Bush Just Doin' It For The Kids

On Wednesday of this week, President Bush signed ("privately, and without comment") the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act (FECA) -- a nefarious and sneaky little document that includes a possibly dangerous precedent about the legality of altering a film. Movie studios should be up in arms about this one, but (unsurprisingly) they've chosen to act in the best interest of their bottom line, rather than the concerns of many major directors. So what's in FECA? Well, there is some good material in there -- it reauthorizes and expands the efforts of the National Film Preservation Board to include video, television, and digital formats, and to make the collected works more accessible for research and educational purposes. It also allows libraries to make copies of rare works that are no longer available in commercial form. Then there's the questionable -- using a video camera in a movie theater is now an imprisonable offence. Interesting to note that 'fair use' rules do not apply here. If you are caught videotaping a film, you can get up to three years in prison, six if it is a second offence. While Filmbrain is against the illegal recording of films, the penalties do seem a tad harsh. On top of that, the bill provides immunity to theater owners, who are now allowed to "detain in a reasonable manner, and for a reasonable amount of time" anybody suspected of having recorded a film. (Isn't this a bit extreme in a bill that is primarily about copyright protection?) FECA also includes new punishments for people who distribute copies of pre-release material. A preregistration system for copyrighted works that aren't yet copyrighted is going to be created. However, the scariest bit of the FECA is the Family Movie Act of 2005. This clears the way for companies that distribute self-edited versions of films (or technology that performs the same function) by making them exempt from trademark infringement. [See update note below.] What's truly evil about this is that many of the companies that do this sort of thing (ClearPlay, CleanFilms, CleanFlicks, FamilyFlix, etc.) are in the midst of lawsuits with several directors, including Martin Scorsese, Steven Soderbergh, Sydney Pollack, and Curtis Hanson (to name a few) -- lawsuits that are now basically rendered useless by the passing of this act. It's interesting to note that the same technology, if used to remove commercials from recorded programs, is NOT covered by this act. (Six pages of the bill go into detail why editing films is good, but skipping commercials is the root of all evil.) This goes beyond simple sanitization efforts to remove nudity and foul language. Look at some of their edits: Schindler's List - All depictions of Schindler's extramarital affairs have been removed. The Spongebob Squarepants Movie - A scene of a male starfish singing and dancing while wearing high heels has been cut. ("We don't hate homosexuals. We just don't think that lifestyle should be glorified. It's becoming rampant in more types of films." - Sandra Teraci, FamilyFlix) The Hurricane - During Hurricane Carter's arrest, racial epithets uttered by the police have been cut. That last one is particularly dangerous -- by destroying one of the central themes of the film, they are in effect re-writing history, and replacing it with one that they think best for their subscriber's children. If these films are so offensive to their values, why don't they just simply not rent or buy them? Surely there are enough films full of virtuous white married heterosexuals that these people can show their children, yeah? (Perhaps truly altering films is the next step -- Rhett will stay with Scarlett in order to preserve the sanctity of marriage.) The Family Movie Act of 2005 is just more of Bush's pandering to the Christian right, and there really ought to be greater opposition to it. As usual, they hide behind the "FECA is about the children" banner, when in fact it's just another example of the administration attempting to legislate morality and values. (When asked why The Passion of the Christ isn't edited, Teraci commented that there was no need because "everyone has already seen it". Nuff said.) Though the bill passed unanimously, there were some minority views written by the likes of John Conyers and Howard Berman that cover several issues, including the danger to artistic freedom and integrity, a position the lawyers for ClearPlay etc. took great pains to argue against. (Berman called FECA the "Profits for ClearPlay" legislation.) The entire report can be found HERE -- worth downloading if just to read these minority views. Filmbrain wonders under what circumstances the Family Movie Act won't apply. Some years back, fans created their own edits of The Phantom Menace in an attempt to remove offensive material (read: Jar-Jar Binks). These were deemed in violation of copyright as they were considered derivative works. Yet the same rules no longer apply to these family friendly firms, and that's just hypocritical. Perhaps someone needs to challenge the bill by creating a service that filters everything out but the nudity, sex, violence, etc. What are your thoughts on the subject? Are Soderbergh, Scorsese et. al. correct in decrying desecration? Should firms like ClearPlay be allowed to remove content they deem offensive? Can one person possibly speak to the values of all their customers? And what of the other parts of FECA? Is three years in prison too steep a sentence for somebody who uploads an as-yet-unreleased Eminem CD? [Related link: NWA's groundbreaking album Straight Outta Compton, edited down to just the explicit content.] [UPDATE: A closer reading of the bill reveals that the Family Movie Act was geared to benefit ClearPlay alone. Technology that "makes content imperceptible" is covered by the bill. Companies that sell or rent altered DVDs are not protected. Still, it puts an end to the outstanding litigation, a fact that ClearPlay boasts about on their site. Still, there is no question that the bill is a gift to the Christian right. One of the ClearPlay filters is "vain references to deity". Now why would a (supposedly) secular government create a bill to protect a for-profit corporation with a clear religious agenda? Remember, their initial claim was to remove sex, violence, and profanity. The bill does not place limitations on what they are allowed to filter. An ammendment put forth last year (H.R. 4586) by Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) to limit the filters to sex, violence, and profanity was defeated. (It's interesting to note that the studios offered to license the TV/airplane versions to ClearPlay, but ClearPlay still wanted the power to apply their own edits. Again, there is an agenda here.]

