Censorship
In general, I don't watch much television. I'm more of a reader. I do own a TV, however, and I do occasionally use it, most often in the morning to see what the weather's gonna be like. The only shows I make a point to watch regularly are The Shield and Lost, and now that it's back, Family Guy. I also appreciate HBO's Deadwood and Carnivale, but I don't pay for HBO and I have to watch them on tape or go to a friend's house. Basically we're talking about 2-3 hours of TV a week for me, not counting the news and the occasional Kojak (because Ving Rhames is so cool I can deal with the shitty show).
What I saw the other day, however, frosted my nuts so much I feel compelled to write about it and see what you all think. I stumbled across a show on Bravo that profiled the latest in moral censorship (and make no mistake, that's exactly what it is no matter how much you dress it up with pretty, non-threatening conservative words). I refer to the latest efforts of companies that sanitize DVDs and films so that they're more "family-friendly." Anyone else out there get chills when they hear those 2 words spoken together?
For those who don't know me personally, let me make clear my bias: I am a single guy with no kids. Therefore, I watch whatever the hell I want to watch without worrying about what my kids see, because I don't have any.
What these companies do is take popular DVDs and films and clean them up...as in get rid of all the naughty bits like sex, violence, bad words, boobies and excessive gore. The actual method is by having a team of morality experts sit down and screen these films, flagging the parts that are too offensive for family viewing, and then re-recording the DVD with these flags in place. Now all you have to do is buy one of their special DVD players and their cleaned-up DVD and you can set it to recognize the flags and play the movie without all the bad stuff. Now your kids (or you, if you're a prude) can sit down and enjoy the film with the family unit,and the need to explain any potentially awkward moments in the film ("Mommy, what does motherfucker mean?") is completely and mercifully eliminated. In other words, it lets parents off easy.
I have a big problem with this, and I'll get to it in a minute, but before I do, imagine if you will the personal issues the directors and creators of these films have, particularly as these "sanitized" versions are offered for sale, and the creators don't get diddly-squat from the proceeds. That's right. Not a dime.
Here's a good analogy: Let's pretend Charles Dickens is still alive. You want to read Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities, but without all the nasty beheadings. Never mind that it's set during the French Revolution and heads were flying like rice at a wedding, and one of the main characters meets his eventual fate on the Guillotine (although, to be fair, the book ends without describing it). So, I, being an impartial third-party "morality expert", decide to take care of that for you. I get myself a copy of the book and take a big black magic marker and cross out all references to and descriptions of the Guillotine and its handiwork. Aside from dramatically cutting down the size of the book (and I'm sure making it completely nonsensical), I do something worse. I completely misrepresent the work of Charlie himself, who claims (and justly so): "Holy Crap on Toast! This isn't the book I wrote!!!! It's ruined!! HOW DARE YOU????!!!!" Then, I do the most unforgivable thing. I turn around and SELL YOU the sanitized version and pocket the money. Dickens gets nothing for his trouble except a heapin' helpin'of outrage. Get it?
Without getting too much into Dickens here, we have the added problem of the author's point being completely lost with the removal of this material. I won't go into the centrality of the Guillotine to this particular work, or what it represented in the novel and to the people of France at the time....but suffice it to say that a key part of the story would have been removed (some key characters would be unnecessary as well) and the rest of the book would be just another Victorian romance which would suck out loud (just my opinion).
Don't think that's such a big deal? Or maybe you think I'm exaggerating the depth of the censorship by focusing on such a glaring example? Consider, then, some of the movies edited for "gratuitous violence" by ClearPlay and companies like it at the behest of a group called Focus on the Family (FoF): Gladiator. The Bourne Supremacy. Saving Private Ryan.
