Kathy Shaidle posts on the recent Clean Flicks court case
What if there was a company called Dirty Flicks that added nudity and swearing to movies like Because of Winn Dixie or whatever it was called, to make them more appealing to non-Christians?
Then how would you feel?
Oh, but that’s different.
You can’t explain why, can you?
Well I once wrote a parody post on the Secularizer that did just that.
Now as to her question there is a difference in degree between adding content and removing content, especially content that does not advance the plot and is inserted gratuitously. Though both methods could be used to truly change the film from what the artist intended.
Now I would be much more sympathetic to the argument about artistic control if they refused to license their movies to broadcast and cable stations where the content is edited for time and/or content. I also wonder if I am infringing their copyright if I hit fast forward or next chapter on my remote to skip past some gratuitous sex scene. Thankfully Catholics aren’t puritans and we don’t want to Ned Flanderize everything. It would be silly to watch Saving Private Ryan and hear soldiers saying during a firefight "golly gee wiz."
What Hollywood should be doing is giving people some options when playing back a DVD since they are such proponents of choice in the first place. As the DVD was first being introduced this one one of the original selling points that you could basically change the rating of a movie during playback. This never materialized since it would only highlight just how totally unnecessary most sex scenes are to the plot or artistic merit of the film. Well crafted movies with great direction, cinematography, plot, and acting are usually not called edgy, a label that seems to be most desired by some directors.
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I am glad you remember that about changing ratings with a click, too. I am perpetually aggrieved that the studios don’t put broadcast/airline versions on the disc along with all the subtitles.
I don�t think the Dirty Flicks argument makes a lot of sense. So what if someone decided to market a Dirty Flicks version of Casablanca or Davey and Goliath? I wouldn’t have to watch it. I don�t think there is a difference. I don�t think that �Artistic Integrity� should have any standing in law.
On the other hand, I do see a problem with Clean Flix, in that they are essentially selling two copies of the film. I see they wanted to do the right thing by the studio, but I don�t think they found a way to do it.
The studios are fools not to cash in on this themselves.
As for the Ned Flandersy aspect of it all, look. This is my home. I make heroic efforts to restrain my own language, and I don�t see the necessity of having that kind of thing IN MY HOME! IN MY BEDROOM! Where my children come and play with their toys!
The sexiest scene I can think of is Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman in “To Catch a Thief”, when Cary and Ingrid are alone and Ingrid tries to get him to admit he’s “The Cat”. Yet there’s no gratuitious sex (OK, the fireworks are a bit much), but the scene is sexy precisely because so much is left to the imagination.
Todays films, with their ‘rutting buffalos’ sex scenes are boring in that they just trot out the Standard Cinematic Sex Scene, complete with flailing arms, animal grunts, and bad music. Frankly, if I was an actor, I’d be embarassed to play one.
That reminds me of a movie I watched once that was a medieval fantasy piece where a girl dresses up as a boy for her own protection and befriends another boy. The boy catches the “boy” bathing in a pond, whips off his clothes and jumps in. Under water he looks over at “him” and blows all his breath out in bubbles when he sees 1/2 second flash of her breasts.
That earned the movie an “R” rating, and was completely unnecessary to the plot.
That was Dragonslayer. And it was unnecessary to the plot, but it was necessary to get the rating. Which made it a teen movie, and not some little kid one that teenagers would scorn to see.
I loved your original post! My favorite Hollywood sex scene is the full one from the enhanced Team America: World Police DVD. It was simply unreal. Who knew marionettes could do those things? I thought it was a perfect take off on exactly what you’re talking about.
Of course, you could always do like Firefly and do all of your swearing in Chinese.
Kathy is off base here and I think you hit the nail on the head.
Isn’t the the Dirty Flicks scenario what happens to most films already? Studios make no bones about the fact that scenes are added to “bump up” the ratings. The “director’s cut” wouldn’t exist if “purity of artistic vision” were the driving factor in producing the standard cut.
As long as I can watch the dvd selectively at home, I should be able to pay someone else to press the ff button for me. Whether this company overdoes it isn’t the issue.
Part of the problem is the ridiculousness of the ratings system itself where thematic elements carry practically no weight but three uses of a particular word earns you an R. Nudity can also be used within or without a sexual context – which is why the Sistene Chapel comparison is nonsense (or sex with or without a moral context – e.g. Habla Con Ella vs. End of the Affair).
Today, filmgoers have additional tools (or help from reviewers like Steven Greydanus) to examine age-appropriateness, moral content, and artistic value seperately. But these tools are new and certainly weren’t around when I was a teenager and wanted to go to the movies or rent a video and my parents drew their guidance from the rating.
Kathy,
I am a painter, graduated with a degree in art and have worked as an artist for the last twenty-three years.
I think you have a romantic view about “art”, including the idea that there is a monolithic idea of what art is, and how one should interact with it.
Art is not sacred. Certainly hollywood “art” isn’t! I think it is fine for you to tremble while holding a DVD case, but for others, film can be appreciated for myriad reasons; entertainment, nostalgia, white noise, enrichment, etc.
While you are more than entitled to feel superior to the barbarians that want to bowlderize a director’s “vision”, I think you would be surprized at just who controls that vision.
I have a friend that worked on a film that was going to be rated PG. They added a shot with breasts to get it to PG-13 because they thought it would make more money.
I have another friend that works with a packaging agent in Hollywood. He was told that the production companies want to tighten the script BEFORE the director gets signed, so he doesn’t get caught up in rewrites, trying to make the next Citizen Kane.
Also, film-makers (studios) have been making “for TV” versions of films for decades, cutting out profanity, etc. This wasn’t an artistic choice. It was economic.
Why should someone that just wants entertainment for their family have less control over what they see than a studio executive?
If I sell a painting, my purpose for creating it does not have to align with the reasons someone buys it. They may just like the colors. Or they think it will look good over their couch. The appreciation of the painting is a different act than the creative act.
Excuse me but “IN MY HOME! IN MY BEDROOM! Where my children come and play with their toys!” was a joke (to those that missed the point or who refuse to see R rated movies). It’s a quote from Godfather II. I said quite clearly that I agreed with the court that Cleanflicks violated the intellectual property rights of the studios.
However, the idea of artist integrity is as a good as such not enshrined in the Constitution. It is about property, period.
Should read, “However, the idea that artist integrity is a good as such is not enshrined in the Constitution.” That’ll teach me to post before coffee.
Sex scenes are boring.
if i wanted to watch people having sex i’d download porn. i wouldn’t watch a 2 hour movie jut to see someones breasts – again you can see that on the internet.
hehe i remember one reviewers complaint about Attack of the Clones was that there was no sex scene.
Gah! Just the thought of that is disturbing.
Um… disturbing, yes… but:
regarding the Star Wars prequel review,
mightn’t it be a particularly bad
“violation of artistic integrity”
for a movie focused on
asexual reproduction
to feature a
sex scene? 😉
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