all, music.
In 1985 four wives of prominent politicians, of both parties, formed the Parents Music Resource Center. This was a government committee formed to address the “problem” of musicians using naughty words. Some of the example songs they listed were absolutely sexually explicit. Those who have read the first amendment would recognize this as “none of the government’s business” but if you ignore that idea, as the committee did, some of the songs they chose were RIDICUOUSLY innocuous.
I’m mostly referring to Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Gonna Take It” and the iconic music video for it.
We've got the right to choose it
There ain't no way we'll lose it- Twisted Sister “We’re Not Gonna Take it”
It is wild for us to consider this in hindsight, but Twisted Sister was EXTREMELY controversial in the 1980s, both for their lyrical content and their cross-dressing appearances. Twisted Sister faced censorship throughout the country. Shows were canceled from police threats. Dee Snider was arrested in Amarillo, TX for obscenity. Charges there were dropped thanks to a pesky law called the first amendment.
In 2025 it is difficult to find anything even remotely objectionable in Twisted Sister’s music. They did not advocate for violence. Their music never references Satan. They rarely even sang about sex. About the worst thing you can levy here is that they were playfully rebellious.
And this was one of the most controversial bands in the 1980s because it’s far easier to get mad about a caricature than it is an actual person.
The PMRC hearings were primarily about forcing the music labels to self-censor and label albums deemed too “obscene” for children. They called multiple musicians as witnesses, like John Denver and Frank Zappa, but it was Dee Snider of Twister Sister who exposed the PMRC for what it was - a quasi-fascist attempt by the government at controlling art.
No one at the PMRC did their homework regarding Dee Snider. They were expecting an idiot. Dee Snider is well-read, legally knowledgeable, and an excellent communicator. They thought they’d be getting a drugged out alcoholic. Dee Snider is a lifelong teetotaler. There wasn’t any drug use in Twisted Sister and a limited amount of alcohol use. They thought they’d be getting a womanizing sex fiend. Dee Snider is a devoted husband and father. He and his wife, Suzette, are celebrating their 44th wedding anniversary next month. They thought a Satanist would be testifying. He’s a practicing Christian.
They judged Dee Snider and Twisted Sister off their own prejudices and biases rather than anything the band actually did or published.
And Dee Snider eloquently ripped them to shreds for half an hour over it. This video is long but you should watch it when you have time. Stick around for future Vice-President Al Gore attacking Snider for not being Christian enough with Snider immediately riposting that profanity has nothing to do with being a Christian.
Snider’s testimony effectively destroyed the PMRC. He deftly defended his music against their lies (it’s insane in retrospect that one of the objections the PMRC had was fingerless gloves which they said promoted BDS&M). He defied the stereotypes they’d brought into the room. But most importantly, he gave an impassioned defense of the first amendment rights of artists.
The hearings continued past this, but Snider had defanged them. The end result is the RIAA voluntarily placed parental advisory stickers on “explicit” albums with no enforcement mechanisms. The only accomplishment of the PMRC was a sticker essentially saying “Hey kids! BUY THIS!”
Unfortunately the lesson of the PMRC is one America keeps having to relearn. It took less than a decade for bans and obscenity charges against 2 Live Crew. 2 Live Crew took the moralists to court and 2 Live Crew won. They celebrated their victory with one of my favorite first amendment songs of all time - Banned in the USA. (Unlike most 2 Live Crew songs, this one is perfectly clean.)
You have the right to listen to whoever you want to, even if its 2 Live Crew
- 2 Live Crew “Banned in the USA”
The pattern didn’t stop in the 90s. Fast forward and we are now facing the same battles under the most anti-first amendment president in American history.
Trump has filed defamation suits against ABC, CBS, The Wall Street Journal, E Jean Carroll (the woman he raped), and the New York Times. All of these suits are ludicrous but some have been successful in their intended goal - extorting the target organization. Though just today, a judge threw out the NYT lawsuit as it began by saying he didn’t suffer the damages he is claiming and then went on for 85 pages talking about how great Trump is and also he’s very successful. I’m not exaggerating.