Can anyone please tell me why you would want to watch material like this if you weren't prepared to deal with violence? If the movie is entitled Gladiator and is about a gladiator, what are the chances you'll see some violence? The first half hour of Saving Private Ryan was some of the bloodiest footage ever filmed, and that was the fucking point!!!! Spielberg, if I may speak for him in this case (and he's not around to say no, nor do I think we'd disagree on this) set out to show that the D-Day Invasion wasn't the way it was in John Wayne films. It was horrible, gory and appalling in its brutality. One of the problems Spielberg was trying to address is that there are young people who have no idea what veterans of WWII, particularly Normandy, endured over there. And without getting too soapboxy, the lesson in the film is clearly not that war is cool (a la Rambo). It's that war (all war-including the one we're in right now) is pretty horrific.
ClearPlay wants to make it more family-friendly. In other words, make it into the John Wayne version, which lessens the emotional impact of the film conveyed through the violence, and diminishes the director's vision. Then, because the Spielberg's name is still on it, it promotes the product as if it was his film. I'm aware of authors,Harlan Ellison for example, who have taken their name off something they wrote that had been butchered by a third party because it wasn't true to the original script. Of course, he always put a pseudonym on it so he'd still get paid, but in this case, directors aren't even getting that. It's not too hard to see who's pulling FoF's strings if you look hard enough...we'll see if The Passion of the Christ, one of the most violent films ever made, makes it onto their to-be-sanitized list. I'll be surprised.
Now that they realize their crackdown in the wake of the Janet Jackson boob exposure hasn't got rid of Howard Stern, and he plans on going to satellite, the FCC wants to regulate satellite radio and cable TV, making sure they remain clear of indecency (which they have yet to define). So far the only thing stopping them is that they're pay services...the fact that the overwhelming majority of Americans watch and listen to (and enjoy)things the FCC considers indecent doesn't carry any water. I like Howard Stern when he's not ranting about lesbians and porn, and believe it or not he DOES talk about other things, but some people like that stuff too. If you don't, turn the dial.
Now, I'm all for making sure the kiddies don't see stuff they're not ready for. So here's an idea if you have kids: DO YOUR FUCKING JOB AS A PARENT. Don't rely on morality groups to do it for you. If you don't think your kid should be watching The Shield, you're probably right. That's why there are rating systems on TV to clue you in to all that stuff. Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure they have them in the movies too. The V-Chip is available for those who know how to use it (although most people don't have the technology available-point taken). Of course, back in my day, there wasn't anything like a V-Chip or ratings systems. To be fair, TV wasn't as permissive as it is now, either, but the censors were my parents. I wasn't allowed to watch The Dukes of Hazzard when I was a kid, primarily because it was on at 9 and my bedtime was 8:30, but also because my Mom felt it sent a crappy message to kids that cops were idiots. Now I'm older and I don't agree with her that the show was a bad influence (it was just a bad show), but my point is when my parents thought something wasn't right for their kids, they stepped in and said uh-uh. The problem now is parents wanna be their kids' buddies and don't want to take a stand on anything.
"You can't watch what your kid is doing all the time..." You're right. You can't. And like it or not, they're gonna hear the f-word on the playground and they're gonna see naked people ( we had the neighborhood stash of porn in a garbage bag in the woods. All the kids knew where it was) and they're gonna watch stuff you don't want them to watch, somehow. You can't be responsible for what happens at their friends' houses...but you can be responsible for what happens in your own. If you're concerned about the neighbors, maybe you shouldn't let your kid play with them, but don't punish the rest of us by trying to regulate what is on TV by banning material. If my friends were over on a Friday night, they weren't watching the Duke boys, regardless of what they did at home. The Shield is on at 10pm. If your kid is staying up that late watching TV, maybe you should take more than a passing interest in what he's watching and turn it off. But for Christ's sake, don't tell me I can't watch it either.
A lot of this would be made easier if we could pay for only the channels we want. That way, if all you want is Nickelodeon and TV Land, you could get that and not have to worry about FX and MTV. You can't do that yet, but you can certainly block channels and there are rating systems already. But this isn't really about that. It's about parents not wanting to have to step up, either because they're too lazy, or because they wanna be their kids' pals. It's about a small group trying to decide what EVERYONE should and should not see. If I were to impose my own views on what is offensive on the rest of the world, Carrot Top would not exist. Who are you to tell me what I can and can't see? You're not my mother, ClearPlay, and I'm not a kid.