Comments

[Jay Blanchard]

OTM James--it reminds me of what Stan Brakhage used to say when asked about people adding music to his deliberately silent films: it's fine if they want to collaborate with an image, but don't advertise it as "a film by Stan Brakhage", because it isn't. It's essentially the same as ripping a corner off of a painting or breaking a chunk off of a sculpture--it is no longer the same work.

As a filmmaker, I find it absolutely disgusting that a person can alter a director's work that he/she has spent two or more years of his/her life working on, rip it to shreds, alter the original meaning COMPLETELY by removing the most poignant imagery/dialogue, and still have the gaul to profit from the director's name and the film's name. Yet filmlovers who download a torrent of an out-of-print film are deemed criminals?

If the bill that's being proposed passes, it's a sad day for freedom of expression & simply proves the ugly, anti-intellectual path this country is taking by being lead by a bunch of Nazi swine advocating a BS conception of "morality" in the name of Christ.

"The fundamental cause of trouble in the world today is that the stupid are cocksure, while the intelligent are full of doubt." --Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)

[Sarmoung]

I don't quite understand the intricacies of the US political system, but you say this was passed unanimously? Do I take this to mean that not one single person of any political allegiance voted against it? (Obviously!) No one can be seen to oppose the "Family" after all. Here we'd probably have callen it Domestic and I doubt the Movie Act would ever have made it through.

Given that terrestrial TV has long been editing films (in the UK anyway) depending on the time they're shown, there's a precedent of sorts, but that's never been as specific as the examples above.

This is disturbing news. I'm holding back on the Anglo-Saxon.

[Filmbrain]

Agreed, LaD -- that was reductive. However (and this is perhaps getting off-topic) I do believe that our overly puritanical approach to nudity (let's not even mention sex) is responsible for unhealthy attitudes towards the body, the opposite sex, etc.

The kid who sees the edited version of The Hurricane will walk away believing he's seen the film, though a critical component to its story has been eviscerated. This has nothing to do with decency, or community standards -- it is a whitewashing of fact. I almost think it's less dangerous to ban something outright than to alter it in this way.

[Filmbrain]

Sarmoung --

Because the bill contained things like stiffer penalties for bootleggers, and funding for the National Film Preservation Board, it would look pretty bad to vote against it.

This is a standard tactic -- hide the more disturbing legislation in the midst of a larger bill containing safe material that nobody would vote against.

Films are edited for television here as well, but not in this fashion. Sex, language, extreme violence -- that gets cut out, but not the type of cuts these groups are making.

I had a look at ClearPlay's website, to look at the list of films that are filtered. Muppets From Space is one of them. What could possibly be offensive in that film?

[la depressionada]

fb you know i agree with you. i do. and i was just kidding re: reductive. i just thought john had an interesting point. you know what's funny, everytime you say hurricane i think of that movie with mia farrow c. 1972 or so. i have to think a minute to remember what you're referring to.

and as far as nudity and repression are concerned. you know REALLY agree. i advocate the french approach which somehow seems to necessitate a topless women in every rv commercial from fabric softener to steel radial tires. MUCH HEALTHIER.

[la depressionada]

TV commercial. sorry.

