The Puritan revolution begins
The Utah-based company called ClearPlay has received some press this week as the Directors' Guild of America (DGA) takes it to court for copyright violation.
For years, ClearPlay has made software technology for computer DVD players that censors violent, lewd, or profane material from DVDs. The company recently released a standalone DVD player that does the same thing. The company's website touts the consumer's ability to "watch great Hollywood movies without having to worry about the profanity, nudity and gory violence" with the ClearPlay-enabled DVD player.
The problem is, the creators of the film had no say in the censoring process (and even though it's a loaded word, "censor" is the appropriate word). The makers of ClearPlay were the ones who chose what was violent, what was lewd, and most importantly, what was profane (if this were Taliban Afghanistan, we'd have no movies, as the Koran prohibits the depiction of humans or animals).
ClearPlay CEO Bill Aho says he has received "hundreds of e-mails saying, 'We will watch more movies with this.' When people watch more movies, that's good for Hollywood." In terms of profit, yes. In terms of creative control, no. The resultant art that we see produced by an artist looks the way it does for a reason, and those reasons are entirely the artist's. The viewer has absolutely no control -- and shouldn't have control -- over the form or content of the artist's work. "When you buy a video or a DVD of a film, you expect to see the work re-created in its original form, not some bastardization for the sake of someone else's idea of morality," director Irwin Winkler said. "If you go into the museum and see the painting of the Three Graces, you don't expect them to be wearing bras because nudity offends some of the people who attend an exhibit with their children."
Research Director Doug Gentile of the National Institute on Media and the Family said, "Anything that makes it easier for parents to monitor and control the amount and content of media their kids watch is a good thing." But does this control have to come at the expense of the artist? What if a museum did clothe nudity in paintings because the museum's directors felt that nudity was morally wrong?
But enough about my dislike of pushing morals onto others. Let's talk about the legal issues.
In its suit, DGA claims that ClearPlay and twelve other companies who similarly censor content "are renting, selling, or distributing versions of movies, which neither the Guild's members nor the studios authorized, and which are altered versions of members' works." In a counterclaim, DGA charges these thirteen companies with violation of the Lanham Act, which, among other things, "has been applied to protect an artist's right not to be associated with an unauthorized, edited version of his or her work." ClearPlay is not advertising Steven Spielberg's film; rather, it's advertising its version of Steven Spielberg's film, and Steven Spielberg has not authorized such a version. What if the resultant ClearPlay version of the film excludes scenes that Spielberg felt were important, but, due to their lewd content, were dismissed as "trash" by the employees at ClearPlay? The DGA counterclaim complains, "The Counterdefendants attempt to impose upon the Director Counterclaimants, and the public, the Counterdefendants’ values, vision, story telling, and artistry, if any."
Okay, back to moral-pushing.
More and more, I see that the Purtians are winning. The ridiculous levels of outrage at seeing Janet Jackson's boobie for half a second prompted a firestorm of Puritans to war against anything "immoral." Come on, people: you didn't see a boobie. The camera cut away. Live shows are time-delayed to preclude the possibilty of exactly what happened from happening. But there was the possibility that a boobie could have appeared on television. Since then, a fine-crazy FCC has redefined indecency and attacked Howard Stern with an unprecedented $495,000 fine. Months ago, when Bono used the f-word during the Golden Globes, the FCC said that Bono's words were not indecent. After the Janet Jackson shocker, the FCC reversed itself, saying that not only was Bono's "fleeting" and "non-sexual" use of the f-word indecent, but "other cases holding that isolated or fleeting use of the “F-word” are not indecent are no longer good law. The FCC redefined the legal definition of the word "indecent." Is there a clear political agenda behind this? Why wasn't the F-word indecent in 2003, but suddenly became so in March, 2004? The Libertarian in me can only say, "Don't legislate morality." The FCC has never -- ever -- been a content-censoring organization. This is a new thing, with FCC using its power over broadcast licenses as leverage: "all broadcast licensees are on clear notice that similar broadcasts in the future will lead to forfeitures and potential license revocation, if appropriate."
Between ClearPlay, the FCC, and Attorney General John Ashcroft's renewed War on Pornography (because the FBI wasn't busy enough with international terrorism), there is a Puritan reaction to American lewdness. Does this mean that the government must become involved? Does this mean that artists' rights must be foresaken for the sake of morality ("Oh, won't someone please think of the children?!")? Or are we so lazy that we want to be able to have our cake and eat it, too -- sit our children in front of the idiot-box and simultaneously be assured that, while their brains are turning to jelly and they are becoming the up-and-coming consumers that Procter & Gamble wants them to be, they are not being exposed to nudity and violence? There's a wonderful Anne Bradstreet poem about growing up. "The Author to Her Book" is about how children must grow up someday, whether we like it or not.
Comments
Oh whom are these morals being pushed? People who don't like blood and gore, and want to watch a movie without it? Children whose parents want to shape their sensitivities? Of course, parents should allow Hollywood to show their children whatever they feel is their artistic side. For years, a lot of people have just avoided these movies all together. They could continue to do so. Hollywood should be grateful somebody is catering their movies to the Mormon crowd. They still get their $24.99 for every DVD, what do they care if the Jesus Christ is muted out?
If I hired a dj who would mute out the curses in popular music for my son's birthday party, should I be prosecuted? What about if I fast forward through sex scenes? Turn my head during the gory parts? I'm not seeing what the directors intended, how disgraceful.