When I was in college, Brett Easton Ellis's American Psycho was published. I never read the book, nor did I see the movie with Christian Bale. From what I understand based on reviews I have heard or seen, both weren't exactly terrific. In fact, some of those that didn't enjoy it found the story...well, offensive.
Like the UMass Campus Store manager (although I seem to remember he was one of the people who never actually read the book). He refused to sell the book at the Campus Store, and guess what? The students, most of whom could give a fat, floating shit about anything most of the time, got downright uppity about this. This was censorship. This was One Guy deciding what the entire student body would have access to, or more importantly, what they would not have access to. I did not go to a Catholic University. I went to a State school, as did everyone else there. Of course, we ( I include myself even though I personally could have given a shit about the book) could have just walked over to the mall and bought American Psycho, but that wasn't really the point. The point was that one man's view of morality should not dictate what others, particularly tuition-paying students at a State Institution, should be able to buy on the bookshelf. In the end, the students protested so much that the manager was forced to sell the book and he sold way more than he would have if he had just shut up and carried it in the first place (but isn't that always the way?).
I'm sure Ellis appreciated it.
What I saw the other day, however, frosted my nuts so much I feel compelled to write about it and see what you all think. I stumbled across a show on Bravo that profiled the latest in moral censorship (and make no mistake, that's exactly what it is no matter how much you dress it up with pretty, non-threatening conservative words). I refer to the latest efforts of companies that sanitize DVDs and films so that they're more "family-friendly." Anyone else out there get chills when they hear those 2 words spoken together?
For those who don't know me personally, let me make clear my bias: I am a single guy with no kids. Therefore, I watch whatever the hell I want to watch without worrying about what my kids see, because I don't have any.
What these companies do is take popular DVDs and films and clean them up...as in get rid of all the naughty bits like sex, violence, bad words, boobies and excessive gore. The actual method is by having a team of morality experts sit down and screen these films, flagging the parts that are too offensive for family viewing, and then re-recording the DVD with these flags in place. Now all you have to do is buy one of their special DVD players and their cleaned-up DVD and you can set it to recognize the flags and play the movie without all the bad stuff. Now your kids (or you, if you're a prude) can sit down and enjoy the film with the family unit,and the need to explain any potentially awkward moments in the film ("Mommy, what does motherfucker mean?") is completely and mercifully eliminated. In other words, it lets parents off easy.
I have a big problem with this, and I'll get to it in a minute, but before I do, imagine if you will the personal issues the directors and creators of these films have, particularly as these "sanitized" versions are offered for sale, and the creators don't get diddly-squat from the proceeds. That's right. Not a dime.
Here's a good analogy: Let's pretend Charles Dickens is still alive. You want to read Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities, but without all the nasty beheadings. Never mind that it's set during the French Revolution and heads were flying like rice at a wedding, and one of the main characters meets his eventual fate on the Guillotine (although, to be fair, the book ends without describing it). So, I, being an impartial third-party "morality expert", decide to take care of that for you. I get myself a copy of the book and take a big black magic marker and cross out all references to and descriptions of the Guillotine and its handiwork. Aside from dramatically cutting down the size of the book (and I'm sure making it completely nonsensical), I do something worse. I completely misrepresent the work of Charlie himself, who claims (and justly so): "Holy Crap on Toast! This isn't the book I wrote!!!! It's ruined!! HOW DARE YOU????!!!!" Then, I do the most unforgivable thing. I turn around and SELL YOU the sanitized version and pocket the money. Dickens gets nothing for his trouble except a heapin' helpin'of outrage. Get it?
Without getting too much into Dickens here, we have the added problem of the author's point being completely lost with the removal of this material. I won't go into the centrality of the Guillotine to this particular work, or what it represented in the novel and to the people of France at the time....but suffice it to say that a key part of the story would have been removed (some key characters would be unnecessary as well) and the rest of the book would be just another Victorian romance which would suck out loud (just my opinion).
