"Bleep: Censoring Hollywood"

My TiVo fortuitously recorded an interesting documentary a few nights ago: "Bleep: Censoring Hollywood." It was a 45-minute show, aired on AMC, about companies like ClearPlay, CleanFlix, and the like, which "sanitize" DVDs for bluenoses, I mean, discerning parents, who want to watch movies that may have adult themes or situations, with the parts likely to be objectionable edited out.

The show struck me as pretty well-balanced, showing the points of views of both the sanitizers and the movie directors. It covered the Family Movie Act, which at that time had been passed by both houses of Congress, but not yet signed into law. It looks like it's not scheduled for re-airing anytime soon,[1] but some copyright geeks like some of us
(me, anyway) would find it worth watching if it re-airs.

What surprised me is how many companies there were out there producing edited copies of the DVDs (the CleanFlix business model). I was aware of ClearPlay and CleanFlix, but the others were news to me.

(For my part, I'm not sure how I come down on this, legislation aside. I
don't see works of authorship as purely the author's work: I see it as a collaboration between the author and the consumer.

The Beatles, for example, may have intended the "Sergeant Pepper" album to be taken as a whole, but if I want to listen to only "Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds," and take what I get from that experience, that's up to me. Hey, one of my favorite CDs is Fayray's "Genuine," but the last track is a just too-horrible remake of Blondie's "Rapture," and I just cannot hit that skip button fast enough.

I can understand a filmmaker wanting to show his work the way he intends it to be seen. The balance of "Saving Private Ryan" arguably simply doesn't work unless you see the scenes depicting all the horrors of war presented in the first half hour; but if a viewer wants to see the balance without those scenes, why shouldn't he be able to? And why shouldn't he be able to delegate that editing to someone whose judgment he trusts, so that he can see the film without the gore, and without the trouble of doing all the editing himself (which of course, would require him to see the gore anyway)?

And, finally, one objection the filmmakers had was that, now that films are in a digital format and amenable to editing, it's not just the sanitization-style editing that's possible. Why, people could take the film and decide what parts to include, and maybe add some stuff. They could, for example, make a comic film out of a film that was intended to be serious by the filmmaker. Quite frankly, I think that's actually a pretty exciting possibility, of creating, not merely an edited work, but a truly new and different work.

I never watch movies on TV, other than films that are sufficiently old that I can be pretty sure are not being cut up, because I want to see the whole thing; but I can see where others might have a different point of view. I will probably never take advantage of products like ClearPlay, but I don't see any reason not to allow others to. (And, I should probably never say never. My only child is just seven weeks old.[2] When she grows older and we watch movies together, say, maybe 10-12 years from now, I might really want something like this.))

[1] According to http://www.amctv.com/show/detail?CID=63457-1-EST>, it was scheduled to air only 4/26, 4/27, and 5/1; As I said, I only happened to catch it because my TiVo fortuitously snagged it for me.

[2] I can't help it, I'm a proud papa: pictures at <http://www.tjc.com/Maddy>. Received on Thu May 05 2005 - 02:20:30 GMT