Clearplay, unlike the FCC, is not changing what directors and producers are able to do. Make your bloody, half naked movies. Throw around the name of God however you please. But, if we want to watch your movie, in our own homes, and fastforward through the parts we don't like, let us. You're still getting paid. And that's all ClearPlay is doing. They're fastforwarding through the parts you ask them to. If I were at your house watching a movie, I would certainly hope you'd do the same for me. But, maybe you wouldn't. Maybe I would be hurting some director somewhere by purching his DVD and not cherishing it like an artist deserves.
Posted by: Michelle | May 10, 2004 1:27 AM
I realized I didn't say my exact point. Your cries of "moral-pushing" don't make sense. The movie makers are still making movies with whatever content they can sell (which, yes, is what determines the content of most movies, not some art), movie goers are still seeing whatever movies they please in their entirety. The only people the censors at ClearPlay are effecting are those people who bought their DVD players. Well, guess what? They already have those morals. That's why they bought that DVD player. ClearPlay isn't dictating what they see, it's allowing them to see only what they already want.
That's why the painting analogy is worthless. ClearPlay isn't trying to take the foul language, nudity, and voilence out of the movie industry. Anyone can still go and see it. But, for those people whom it would offend, they're just skipping that room in the museum so they don't have to see the nudity.
About children growing up, despite what you may think, not all children grow up to enjoy nudity, violence, and language. Perhaps you and your friends do, but that doesn't make you any more adults than those who still dislike them. It isn't about not letting your children grow up, it's about not wanting them desensitized to violence, or picking up on words they don't need to be saying, or not watching scenes which offend your (already existing) morals. Parents have every right (and obligation) to shape the morals of their kids. If they don't, who will?
I'd like to point out that this software has existed for some time, and during all that time, movies were being made, you were still watching them, and everybody still had his or her own morals. ClearPlay isn't pushing anything on anybody.
Posted by: Michelle | May 10, 2004 2:10 AM
Much of what I would have said has already been said, and probably much more passionately. I'd back off from use of the word "censorship" in relation to Clearplay; to censor means to prevent something from being broadcast (i.e. distributed), usually through government force. In this case, consumers are volunteering -- at their own financial expense -- to ignore the filth and gore.
On the subject of the FCC, though ...
The airwaves being the collective property of all mankind, but the means of broadcasting being such that "all mankind" does not have access to their airwaves, governments opted to nationalize the VHF-UHF range early in the development of television.
With the exception of in-house efforts such as PBS and England's BBC, governments then farm out frequencies to private companies, which are expected to pay for the privilege of being selected a trustee of the people's airwaves.
Even as broadcast licenses become more expensive, however, their market value has probably not been reached. Furthermore, and this is the point that is germane to your post, their dedication to public service ought to be reviewed.
Broadcast television is not a medium like book publishing or even movies and cable TV. In most media, the means by which the creative product is transmitted to the consumer -- the dead trees, the cinema or the coaxial line -- is owned by a private company. Not so in the case of broadcast TV.
The FCC's extraordinary power over broadcast TV stations -- a power whose parallel does not exist in the publishing or film industry -- stems from the fact that broadcasters transmit their product over public airwaves.
I don't think it's too much to ask that the FCC maintain a standard of decorum on broadcast TV, and a higher standard than is to be expected on cable. In fact, I wouldn't mind seeing the FCC tighten its rules on profanity, on the "safe harbor" of family-friendly programming, on the "educational value" of children's programming or on the requirement for public-service broadcasting, like newscasts or public-policy interview shows.
If the libertarian in you is cringing at so-called "government censorship" of a private media company (and mine is, a bit), remember that those airwaves really belong to the citizens of the U.S.A., not the stockholders of N.B.C.
Posted by: Mike | May 12, 2004 1:11 AM
And one more thing ... while it's true that the FCC "has never been a content-censoring organization" -- in the sense that they did not demand review, with possible suppression, of shows before they aired -- it's also true that the FCC has maintained George Carlin's famous list of things you can't say on the air and, Stern's recent huffiness notwithstanding, has enforced this list for years.
And it's not as though such "censorship" -- not really censorship, actually just a prohibitive regulation or industry standard -- does not have a precedent in America: witness the Hayes Code, or today's MPAA.
Posted by: Mike | May 12, 2004 1:20 AM
If we "Puritans" are winning, as you say, then why are eighty per cent of movies in circulation today rated PG-13 or R? The reason is that millions of people like the decadent content that gives those movies such strong ratings.
You say that parents who use ClearPlay in an effort to shield their children from violence and nudity in movies are lazy. How dare you! As caring parents, we will do everything within reason to protect our young ones. We realize that it is impossible to completely shelter our kids from the negative elements of our environment. For that matter, we as parents can't totally do that for ourselves. However, at home, parents have greater control of what they feel is best for their families. Since Hollywood is continuing to add such things as profanity to its family-oriented films like "Daddy Day Care" and "Stuart Little", parents who really care about what their children are exposed to, find ClearPlay extremely helpful. But it must be said that ClearPlay is not a "third parent"; it never claimed to be. In a flyer that comes with their DVD player, it says: "Even with ClearPlay, all movies are not appropriate for all ages. Parental discretion is always recommended."
For those of us who prefer not to be exposed to content that we feel is unacceptable, ClearPlay gives us the peace of mind to watch our own DVDs without having to compromise our principles and values. If you prefer to watch your movies with everything intact, go ahead.
Posted by: Carl Booth | December 5, 2004 10:31 PM