Seriously!?!?!

According to the IMDb page for Gran Torino, the languages in the movie are English, Hmong, and Spanish. Which one does your grandpa think is the "bad language?"

By the way, those networks *purchase* the rights to edit and air those movies. THAT's the difference, slick.

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In your right hand, there are pleasures forever. --Psalm 16:11

Utah has the largest film industry independent of Hollywood. I'd imagine this is the corporate equivalent of the big bully beating up the new kid on the block, with intolerance of religious diveristy that seems to be brewing in the liberal urban poles of America which also are the media powerhouses,thrown into the mix.

As a screenwriter, I spend hours and hours and days and weeks writing dialogue that works for my characters. Since MOST people use words that you choose to find offensive (and it is a choice. There is nothing inherently "offensive" about words that your grandpa chooses to be offended by. Why is "*beep*" offensive but "screw" is not? they mean the same thing? yuo choose to be offended...and the Bible NEVER mentions anything about words like these. It only mentions using the name of God in vain. The idea about four-letter words came from Queen Victoria, who had a very puritanical idea bout baseness and human behaviour, and she managed to equate that with morality. Your grandpa chooses to buy that. I find words that hurt people's feelings to be offensive. Why? becuase they actually affect people. The word "*beep*" doesn't affect anything, unless you choose it to. The "n-word", which I find offensive, has a history of oppression of a group of people. That means something) I use those words. for someone to decide that my work doesn't matter because they have made a small minded choice is VERY offensive. how DARE you degrade the work I do because you happen to not be intelligent enough to question your ideas about what you find offensive?!

Furthermore, if the script I write gets made into a movie, then millions of dollars have been spent. people have acted, directed, edited, composed music, etc. The violence, or sex, or what have you, HAS an EFFECT!!! For example, I watched the movie 'Salo" a few years ago, and it made me sick. It made me angry. It was self indulgent. It was disgusting. I was pissed off when I watched it.

But then I realized... I HATED the characters who were perpetrating these actions. And I HATED them BECAUSE I had to watch the stuff they were putting me through. If you CHANGE that, it DOES NOT HAVE THE SAME EFFECT!! It's NOT the SAME MOVIE!!!!

It's as simple as that. It DOES mean something to me. What makes me angry is that they think they have a moral high ground. They don't. Censorship is immoral, and they are the bad guys.

It is GREAT that they lost and went out of business. I just wish that Hollywood had sued these guys personally and took EVERYTHING they had personally.

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I loathe the whole idea of Cleanflix and the concept of sanitized movies in general, but I have to grit my teeth and admit both sides present valid arguments, and both sides are hurt by inconsistent logic and disingenuous hair-splitting.

As has been pointed out by others, you can't seriously claim that artistic integrity is at stake but allow broadcast TV and airlines to show edited versions of your films, not to mention the fact that films are chopped up to satisfy the goofy MPAA all the time. Even though a filmmaker might be the one approving the edits in all those cases (and they and/or the studios are paid for their trouble), it still significantly reduces the impact of any wails of "Oh, what of the Art?"

It's also true that, if I buy any other type of art and then choose to deface it to suit my (lack of) taste, who should be able to stop me? If I buy a painting or a print of a painting, or a sculpture, etc., I can do what I want with it. It seems the distinction is between the timing of the "altering" . . is a pre-edited movie being sold, or do I buy an original and then "allow" it to be edited for content? Seems like this would be easy to get around for a creative businessperson.

So, yes, the filmmakers' arguments are on shaky moral ground, but the studios . . the ones who pony up the cash . . seem to have the strongest point. If you want an edited version, they'll have to be the ones to allow it. If they don't, you're SOL.

I grew up in Utah and know a lot of people (even in my family) who would be the target demo for Cleanflix, so this story resonates personally. "Good" Mormons nuture a weird, desperate addiction to Extreme Wholseomness that makes them a gold mine for this type of company. I have a limited amount of sympathy for them, as this is the culture they're brought up in, but frankly in the end I'm more interested in preserving movies as they were created than encouraging Pollyannish, superficial notions of spiritual purity.

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I have meddled with the primal forces of nature and I will atone.

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