Don't think that's such a big deal? Or maybe you think I'm exaggerating the depth of the censorship by focusing on such a glaring example? Consider, then, some of the movies edited for "gratuitous violence" by ClearPlay and companies like it at the behest of a group called Focus on the Family (FoF): Gladiator. The Bourne Supremacy. Saving Private Ryan.
Can anyone please tell me why you would want to watch material like this if you weren't prepared to deal with violence? If the movie is entitled Gladiator and is about a gladiator, what are the chances you'll see some violence? The first half hour of Saving Private Ryan was some of the bloodiest footage ever filmed, and that was the fucking point!!!! Spielberg, if I may speak for him in this case (and he's not around to say no, nor do I think we'd disagree on this) set out to show that the D-Day Invasion wasn't the way it was in John Wayne films. It was horrible, gory and appalling in its brutality. One of the problems Spielberg was trying to address is that there are young people who have no idea what veterans of WWII, particularly Normandy, endured over there. And without getting too soapboxy, the lesson in the film is clearly not that war is cool (a la Rambo). It's that war (all war-including the one we're in right now) is pretty horrific.
ClearPlay wants to make it more family-friendly. In other words, make it into the John Wayne version, which lessens the emotional impact of the film conveyed through the violence, and diminishes the director's vision. Then, because the Spielberg's name is still on it, it promotes the product as if it was his film. I'm aware of authors,Harlan Ellison for example, who have taken their name off something they wrote that had been butchered by a third party because it wasn't true to the original script. Of course, he always put a pseudonym on it so he'd still get paid, but in this case, directors aren't even getting that. It's not too hard to see who's pulling FoF's strings if you look hard enough...we'll see if The Passion of the Christ, one of the most violent films ever made, makes it onto their to-be-sanitized list. I'll be surprised.
Now that they realize their crackdown in the wake of the Janet Jackson boob exposure hasn't got rid of Howard Stern, and he plans on going to satellite, the FCC wants to regulate satellite radio and cable TV, making sure they remain clear of indecency (which they have yet to define). So far the only thing stopping them is that they're pay services...the fact that the overwhelming majority of Americans watch and listen to (and enjoy)things the FCC considers indecent doesn't carry any water. I like Howard Stern when he's not ranting about lesbians and porn, and believe it or not he DOES talk about other things, but some people like that stuff too. If you don't, turn the dial.
Now, I'm all for making sure the kiddies don't see stuff they're not ready for. So here's an idea if you have kids: DO YOUR FUCKING JOB AS A PARENT. Don't rely on morality groups to do it for you. If you don't think your kid should be watching The Shield, you're probably right. That's why there are rating systems on TV to clue you in to all that stuff. Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure they have them in the movies too. The V-Chip is available for those who know how to use it (although most people don't have the technology available-point taken). Of course, back in my day, there wasn't anything like a V-Chip or ratings systems. To be fair, TV wasn't as permissive as it is now, either, but the censors were my parents. I wasn't allowed to watch The Dukes of Hazzard when I was a kid, primarily because it was on at 9 and my bedtime was 8:30, but also because my Mom felt it sent a crappy message to kids that cops were idiots. Now I'm older and I don't agree with her that the show was a bad influence (it was just a bad show), but my point is when my parents thought something wasn't right for their kids, they stepped in and said uh-uh. The problem now is parents wanna be their kids' buddies and don't want to take a stand on anything.
"You can't watch what your kid is doing all the time..." You're right. You can't. And like it or not, they're gonna hear the f-word on the playground and they're gonna see naked people ( we had the neighborhood stash of porn in a garbage bag in the woods. All the kids knew where it was) and they're gonna watch stuff you don't want them to watch, somehow. You can't be responsible for what happens at their friends' houses...but you can be responsible for what happens in your own. If you're concerned about the neighbors, maybe you shouldn't let your kid play with them, but don't punish the rest of us by trying to regulate what is on TV by banning material. If my friends were over on a Friday night, they weren't watching the Duke boys, regardless of what they did at home. The Shield is on at 10pm. If your kid is staying up that late watching TV, maybe you should take more than a passing interest in what he's watching and turn it off. But for Christ's sake, don't tell me I can't watch it either.
