Dee Snider as himself. Rock is underfire and he's not gonna take it!
Dee heads to Capitol Hill to become the mouthpiece for freedom of
expression.
The Movie
It's down and dirty, it's rock and roll... and that's the way we like
it. But when Senate wives meet Twisted Sister, things get a little
weird on Capitol Hill.
It's 1986 and the only thing lobbyist Charlie Burner wants is his blank
tape tax passed sohe can schmooze his way into a cushy corner office.
He thinks it's in the bag until prominent Senator wife, Tipper Gore
gets an earful of her kids' latest record collection. Suddenly, Prince
doesn't sound so charming and Tipper leads the Washington Wives down
the warpath to ban "porn rock." They create a banned song wish list and
call it "The Filthy Fifteen." This turns the music industry on its head
and Charlie has to choose between saving his job or saving rock music.
Charlie makes a choice and looks for rock and roll rebels to join the
cause, amassing the most unlikely crew of freedom fighters ever. What
else could bring together Frank Zappa, Dee Snider and John Denver? It's
musicians vs. mothers on Capitol Hill. Once in awhile you gotta stand
tall, open your mouth and let freedom sing.
The History of the PMRC
It started with a song. The song was Prince's "Darling Nikki." And the
PMRC was born when the Purple One's lyrics "I knew a girl named Nikki,
I guess you could say she was a sex fiend/ I met her in a hotel lobby
masturbating with a magazine," drifted from the stereo belonging to
Tennessee Senator Al Gore, his wife Tipper and their 12-year-old
daughter Karenna, for whom Tipper had purchased the record.
Tipper was shocked at what she heard, particularly as there was no
intimation on Purple Rain's cover - aside perhaps from Prince's
suggestive leer - that there was "filth" inside. So in May 1984, she
founded the Parents' Music Resource Center along with other Washington
wives to inform parents on how dubious material was being marketed to
their kids. The goal was to advise the recording industry to monitor
their artistic product.
To that end, the group isolated a list dubbed the filthy fifteen of
songs with questionable lyrical content, and applied labels to each
song according to subject matter. They suggested that rock music was
responsible for the rising rate of rape and suicide among those between
the ages of 16 and 24. Their media-friendly crusade quickly graduated
to the Senate.
In a series of government hearings, the PMRC advocated printing lyrics
on album covers; keeping explicit sleeves under the counter with the
Redd Foxx albums; urging broadcasters to avoid airing "questionable
talent;" reassessing the contracts of artists who sang about sex,
suicide, Satanism and the like; and most controversially of all, a
labeling system of warning stickers on records with suspect content.
Frank Zappa, John Denver and Twisted Sister's Dee Snider were the
unlikely trio who opposed the PMRC's aims, arguing that it would lead
to industry-wide censorship. The Camelot retail chain said they would
not carry records that bore the so-called "Tipper stickers." But the
music industry bowed to the outcry and in 1990 began voluntarily
putting parental advisory stickers on offending albums.
Zappa's Jazz from Hell earned the distinction of being the first
instrumental album to get a label. Rap artists like N.W.A. and Ice T
reveled in the outlaw status (and platinum sales) a Tipper sticker
seemed to guarantee. Tipper Gore resigned from the PMRC in 1992 after
Al entered the White House as vice-president. And as far as we know,
"Darling Nikki" has never been heard in the Lincoln Bedroom.
Endeavors 