[John]

Every artist needs an audience. Sure, you can argue the solipsistic line that art is some kind of personal therapy, but then the artist is reduced to a therapist, isn't he? So every artist, as one who produces art for the sake of allowing someone outside himself to experience it, requires an audience to which his product can communicate and thereby ascend to the status of art. Simple enough.

Now if the audience has no interest in the artist's vision, they'll simply ignore his art. That art will become mere product, and the notion of artistic vision will be meaningless, since "vision" is simply a strategy to communicate with the (no longer existent) audience.

Therefore, to reform that product into something that people can enjoy, whether as art or as artless entertainment, can't be a distortion of an artistic vision that has already been rendered meaningless for lack of an audience. In fact, it's almost necessarily a good thing, because it makes something useful out of something useless. (The exception would be if there were something inherently bad about the thing that was produced, but it'd be difficult to argue that that's the case here without first taking on some of the earlier precepts of this argument. We'll move on.)

Now, all of this was pretty much argued in universal terms, which isn't true in the edited-DVD debate. But since there's still a free choice for consumers whether to buy the edited or unedited DVDs, then the argument stands but is restricted just to the edited-DVD crowd. We can assume they're not interested in the unedited DVD, so the artist's vision doesn't exist as far as they're concerned. Which means they can hack up the movie all they want in order to turn it into something they appreciate without causing any harm. The artist's vision only exists for those who are interested in appreciating it.

Sorry for the late-night ineloquence. But I think the argument's simple enough to survive the crude phrasing.

[Robert Nagle]

I don't know enough about this issue to have a serious opinion.

However, it would seem like a relatively simple matter for the studio to include several versions of the same film on a DVD. Let the Christian groups suggest their own edits and let consumers decide which version they prefer to watch. I think the big studios can negotiate licensing deals with companies if there's enough money in it.

Invalidating lawsuits from directors is a Big Bad. Dealing with legacy content is always a problem. But I'm guessing that current studio contracts include provisions of realtering. What am I getting at? These kinds of problems are self-correcting and generally don't need legislative interference.

[Filmbrain]

John/Robert --

I think there's a fundamental point being missed here. While the editing of language, extreme violence, and nudity might be understandable for TV/airplane standards, the removal of ideas, behaviors, and/or themes is something else entirely. When we watch, say, Jungle Fever and hear a character say "mickey fickey" we chuckle, knowing what the real term is. However, what if all traces of the interracial romance were edited out, and only the interracial conflict remained? (Conyers & co. use this example in their minority view.)

Directors probably aren't happy about editing for TV, but they've lived with it. However, there is a point where the editing is such that the film is no longer the vision of the person that made it in the first place. Films aren't just a commodity. (Well, some are.)

By your argument, should every specialty group be allowed their own edit?

The distortion of something useless into something useful is still a distortion, no matter how you look at it. Sure, some directors might not care, as long as they are getting a fat check. But many do, and that's the issue here.

The only true (and obvious) solution for Christians is to simply not watch these films. They are already making enough noise in Hollywood, trying to pressure studios to make more value-centric entertainment -- leave us heathens with the few dangerous films we have left -- things like Milos Forman's Amadeus, a film that contains (according to ClearPlay) the following cautionary thematic elements: Implied Premarital Sex, Revealing Clothing, Some Suggestive Dialogue, Bar/Club Environment, Implied Extramarital Sex, some Suggestive Dancing, Alcohol Consumption, Dysfunctional Relationships.

Bar/Club Environment? Maybe they were watching the Falco video by accident.

[dvd]

Slightly off topic, Filmbrain, but your mentioning of Amadeus reminded me of another perplexing trend that's resulted from the moral majority sticking their fingers into filmmaking - consider that Amadeus, once a PG film, is now rated R. Likewise (if I remember correctly) with THX-1138. Signs of regression are everywhere.

[JoJo The Chimp]

I'm actually not familiar with ClearPlay and what it can do, and how it's used (and by whom), but I'd love to see what it's default settings do to The Exorcist (The Version You've Never Edited). Would "The power of Christ compels you" be taken as a vain reference? This sounds insidious as all hell, and I'll have to read up on it. Thanks for the overview. May Phoebe's breasts fly free!

[Robert Nagle]

It's really hard to take this company seriously:

For My Cousin Vinny: Revealing Clothing Some Suggestive Dialogue
Threatening Dialogue Alcohol Consumption
Smoking Intense Thematic Elements
Murder Topic

Intense Thematic Elements? Murder Topic?