A lot of this would be made easier if we could pay for only the channels we want. That way, if all you want is Nickelodeon and TV Land, you could get that and not have to worry about FX and MTV. You can't do that yet, but you can certainly block channels and there are rating systems already. But this isn't really about that. It's about parents not wanting to have to step up, either because they're too lazy, or because they wanna be their kids' pals. It's about a small group trying to decide what EVERYONE should and should not see. If I were to impose my own views on what is offensive on the rest of the world, Carrot Top would not exist. Who are you to tell me what I can and can't see? You're not my mother, ClearPlay, and I'm not a kid.
When I was in college, Brett Easton Ellis's American Psycho was published. I never read the book, nor did I see the movie with Christian Bale. From what I understand based on reviews I have heard or seen, both weren't exactly terrific. In fact, some of those that didn't enjoy it found the story...well, offensive.
Like the UMass Campus Store manager (although I seem to remember he was one of the people who never actually read the book). He refused to sell the book at the Campus Store, and guess what? The students, most of whom could give a fat, floating shit about anything most of the time, got downright uppity about this. This was censorship. This was One Guy deciding what the entire student body would have access to, or more importantly, what they would not have access to. I did not go to a Catholic University. I went to a State school, as did everyone else there. Of course, we ( I include myself even though I personally could have given a shit about the book) could have just walked over to the mall and bought American Psycho, but that wasn't really the point. The point was that one man's view of morality should not dictate what others, particularly tuition-paying students at a State Institution, should be able to buy on the bookshelf. In the end, the students protested so much that the manager was forced to sell the book and he sold way more than he would have if he had just shut up and carried it in the first place (but isn't that always the way?).
I'm sure Ellis appreciated it.
posted by The Angry Piper at 3:23 PM
14 Comments:
come on dude. that's more t.v. than the average joe
3 hours is more than average? If you say so. How much do you all watch? Be honest.
Hell, I watch 2 hours a day between CNN, ESPN and the occasional documentary on Discovery, Science, History channels. 3 hours a WEEK is WAY below average!
What country is that guy from, G?
Oh, and I agree. When the DVD player and groups like FoF are the parents, and the parents are merely ATMs for children, we have problems.
I disagree about Dickens though. I think you could remove all of his words from a novel (i.e. Great Expectations) and have a monkey rewrite them with a drool covered purple crayon and have a better read. Yes, he is the greatest author of all time according to many, but he also had severe B.O. and a penchant for rambling on about the poor. The POOR? Who needs them anyways?
A fun fact for you, just to drive in the minority dictating to the majority theme you have;
According to The Week, 99% of all complaints to the FCC are from one organization; The Parents Television Council. That 99% is not hyperbole, it is an actual statistic of the number of complaints the FCC receives from that one group. (Actually, it was 99.something%)
Ruminations?
Really?
Eh.
I like to smack Betty's on and about the face
I know both of you and my money's on Betty.
Damn straight.
How about you don't watch it at all rather than watch someone's edited version of SOMEONE ELSE'S work? If you find something too violent, sexually explicit, or just too orange and you happen to hate orange, don't watch it, but you have no right to change it so others can't watch it either. If you think your kids shouldn't see it, well and good: be a parent and tell them no.
And aren't we forgetting the small bit about the fact that the people who created these films in the first place are receiving NO MONEY for these edited versions pandering to the moral crowd? Say I set up a website with all Stephen King's books online. Then I edited out chunks of them, charged people a subscription rate to read them, and then pocketed the money. I'd have Stephen King's lawyers on my ass as I certainly should for making a profit off of someone else's hard work. You don't like the violence in King's work? Don't read it. But don't pay someone else to edit it for you, because it's against the law.
