Editorial: Drugs, Sex & Violence in the Movies

[Audioholics]

<font color='#000080'>

<FONT face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size=2><A href="http://www.audioholics.com/news/editorials/sexinmovies.html"><IMG alt="MPAA Ratings" hspace=10 src="http://www.audioholics.com/images/venders/mpaa_ratings_sm.gif" align=left border=0></A>Walmart is now selling the world's first DVD player that uses preprogrammed ClearPlay filters to seamlessly skip over passages in a movie that contain levels of violence, sex, drug use, or other content undesireable to the viewer. The DVD player's filters are <EM>user-defined </EM>and the filters are permanently stored on the player, allowing them to be used with off-the-shelf DVD titles. The RCA player comes with 100 included titles and additional filters can be purchased for nominal fees. This technology was inevitable and begs the greater question: Why do we want this type of&nbsp;player in our homes? It's simple. Read on to find out why...</FONT></P>


<FONT face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size=2>[Read the Editorial]</FONT></P></font>

 

[Guest]

<font color='#000000'>It really is quite ludicrous that an article can spend so much time blasting hollywood for it's use of excessive violence (among other things) and then propose "The Passion of the Christ" as a movie in which violence is used in a reasonable and necessary manner.  Now, you may feel free to disagree, but Gibson's film has undeniably sparked a massive controversy specifically due to the *extreme* nature of its violence.  One really must ask just how much of that flesh-ripping torture really had to be on screen to get the point across!

This article also brought up an interesting point, but then dropped it completely.  It is true that many directors do wish to avoid pandering to the masses.  Commercial pressures generally tend to keep such impulses in check however.  The fact that the closer to G-rated a movie is, the larger it's potential audience will be is actually a well known principle that is applied constantly.  This is why you see film after film in which the hero bloodlessly mass-murders hundreds of faceless enemies without consequence.  (e.g. Bond flicks, X-Men, xXx, etc.)  These films are intensely violent, but by leaving out the consequences of that violence and dehumanizing its victims they can squeak by with a PG-13 rating.  While this is a regular practice, it is comparatively quite rare (and financially insane) for a film to have gratuitous content inserted with the deliberate goal of getting a more restrictive, and hence, less profitable rating.  If a director feels that his film merits a more restrictive rating and has the clout to see that it gets it, then kudos to him!  Whether such  behaviour is motivated by artistic integrity, morality, or ethics, the effect is the same.  It's the directors who constantly push back the limits of what can be put into PG-13 movies that we should be worried about!  Just because a film doesn't have blood, full-frontal nudity, or explicit language doesn't mean it won't mess up your kids!

Finally, if you must use electronic gadgets to police your children, what kind of trust can you really hope to build with them?  They'll probably figure out how to disable the censorship device before long and if you can't trust them to police themselves then you're hooped regardless.</font>

 

[A. Vivaldi]

<font color='#000000'>Interesting technology, but I'd avoid the problem all together and not allow the offensive films into the house in the first place. If certain films are bad enough for me to want to delete certain scenes, then I don't need to be financially supporting them in any way.</font>

 

[Guest]

<font color='#000000'>That study you mention concerning the relative popularity of R VS. PG or G-rated movies is faulty. &nbsp;It includes not only theatrical releases but direct-to-video or cable releases as well. &nbsp;The overwhelming majority of these releases are R-rated because given their low budgets, sex and violence are easily affordable selling points. &nbsp;They're exploitation movies. &nbsp;In the old days they're what the hardier moviegoer would go see at the drive-in or a downtown grindhouse. Now they're relegated to Skinemax at three in the morning and/or sold in bulk packages to overseas distributors hungry for affordable American product.
&nbsp;What I'm getting at is the ratio of R to G rated movies is approximately 25 to 1 if you include that stuff, and on that skewed scale, of course the G stuff is going to seem more popular since there's less of it to go around. &nbsp;If you want to take the kids to a movie chances are you only have one option. &nbsp;It's either Home On The Range or nothing. &nbsp;On those rare occasions whre two famiy movies are in the marketplace at the same time, one or both inevitably fail.
&nbsp;Believe me, if video store shelves were flooded with cut-rate Shrek rip-offs instead of Scream rip-offs, nobody would be saying G rated movies were profitable.
&nbsp;And if you think Kate Winslets attractive breasts are offensive, but Jim Caviezel getting his skinned flayed from his bones is non-exploititive I think you should just stop seeing movies. &nbsp;You've clearly had enough.</font>

 

[Unregistered]

ClearPlay

It is amazing the way this player has set some people off, does it really matter if someone wants to filter THIER OWN purchased movies?? if you dont like it..... dont buy it!! but stop telling other people that this player is just horrible for the cinema community.