We are where we are because Trump was mocked at the White House Correspondents Dinner in 2011 due to the racist conspiracy theory he pushed about Barack Obama’s birthplace. Donald Trump CANNOT STAND people laughing at him. For a decade now, Donald Trump has been ranting about late-night hosts making jokes about him and Saturday Night Live parodies. He will always add in some form of them not being funny and/or having low ratings as ratings are the sole way Donald Trump values culture.
Typically in these rants, Trump has threatened to revoke the “licenses” of the networks. Slight problem there in that networks do not have licenses. Local affiliates do.
And that’s where the FCC comes in.
The FCC oversees broadcast programming. Contrary to popular perception, they have zero authority to regulate cable news. We are only talking about radio and television programs sent and received through airwaves.
Brendan Carr worked on Project 2025 at The Heritage Foundation. He wrote the section on the FCC which talked about the need to defund NPR & PBS (which they’ve done) and the need for the FCC to tightly regulate objectionable speech by broadcasters.
Trump put Carr in charge of the FCC and he’s now using that position to do exactly what The Heritage Foundation promised - using the government to stifle speech they do not like.
Earlier this week Jimmy Kimmel spoke about the murder of Charlie Kirk. The clip which has caused such a furor is almost entirely focused on Donald Trump’s reaction. That clip does not have the entirety of what Kimmel said. He was notably mistaken about the killer’s political beliefs, but being mistaken does not revoke your first amendment rights.
Amid a massive movement on the right to identify and punish anyone they viewed as not appropriately reacting to Kirk’s murder, FCC Chair Carr went on Benny Johnson’s podcast and openly threatened ABC with actions unless they “corrected” the Kimmel situation. (I’ll note here Benny Johnson lost TWO journalism jobs because of rampant plagiarism.)
ABC got the message loud and clear and pulled Kimmel off the air. They already caved to Donald Trump last year over a defamation suit regarding whether he “raped” E. Jean Carrol. While the legal details differed, a judge already ruled against Trump in a similar case, declaring that by the common usage of the word, Trump did in fact rape Caroll. But ABC decided it was easier to curry favor with the president by settling. Paramount settled a similar lawsuit as Paramount is currently seeking FCC approval for a merger.
Similarly, Nexstar, which owns a large number of ABC affiliates, is seeking FCC approval for a merger. Sinclair, another ABC affiliate owner, is also considering action which would need FCC approval.
It is not a coincidence that Nexstar and Sinclair were heavily involved in the push to pull Kimmel off the air. Jimmy Kimmel committed the ultimate sin - making fun of Donald Trump. The FCC then threatens the network which airs Kimmel. Which was followed by owners in that network who need FCC approval for business operations to agree with the FCC’s demands and kill Kimmel’s show.
The technical term for this is “jawboning.” It’s the process of getting around first amendment violations by using the government to coerce private actions that the government itself cannot take. Though rare, the courts have held that the government cannot circumvent the first amendment by compelling private entities to censor speech the government cannot censor themselves.
But jawboning is legal jargon limited to a pretty small set of the population. There is a much better word for what the government has done here and what Trump wants done to all of his critics - extortion.
The federal government extorted ABC to get them to pull Kimmel off the air. While not as direct, Trump made clear he also wanted Stephen Colbert fired which Paramount did as they want FCC approval for a merger.
This will not be the end of this. Trump is already calling on NBC to fire Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers. The man who was furious people made fun of him over his constant promotion of birtherism is now in charge of the federal government. And he wants to use that government to silence criticism.
This isn’t new. Every dictator in history has attempted this. Just last night Jon Stewart interviewed Maria Ressa, a Filipino journalist imprisoned by former president Rodrigo Duterte (Trump frequently praised Duterte, especially for executing drug dealers). And even without anything as drastic as what happened this week, the attempt by the PMRC to censor music shows we have been dealing with these issues long before Donald Trump decided to commit the ultimate act of vengeance by running for president to spite the man who mocked him - Barack Obama.
This will get worse. We will see more actions taken against comedians and journalists who stand up to Donald Trump. We don’t get to control that.
What we control is our reaction to it. You do not have to stand for this. You do not have to accept it. And like Dee Snider so many decades ago, you do not have to take it.
Mark Weiss, Getty Images
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