Re: RARA-AVIS: Movie Industry Wimps?
rikke & hanne Kesten (rbkhbk@bcn.net)
Thu, 30 Jul 1998 09:41:58 -0300
If you were offered a choice between self-regulation by an
industry
committee or legislated regulation through governmental control
which
would you choose? The movie industry was able to avoid
legislated
controls by creating self-censorship boards. Then when times
and
attitudes changed their control boards merely began to look the
other
way on content issues. No need to pass new laws through the
Congress.
This was true of the Consent Decree in which the companies
voluntarily
agreed not to own all three sides of the business --
production/finance
of films, distribution of films and exhibition. They did this
when
pressure was mounting for a legislated decision on the
matter.
Same with censorship. It was gonna happen and the studios,
cleverly,
I think, finagled a means of compromise through
non-legislated
acquiescence on the issue.
--steve kesten
Mark Sullivan wrote:
>
> Actually, I would define wimping out as rushing to
censor yourself,
> either by blacklisting alleged or past or even
present Communists or by
> recutting your movies to please an industry board,
simply because a few
> government officials threaten they might step in,
instead of standing up
> and testing if film has the same first ammendment
protections as the
> printed word......
> Mark
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