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| Britney Spears and Rapper Ludacris
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This is a partial transcript from The O'Reilly Factor, September 10, 2002. Click here to order the complete transcript.
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BILL O'REILLY, HOST: In the Factor Follow-Up segment tonight, I appeared on 105.1 radio in New York City this morning. That station plays a lot of rap and hip-hop. And Dr. Dre, Ed Lover and Lisa G. were all over me for knocking the rapper Ludacris.
Their argument is that Pepsi spokesman Britney Spears is just as bad.
Joining us now from Washington is Lori Waters, executive director of the Eagle Forum, a conservative pro-family group.
Now, do you see it that way, Miss Waters? I mean, the rap community, Ludacris's mother is yelling at me now. I got the whole family up in arms.
LORI WATERS, EAGLE FORUM EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR: Well, I (UNINTELLIGIBLE)...
O'REILLY: And they're telling me that, hey, I'm unfair. They're not defending Ludacris. I mean, I think everybody realizes how insidious and subversive he is. But they're saying, 'Look, you give, you give Britney Spears a pass, and it's the same thing.'
What -- how do you see it?
WATERS: Well, Bill, I certainly agree with you and commend you for getting Ludacris off of the Pepsi deal. I mean, he is just outrageous.
But I'm really shocked that you aren't going after Britney Spears. She's a sexualized pop star, and Pepsi's banking on that.
O'REILLY: Well, Elvis Presley was a sexualized pop star. I mean, should I have gone after him...
WATERS: Yes, but do you...
O'REILLY: ... when I was 5 years old? I mean...
WATERS: Do you want your 10- or 12-year-old girls dancing and looking like Britney Spears? I mean, that's...
O'REILLY: Do I want that?
WATERS: ... who she appeals to.
O'REILLY: Do I want that?
WATERS: Yes...
O'REILLY: No, I don't want it. But look, to me it's like comparing marijuana to heroin. All right? So you may object to Britney Spears flouncing around in little skimpy outfits and buying the fake boobs and all of that. I mean, you may object to it, but it's not nearly on the level of a Ludacris...
WATERS: It's...
O'REILLY: ... who's saying to people, 'Go out, get a gun, use crack, and call women 'hos.'
WATERS: Ludacris is definitely over the edge. I mean, you're exactly right. Britney isn't as bad. But she is still a bad role model for teens. I mean, this is just a ploy by Pepsi to get little kids to drink Pepsi...
O'REILLY: Sure it is.
WATERS: ... and, you know, it's just using sex as their marketing tool, and that's just not appropriate. I mean, they should get away from that.
O'REILLY: All right. You think -- you think Pepsi should fire Britney Spears?
WATERS: Yeah. They could get some little teen star -- young star like the "Dude, you're getting a Dell" commercial. I mean, they have a successful marketing campaign without using sex. I mean, you don't see him dancing dirty in front of Bob Dole.
O'REILLY: All right. OK. Now, look, we live in a society now that is a lot more permissive than it was 20 years ago, OK, and we have, you know, people like Michael Jackson grabbing his, you know, jewels when he dances and spinning around and...
WATERS: Yeah.
O'REILLY: ... Janet Jackson coming out in a halter top and bumping and grinding. Now, to me, this is not a danger to society, OK? It's not -- I don't want and I wouldn't let my daughter do those things, but in the long run, it's this, whereas Ludacris's message is, "Look, be an outlaw. Take narcotics. Abuse people. Punch people. Hurt people." Now I'm not...
WATERS: But Britney's message...
O'REILLY: ... going to call for Pepsi to fire Britney Spears...
WATERS: OK.
O'REILLY: ... because I don't feel Britney Spears is a threat to the nation. She may be not a good role model, but I don't think she's going to do any permanent damage to anybody, whereas he is.
WATERS: Well, the permanent damage is just the feeding of the culture of sexualizing kids when they're like 10 and 12 years old. I mean, you've gone after people...
O'REILLY: But she isn't doing that.
WATERS: Well, she is by...
O'REILLY: She's an adult.
WATERS: ... the way she dresses and the songs. She's 20 years old, and she really came to stardom about two or three years ago. But she doesn't appeal to 20-year-olds. Her appeal is to the 10-, 12-year-old girls.
O'REILLY: What do you think -- like Britney Spears to me -- I mean, I don't know. I see her, but I don't really listen to her lyrics or anything like that. What do you...
WATERS: Yeah. You just want her to dance in front of you like she did Bob Dole.
O'REILLY: Well, Bob Dole did a commercial with Britney Spears, right?
WATERS: Yeah.
O'REILLY: OK. And what was...
WATERS: That's right.
O'REILLY: Was Dole leering at her or something? What was he doing wrong?
WATERS: It was a very sexualized commercial, and, at the end, he said, "Down, boy," and it's supposed to be for his dog, but you can get some other sexual connotations from that, and...
O'REILLY: So it was a double entendre.
WATERS: ... you know, it was like -- it was really gross thinking that Bob Dole is like the age of her grandfather, and -- I mean, that's just...
O'REILLY: Well, for those of us getting up in years, I don't know if we want to categorize it like that. But, look...
WATERS: Well, it's true.
O'REILLY: ... all of this, I think, is immature and silly rather than subversive and dangerous, and that's the way I'm coming down...
WATERS: Well, it's just feeding...
O'REILLY: ... on this.
WATERS: Yeah. It's just feeding the notion that little girls -- it's OK for them to be sexualized, for them to dance dirty, and...
O'REILLY: It's not OK.
WATERS: One of her songs -- well, one of her songs, you know, says about getting out on the dance floor and doing a nasty dance, you know, nasty whole world kind of thing, and that's just not something we want to promote among young girls. That's not a positive message to send to kids.
O'REILLY: All right. Ms. Waters, thanks for your point of view. We appreciate it.
WATERS: Thanks, Bill.
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