And one other note, its not always used for kids, is it wrong to want to watch a movie where they are not dropping the F bomb every 5 seconds?? (and dont come back with the "B" as in B "S" as in S story that this is not how the director wanted you to watch it) this is not rocket science folks, just common sence.

just my 2 cents on this subject.

 

[Rob Babcock]

I certainly can't see any problem with an end user deciding what he finds acceptable and introducing a technological filter to aid him to that end. Any of you guys use any type of spam filter or do you just read it all? I though so.

"Guest," I'm not really sure I'm ready to let a guy who won't even give an online "non de plume" determine when I've "had enough." Maybe you oughtta stick to making that determination for yourself. I like my action "R" & "X", but I don't have kids. I have no problem, as a previous poster stated, with allowing the end purchaser to determine in what manner he/she chooses to use the material.

The whole snafu over "Passion" is much ado about nothing, IMOHO. I've seen it, and it's brutal, but ten minutes of your typical Nightmare/Friday 13th/Die Hard, et al has more gore than the whole 2.5 hours, and in the case of the latter, it's all empty calories. I think we maybe all need something more truly controversial to discuss.

 

[Khellandros66]

no offense but b!tch!ng about this software and players doesn't help, but boycotting sure can, if not there is always spamming their email...

~Bob

 

[hopjohn]

I don't have a problem with technology helping to censor what someone might voluntarily want censored. It's when it's forced upon us that it becomes a problem. Besides, I look at that article as a marketing tool to sell the product, so these people are going to come up with whatever they can to justify the need for their filters. It seems the marketing approach they've taken is the not so original, holier than thou approach, what else is new?

Do you have to buy it, use it, or agree? No? Carry on.

 

[Rob Babcock]

This is no different that using Replay or Tivo to cut out the commercials. Obviously when I'm watching a program or event I've recorded on the VCR, I always fastforward thru the commercials- but when Replay first introduced one-touch commercial skip, the advertisers were up in arms (gnashing of teeth, threats of lawsuits, etc). I even heard one guy say watching the program obligates you to watch the ads! Gee, I thought my obligation to support them ended when I paid my $45/mo cable bill!

Bear in mind, folks, this isn't censorship at all- it's an end user deciding not to watch something. How fascist is it to tell him he has to watch whatever he's told to by The Studio Bigshots?

 

[Westrock2000]

I even heard one guy say watching the program obligates you to watch the ads! Gee, I thought my obligation to support them ended when I paid my $45/mo cable bill!

Actually it was a Senator, and he said that Tivo disrupted the economic model of television. Insinuating that we are required to watch advertisments.

Gee if I rear end someone, can I say I was too busy looking at the billboards, and when my insurance raises my rates, can I sue them for disrupting the economic model of public transportation


Now that I think of it, I need something will filter out those stupid advertisments that play while the show is one!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You know the ones at the bottom of screen that usually have stuff moving around?!?!?!

 

[Rob Babcock]

Man, I'm with you there. They call them "bugs", those little things in the corner. Talk about annoying! It was bad enough when they were small an semi-transparent, but now they are picture-in-picture style animations. Wish there was a "pop up blocker" for TV!

 

[Audioholics]

I just got an RCA-brand DVD player direct from ClearPlay... Review will be forthcoming.

It will be interesting to see what they do with the technology and how transparent it is. This will be more of a technology review than a DVD player review. This type of player is not geared towards the discriminating user, but for families who simply want to be able to voluntarily filter out unwanted and unwelcome content.

 

[O'Shag]

I am a firm believer in freedom of speech and thought - but with respect to mass media - Censorship in some form or another has to be maintained. I don't think the people who make all the benjamins from sex/violence exploitation movies give a monkeys about who sees their films, be it a five year old or a fifty year old. If given totally free reign to release whatever they deem fit for the biggest audience they can reach, they could'nt give a darn if children get to watch their programming without supervision or not.

 

[JoeE SP9]

Who cares if certain people want to censor their viewing/listening. Those type of hair shirt wearers are all over the place. Here in Pennsylvania we have the ultimate censors of this type. We call them Pennsyslvania Dutch/Amish. They don't use electricity.