Before Sunrise:
Non-Sensual/Non-Crude Sex Talk Thematic Sexual Situation(s)
Implied Premarital Sex Some Suggestive Dialogue
Alcohol Consumption Smoking
Bar/Club Environment Mature Thematic Elements
Intense Thematic Element

Implied Premarital Sex? Wait, did I miss something? I wish it were possible to sanitize these people's bibles while they're at it.

SPEED:
Thematic Elements and Related Content in Movie:
Revealing Clothing Threatening Dialogue
Intense Action/Adventure Intense Life/Death Situations
Disaster Themes Martial Arts Action
Scary Moments Non-Graphic Injury/Wound
Alcohol Consumption Smoking
Bar/Club Environment Mature Thematic Elements
Intense Thematic Elements Murder Topic

Wait, Bar/Club Environment. Weren't they on a fricking bus the whole time?

BABE:
Thematic Elements and Related Content in Movie:
Implied Premarital Sex Implied Extramarital Sex
Revealing Clothing Some Suggestive Dancing
Some Suggestive Dialogue Alcohol Consumption
Smoking Bar/Club Environment
Mature Thematic Elements Divorce Topic
Dysfunctional Relationships

Revealing Clothing? And I thought I was the only one turned on by all that sexy porcine flesh! Suggestive dancing? Did the cats dance the lambada while I ducked out to use the restroom?

[Filmbrain]

Non-Graphic wound - "Ouch, my soul!"

[John]

Actually, yeah, Robert, you did miss something -- the scene in the park at the end of the night, which provokes the great discussion in Before Sunset over whether they had sex.

Filmbrain: Yes, every specialty group should be allowed to do whatever it wants with its own movies. The films themselves may not be commodities, but the DVDs people buy certainly are. Yes, it's a distortion of the "true" film. But like you said, "there is a point where the editing is such that the film is no longer the vision of the person that made it in the first place." Nobody's pretending that the edited version is the same movie as the director's version. But it's still a movie, and if people want to buy it and watch it, let them. Heck, if I were interested enough to actually sit down and watch some ClearPlay movies, maybe I could make a case for their superior artistry. You never know.

Here's a related tickler: Is Marcel Duchamp's Mona Lisa not art, as it's an edited -- bastardized, really -- version of the artist's original? If you say that it's not, well, a lot of turn-of-the-century art critics might agree with you. But then Dada must have been one heck of an influential non-art movement.

[Filmbrain]

John --

What somebody wants to do in the privacy of their own home with their DVDs is their business.

Should the government pass laws to allow for-profit companies to do this? No.

Bringing the Dadaists into the fray is a bit of a cheap shot. It's apples and oranges, really. Nobody would, or could, ever mistake Duchamp's work for the original, nor is it presented as such.

The bill that protects ClearPlay is not about artistic expression, but rather of legitimizing the Christian right's position.

Do you think parents sit down and tell their kids that the version of Babe they are about to watch is not as the director intended?

[ronen]

The Phantom Edit isn't illegal.

It's illegal to sell a copy of it.

That's all.

[Filmbrain]

Are you sure Ronen? I could have sworn that the creator of the original was slapped with some sort of cease and desist order, even though he had no plans on selling it. I thought the studios said it was a "derivative work" and therefore a violation of copyright.

[John]

Better yet - I have a part time job sweeping at the cinema and I don't like the way you looked at me.

So I'm going to detain you, make a cup of coffee then (maybe) call the cops, with no criminal or civil liability for otherwise infringing upon your civil liberty.

Perhaps even tomorrow when you come with you date, since it doesn't specify time period.

[John]

Your arguing about Roman Polanski reminds me of the arguments of the evangelists that persecution is good for the church. True, there are merits to this, look also at Milos Forman or ANDREI TARKOVSKY, they worked through censorship, but it's not an environment we should create if we can help it.

[Roy Geebiv]

Interesting line from the Minority Views section:

"The bill’s proponents would have us believe that this bill is about whether children should be forced to watch undesired content, but it is not. The issue in this debate is who should make editorial decisions about what movie content children see: parents or a forprofit company."

It is interesting because the parents who purchase these DVD players are, by doing so, making an editorial decision about what they want their children to see, and are being opposed by the big for-profit film companies who are saying, in essence, that those big for-profit corporations should have the sole editorial decision...

I say, if you object to this technology, then don't purchase it. Problem solved.