-----Original Message-----
From: Nevin Limburg
Sent: Tuesday, August 15, 2006 12:57 PM
To: drob@desnews.com
Subject: Your Tuesday Deseret News column, August 15
Doug:
I applaud your column, "Hollywood Snubs 44% of Public," which I have
copied
to follow this email. You hit right on the mark with my thinking of many
years. Hollywood could so easily, with just minor changes, make most of
its
product suitable for a great majority of Americans. I detest the
definition
of "creative artistic expression" that certain people and groups have
concocted that now governs what is produced and rated for our viewing.
Just
as the Supreme Court has ruled that communities and states can have
their
own "standards" by definition to rule what is allowed and where it can
be,
or not, in a community, with zoning applications, communities should be
able
to have edited movies available that adhere to standards the community
desires. Wouldn't that be reasonable?
U.S. District Judge Richard Matsch ruled with what he has in case law or
whatever, instead of challenging such law in favor of the wanting
public.
We need more judges who will stand up for what is right and decent in
this
age of moral depravity. If it is a violation of federal copyright law
to
edit movies, then challenge the law to have it amended! People already
do
their own version of editing sometimes, as you pointed out, by
fastforwarding or scene selection, so why can't that be the right of a
company in adhering to community standards to at least make the product
available to those who want it? How is that "irreparable damage" to the
"artist" or producer? They still get their money, so why should they
care
if a certain group of people, likely 44% of the public as you factually
indicate, get the product they really want, instead of what "non-caring"
Hollywood believes we all must joyfully receive?
I appreciate your "standing tall" column on this topic, and hope that
many
see it and that other journalists follow your lead. Please send the
column
to Hollywood, newspapers, journalists, judges, and even President Bush,
and
you can add my voice to it. And if you wish to make this a letter to
the
editor, that would be fine with me. Long live Doug Robinson!
Nevin R Limburg
Pleasant View, UT
deseretnews.com
Utah
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
"Hollywood snubs 44% of public"
By Doug Robinson
Deseret Morning News
If you were a businessman and you knew that 44 percent of the
American
public would buy or rent a certain product if you made slight changes to
it,
you would probably give it to them.
What business doesn't give the public what it wants? What business
doesn't live by the creed that the customer is always right?
Hollywood, it turns out. Responding to a suit filed by
moviemakers, a
federal judge ruled recently that it is a violation of the federal
copyright
law to edit movies for obscene content.
Joanne Moulton, who at one time owned a half-dozen Play It Clean
stores around Utah until lawsuits dried them up one by one, was given
five
days to pack up her last store.
"Everyone wins," says Moulton of the edited movie business.
"Hollywood
makes millions on this industry and the public gets what it wants. I
feel
like I've been on a mission. This was about viewers' rights. And viewers
lost."
Thus ends a contentious, bitter three-year battle with Hollywood
that
raised a number of sticky issues about rights for artists and art
owners.
U.S. District Judge Richard Matsch ruled that edited objectionable
scenes
cause "irreparable injury to the creative artistic expression in the
copyrighted movies."
Putting the phrase of "creative artistic expression" to most
Hollywood
fare is like calling Big Macs "cuisine." For every "Crash" and
"Traffic,"
there are dozens of movies like "Con Air," "Friday the 13th," "Anger
Management" and anything with Sharon Stone and Vin Diesel in it. Try
calling
those "art."
Anyone with eyes can see that Hollywood's use of swear words,
nudity
and gore goes beyond "artistic expression." Or don't you find it funny
that
"artistic expression" consists of precisely one F-word, which, not
coincidentally, is the exact dosage allowed to earn a PG-13 rating.
An ABC News poll in 2005 showed 44 percent of Americans favored
editing; 39 percent said that, given the choice, they'd "likely" rent
edited
movies, and 20 percent - which represents more than 40 million people -
said
they'd "very likely" rent such movies.
Hollywood is telling its customers to take what it gives them or
take
a hike. In essence, the ruling means that even if you own a work of
"art" -
movies, paintings, etc. - you cannot alter it. You must view a movie as
the
"artist" intended it to be watched, which, taken one step further, means
you
can't legally fast-forward through F-words, sex, bloody murders,
whatever,
in your own living room. The "artist" also didn't intend for you to skip
the
trailers or the credits, and you can't jump ahead to watch a favorite
scene
in the middle of the movie because the movie was intended to be watched
from
beginning to end.
If Hollywood is turning its back on a chance to make more money;
if it
is making its own edited versions for TV and airlines but refuses to
make
them available to the general public, this can lead to only one
conclusion:
That this is more about ego, power and social agenda than art.
Not that Hollywood never has a legitimate gripe. I watched edited
and
unedited versions of the brilliant movie, "Crash." In one scene, the
Sandra
Bullock character makes stereotypical remarks about a Hispanic repairman
who
is working in her home. That scene is completely deleted, not for
language
or nudity but apparently because it is politically incorrect and racist.
Of course it is! That's the point. The movie is all about
misunderstandings and connections between races and trying to understand
one
another. Later, we learn that the Hispanic man is a loving father and
husband, but the contrast between perception and reality is lost.
On the other hand: So I'm watching the mindless movie "Failure to
Launch" with my family when the lead character tells a young woman to
get
the F-word out of his car.
Nice "artistic expression."
If nothing else, Hollywood should clean up its own act to save it
from
hacks. So far, it shows no interest in responding to many of its
customers.
Meanwhile, viewers feel like they have no choices now, but they're
wrong. They can choose not to patronize or rent certain movies, even if
it
means going without. Besides, doesn't it seem that our culture is
obsessed
with movies and that our chief forms of entertainment are pretty much
limited to movies and restaurants?
Maybe there is something better to do.
Doug Robinson's column runs on Tuesdays. Please e-mail drob@desnews.com.
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