I received a call from this organization yesterday. Their representative was taking a survey about whether or not I thought Hollywood should produce more family-friendly films that hold “Family Values” dear to their hearts. Regardless of my answers to her questions, she continued to ask me if I wanted yet another Family Values group to call me (“No”) can they call you at this number? (“No”) what time would be best for them to call? (“Never”).
She sounded as though she believed that art has nothing to do with filmmaking and that Hollywood somehow “owes” a segment of society a particular type of movie.
Anyone have any idea how powerful this group is in pressuring Hollywood into producing more G rated movies that represent their agenda?
Yep, I got a call from the just last night actually. I basically told them there was no woman of the house, and no kids…don’t call me again. I hadn’t heard of them before, and blew it off as another telemarketer until I saw your post. Guess I should have actually listened to them.
Well I’VE never heard of them. Although they claim to have gotten multiple “Oh, my God!” exclamations in the 20th Century Fox movie “Everyone’s Hero” (no, I’ve never heard of it either) changed to “Oh my gosh”. The fact that this was already a family friendly G rated wankfest is somehow supposed to support the idea that they’re going to stop the next war/gang/mafia/scifi shootout from being made in favor of The Little Mermaid XIX.
Seriously, WTF? Talk about having an agenda and bias in survey writing! I did take the online survey, but of course it’s bloody well useless.
“Hollywood” will listen to three things in determining the content of their movies, in arguably this order: ticket sales, projected ticket sales and threatened loss of ticket sales. Actual screenwriters and directors come way, way down the list.
Unless dove.org can reasonably assure the Powers That Be that they have enough clout with enough people to impact ticket sales, they’re farting into the wind. If people didn’t want violence and nudity in movies, they wouldn’t pay to go see them. It’s really very simple.
And, I’ll also note that while the FAQ on the phone survey says:
there are no qualifying question on the online survey. This means that the data should not be combined. So either the phone or the online survey or both are worthless.
I got a call from them. I told them no kids, but they (or a different branch of their group) wanted me to subscribe to “family-friendly movie” service.
They didn’t like that I pointed out that G and PG rated movies consistently perform the best at the box office, so Hollywood’s going to be making more and more of those movies over time if that trend continues. Apparently, they’re not into the power of a free market…
I got a call from what I assume, based on this thread, was them (I have no memory of how they identified themselves when they called, but the agenda sounds identical) a few months ago. The woman seemed downright flabbergasted that I didn’t share her outrage, and finally just gave up with a sigh and hung up on me. I love putting the smackdown on these idiots.
I heard a commentator mention that while there’s more animated features for kids than ever before, their average value has dropped way down. Used to be that Disney would give us a masterpiece every couple of years. Now they’re churning out half-baked CGI crud as fast as their computers can render them. Parents are having to deal with the dilemma of their kids wanting to see large numbers of really bad movies.
This is only true if Disney=masterpiece. Disney put out some really cruddy animated films (good quality animation, but little else) and a plethora of G-rated live-action crud, especially in the 60s and 70s. And since Disney was pretty much the only game in animation town, parents were stuck.
Now, at least, there are 2-3 decent animated films each year.
I bet this is the scam. I suspect this “not-for-profit” was incorporated precisely to get around the no-call list (as they themselves point out in their FAQ) to funnel their demographic to their product department. I mean, “associates”.
I fucking hate 501c3 loophole exploiters. I left my last job because they started doing the same thing - started a 501c3 to collect tax-free money which they would “grant” and “scholarship” to their for-profit business and personal projects. It’s entirely legal and entirely unethical, IMHO.
That’s pretty much how my call went. I told her that Hollywood owes her and her agenda nothing and that she needs to find the off button on her TV. She said “I don’t have time to discuss this with you. Do you agree that we need more G rated movies?” You suck, lady! :o
I sent them an email and subscribed to their newsletter so I can stay on top of my campaign to annoy them.
You should have used a quote from the first Elvira movie (Mistress of the Dark)…
“Nothing wrong with “G” rated movies…as long as there’s plenty of sex and violence”
good thing they didn’t call me, i’d say we need fewer “G” rated movies, and more “R” rated movies with gobs of sex and violence in them, heck, kids gotta learn about those things sometime, right?.. the sooner the better
“What type of content bothers you most?”
I didn’t see a “Sanctamonius busybodies trying to force their skewed standards of what is ‘moral’ down our throats” option, or even an “organized religion” option
“Do you think that movie ratings have gotten more lenient or do you trust them?”
where was the “I don’t rely on ratings to guide me, i make my OWN decisions” option…
CGI film about a young boy who teams up with a talking baseball to get Babe Ruth’s bat back. Written by Christopher Reeve. With a plot description like that, I can see why it didn’t do well.
Oh, that movie. I actually remember hearing about it now. I can’t tell you a single person I know who actually saw it, but I know I heard about it somewhere.
I’d like to hear them define what they mean by family values, or what they mean by “anti-family values” that they believe children are exposed to in movies.
But with people like Michael Medved, Lisa Whelchel and Laura Schlessinger on their advisory board, I know exactly what they mean. Family values = Christianity.
I took the poll too. My answers were unlikely to be what they’re looking for. It’s just a shame there wasn’t a comment box. I would have liked to suggest that movies need more blasphemy.
Although they claim to have gotten multiple “Oh, my God!” exclamations in the 20th Century Fox movie “Everyone’s Hero” (no, I’ve never heard of it either) changed to “Oh my gosh”. The fact that this was already a family friendly G rated wankfest is somehow supposed to support the idea that they’re going to stop the next war/gang/mafia/scifi shootout from being made in favor of The Little Mermaid XIX.