Actually, You seem to be the one who is righteously incensed. You've turned the point I'm trying to make into a personal attack on me specifically: "people like (me) who thrive off their garbage..."
Sir (or Madam): You have no idea who I am or what I do(unless, of course, you're who I suspect you are).If you don't agree with me, fine, but name-calling is pretty much the last refuge of someone who has a shaky platform to begin with.
I notice you didn't bother to respond to any of the points I made about the artists/writers/directors being fleeced of the profits from the edited version of the films. I notice also you ignored the specific films I mentioned in the posting and generalized about violence and objectification of women in Hollywood. I further notice that you seem to forget that there are plenty of shiny happy movies out there that you can watch or let your children watch without taking a movie you're supposedly offended by and changing it to suit your tastes. Don't like the violence in Gladiator and/or don't want your kids to see it? Don't watch Gladiator, or watch it when you're kids aren't around. Don't be like the parent I saw in The Patriot with her 6-year old daughter (who incidentally screamed and wailed throughout the entire film, ruining the experience for those of us who were of legal age to be in the theatre). You can't have your cake and eat it too, at least not legally. If you're that offended by a film or book or what may be in it, you have the right not to watch or read it. You don't have the right to change it without the owner's consent and sell it as your own.
Just to be clear: I'm not opposed to morality in films, or even films that serve a conservative moral agenda (like Left Behind). Groups like FoF and the Parents Television Council have every right to make their own films promoting whatever viewpoint they want to back. (There's a group called the Christian Writers Guild that's doing exactly that; it's currently chaired by the guy who wrote Left Behind.) I know I have the freedom to watch it or not as I choose. They don't have the right to change what's out there already, and somehow I think they'd be pretty PO'ed if someone edited their stuff without their consent and sold it for profit.
And you are wrong. I do care about the fact that the owners are not getting paid-more importantly that their rights to their intellectual properties are being shat upon. Because when it becomes common to arbitrarily change (and profit by changing) what someone has created to fit the moral ideal a minority of people feel we should adhere to, then armbands and jackboots aren't too far off.
Ah, I guess it was bound to happen sooner or later-my first flame war. Before any more comments are posted, I feel I should make a statement regarding, appropriately enough, censorship of this blog. I encourage folks to chime in with thoughtful, incisive comments, regardless of whether or not they agree with my particular views. Jewel said in the post above that I don't like people challenging my views on things. Aside from the fact that there's no way this person could possibly know that and is making an assumption, it's not true; if I didn't want differing viewpoints I would simply not allow comments to be posted. And Jewel got posted 3 times in this same thread, although clearly we don't agree.
That being said, I will delete the living shit out of spurious, insipid comments that have no bearing on anything. If all you want to do is log on and call me a name, have a blast, but your post will be gone soon. Here's a newsflash for would-be flamers...it doesn't work when I can simply delete what you say. I always win. Feel free to make your own blogs and call me every kind of asshole you want, but it won't be here. If, on the other hand, you want to take a contrary stand to something I write and can express yourself intelligently, the floor is yours.
Try again, Shell.
Being the mother of two, one being a teen-ager, I can say with some certainty that I do not agree with movies and books being sanitized. The reason is, that the world is not sanitized. How many kinds in middle school use "bad" words and threaten other kids with acts of violence or worse commit hate crimes due to sexual orientation or background. I watch television with my kids and if the situation seems violent or "dirty" I explain it. I want my kids to know that there are people in the world who are not "nice" to everyone. I want them to know they are not those people. We cannot shield kids from reality because they encounter much more reality in schools, playgrounds and buses then we realize. I dont know about anyone else but I dont live in Candyland!
Does anyone?
Taking the time to explain controversial things to your children is called parenting, rather than trusting in a third party to ensure kids don't see anything they deem inappropriate (which is called laziness). It may not be as easy, but nothing worth doing ever is. Thanks for your post!
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