Whaddya know? Turns out Michael Powell does have the guts to stand up to the easily offended.
Well, I’m amazed. Finally, a small step in the right direction.
I’m not surprised. He sided with the big company - business as usuall for Powell.,
Maybe, except you know that it’s only because the film in question isSaving Private Ryan.
There are any number of equally good movies, with similar levels of violence and/or profanity, that would never even be considered for unedited screening on TV. The prudishness of American television standards is bad enough, without adding preferential treatment to the equation.
Maybe they should call this the Spielberg Exception. :rolleyes:
Hopefully Ryan’s Privates will be saved after all. Must agree with mhendo that there is a wealth of cinema out there which will never hit the screens of the US because the collective stick is in too many collective asses.
My daughter will see movies and read books that her school and the FCC will never permit because I want her to learn, expand her horizons, and grow in the fertile ground of art and literature.
By “screens” I assume you mean “screens which exclusively receive over-the-air federally licensed signals prior to 10:00 PM in your local market,” yes? You’re aware that fully 90% of US households have a TV and a VCR and 70% have a TV and DVD player? And that almost 80% of households subscribe to at least one multichannel pay video service such as cable or DBS?
Yeah, I guess you do mean that and are aware of all that – you’re aware of the choices you have beyond over-the-air federally licensed signals. 
You’d prefer they edit this flick too, just to be fair? Personally, I prefer some flicks be unedited, even if it is the result of preferential treatment, if the alternative is ALL movies be edited.
Plus, seems to me there’s a much better chance of the smaller films being shown unedited if the precedent is set with ones getting the “preferencial” treatment.
To tell you the truth, i think i would, simply as a matter of principle.
Or, conversely, the chance of actually adopting a reasonable broadcasting policy drops because some people can point to a few films like Saving Private Ryan and argue that exceptions can be made for exceptional films.
An unfortunate principle, one that might advocate breaking the knees of good basketball players so that the others could better compete.
Seems more likely to me those wanting reasonable policy would point to those films as an example that a few salty words didn’t cause our nation’s children to sacrifice the family dog Satan or get pregnant or whatever, making the chances of reasonable policy higher.
Don’t be ridiculous. A better analogy might be:
Currently, the NBA forces every basketball player to play with 50lb of lead attached to his waist. Instead of addressing the stupidity of this practice, they have announced that Michael Jordan will be allowed to play without the impediment because he is an exceptional case. I’d prefer them to fix the policy altogether rather than pretending that there’s nothing wrong by making one or two highly-publicized exceptions.
Of course i want movies to be uncensored. The only reason to advocate no preferential treatment would be to force the F-fucking-C-fucking-C and media to look at their inane system of regulations and censorship. Just out of interest, do you approve of a system whereby the FCC and a few large media outlets get to decide not only to impose censorship, but to determine which movies are “exceptional” enough to get a pass?
I truly wish you were right about this, but so far it doesn’t seem to have been the case. Back in the earlier days of the Spielberg Exception, they showed Schindler’s List uncut on network TV. As far as i can tell, this hasn’t led to any easing up of the draconian broadcasting regulations and the stations’ silly self-censorship.
What really amazed me, as someone who recently got cable, is that even the cable stations blank out “naughty” words all over the place. Their selectivity is sometimes perplexing. For example, when i watch NYPB Blue on TNT, and a character says the word “asshole,” they censor the word “hole” but not “ass.” And they generally don’t censor the word “dick” at all. Go figure.
What kills me is the way that Cartoon Network censors the word Jesus in Futurama but allows Venture Brothers to have a character named Molotov Cocktease.
True, but surely eliminating the “Spielberg Exception” is only going to hurt. “They used to allow swearing in some important movies like Schindler’s List”, some might say, “but it proved such a bad idea they censored even that.”
Comedy Central seems to make some strange choices too. I can’t think of any examples, but I know I thought “they censored THAT but left THAT? WTF?” on several occasions.
The fact that the feds were able to pull a fast three-card-monte shuffle (switching between legitimate regulation so that Joe Blow isn’t interfering with John Doe’s signal to illegitimate regulation of the signal content) doesn’t impress me as a foundation for argument.
I was so psyched to go to the mat with you, but when I saw that I had to stop and laugh out loud. Hi, my name is Lib. I approve of a system whereby peaceful honest people are free to pursue their own happiness in their own way.
At a station meeting, we actually had a pretty intense discussion about which part of “asshole” to censor. Turns out that bleephole is more offensive than assbleep. If people hear the “hole”, it’s more offensive because they KNOW it’s “asshole”. If all they hear is the “ass”, it can be anything.
Robin
Asshole, asshat, ass for brains and many other non-offensive phrases? Weird.
On topic, I was watching The Last Waltz on TCM last night and either “pussy” or “ass” got censored out. “You’ll get more … than you ever dreamed of.” Sex is definitely a dangerous topic even on cable. (But they didn’t censor out Neil fucking Diamond? Go figure.)
I don’t necessarily agree with how that played out, mostly because I don’t work blue, and am careful about the music I play. If you don’t swear, you don’t have to worry about the collective stick up the American ass.
Robin
I realise that, but it just strikes me as out of character for you to take the sort of glass-half-full approach that you seem to be adopting in this case. My own position was one that argued that, rather than accept a system of preferential treatment to a few selected films, we should tell the FCC and the media that we want our stuff uncensored, and we will then choose what to watch and what not to watch. We should be holding out for the whole enchilada.
In the end, what irks me the most about this is not just the fact that censorship is occurring, but the fact that it has moved beyond the realm of what is and is not acceptable language or an acceptable level of violence, and is trying to add in an evaluation of the artistic merit of the film.
For example, as a fundamental principle, i’m opposed to FCC-mandated censoring of swearing on TV.
BUT, if we as a society do decide that, for example, the word “fuck” should not be on television, then this rule should apply across the board. The question of artistic merit, whatever that is and whoever decides it, should not enter in. If we allow “fuck,” we should allow it whether the movie is the greatest film of all time, or the biggest pile steaming dogshit ever committed to celluloid. And if we disallow “fuck,” we should do so whether the film in question is Saving Private Ryan or Blame It On Rio.
I realize that this is a fraught issue. If you’re someone who takes an absolutist position (i.e, show everything, whether it’s My Little Pony or Butt-Fucked Shemale Sluts Go Nuts, and let people decide what they do and don’t want to watch), then this is an easy issue. But if you believe that certain things just shouldn’t be on TV, then the question becomes where, exactly, we should draw that line. Because the current debates over this issue in America suggest that there’s a huge chasm over what is and is not thought appropriate for TV.
It doesn’t surprise me that this is what goes on, but it does surprise me that the people who make these decisions apparently think that their audience is not only prudish, but stupid. I mean, every single time they censor the “hole” part of the word “asshole,” it is completely obvious what the original word was, either from context, lip-reading, or both. It’s like when someone writes “fck," or even "f** you” in the ridiculous belief that we won’t know what he really means.
I don’t need swearing to be happy. Some of my favorite movies and shows have little or no profanity at all. I just resent being treated like a moron.