The Censorship Poll

Well I believe in censorship. Brooke Shields in Pretty Baby was nothing compared to how the envelope is being pushed today.

Just a couple weeks ago I watched a movie suggested to me by some folks here Let The Right One In. A swedish Shyamalan type low budget movie where the vampires a 10 year old girl. Now Im all about coming of age themed films, the movie wasnt bad, but Spoiler they had a scene where the boy walks in on her nude and they do a closeup of her vagina. Well Hitchcock wouldnt have! They could have had a rear shot with the boy looking down astonished, and made the scene better cause the cutscene to Oskars (the boy) face also killed the shock, rhthym, and any possible humor to the scene.

No Im not writing this in response to that, and there are many examples throughout film. Bottom line is the american audience isnt ready. Hell we cant even handle the rights we have why in the world start loosening the belt?! Might be a hot topic or might be an old one.

I'm an American and I am ready... although, I'm certainly not ready for any vaginas.

Wait a sec. You never see a vagina. You see normal female pubic hair (in not what I'd call a close-up), and she says she's 13, but she's probably closer to 513.

As far as Hitch goes, have you seen Frenzy? He does show female pubic hair (but it's still not a vagina).

Is this one of those "Show me blood and guts and sadism, but don't show many anything natural because I'm an American" threads? HA!

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But yeah, why are American audiences "not ready" yet apparently other countries are? Does that statement not say something?

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Ok I mispoke on the vagina descrip, but was at a loss for words. Yeah it was a closeup, and no I never saw Frenzy. Good to bring up gore in a censorship thread. Do we really want to see what serial killers do to their victims after the camera pulls away? Theyre pulling away less and less lately. If Speilberg didnt hold back, and even showed more horrific gore in the omaha beach scene in Saving Private Ryan would it have made more of an impact?

I brought up Hitchcock in the first place because he wouldnt think censorship an obstacle. I work on the psychic hotline, asked him so, and he told me! hmph So if theres no censorship I guarantee porno mainstream is on the horizon. Now ask yourself what movie turned you on the most, and most of us wont name a porno. Some would be telling the truth.

Idk Mark F. I just never felt the freedoms of cinema have ever really been an issue. Sure certain european films are superior unhindered by mainstream fatheadedness, but not all. Yes western cinema is no joke either even by todays standards. They should just rehaul the censor guidelines cause its looking inept.

There will always be people who are liberal, conservative, and middle of the road when it comes to censorship in the media. I don't like how cigarettes are still being used in movies or using the Lord's name in vain. But at the same time I don't wanna watch cartoons all day long either.

You pick your battles. As long as I know ahead of time the subject matter, who's directing the picture, and/or what the rating is I can decide to watch it in the theater, on DVD, or wait til it comes out on basic cable with loads of censorship. *(I've only seen Kill Bill on cable, censored, and I still think it's good. I don't feel like I missed anything.)

You gotta do what's right for you--if the images are disturbing to you turn your head away or something.

Personally, I am tired of seeing breasts, bottoms, and pubes in American film because it's usually a woman, gratuitious, and just plain overly erotic. I don't really need to see nude actors--it's not like I'm a doctor or the actor's spouse.

Still, in college I watched French movie, "Tout Les Matins Du Monde" (All The Mornings of the World) with Gerard Depardieu and they showed male and female nudity and it was so natural that it didn't even bother me. (By natural I mean no close-ups of nipples or "unmotivated butt-in-the-moonlight shots".)--but the actors appeared to be over 18 yrs. old, too.

You gotta look at censorship at a "case by case" (or film by film) perspective.

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Tongo has worked for my Aunt Irene's psychic hotline for the past year and he's been doing a great job, so says Aunt Irene, even though I didn't need to ask her -- I just know.

I rarely get to talk to Hitch. He sneaks up on me sometimes when I'm in the shower but then disappears fast, which always makes me feel unattractive.

Well, my favorite porno movie is Vibesbrator. It's the porn version of that Cyndi Lauper/Jeff Goldblum 80's flick called Vibes. A really funky chick in punk rock makeup goes to a foreign country with her well hung boyfriend. She remembered to pack a vibrator that buzzes whenever sexy spirits are around... the more hot, naked big breasted spirits that come near the vibesbrator causes the vibesbrator to buzz stronger. It's a laugh riot. Many tissue boxes were purchased and then discared because of Vibesbrator. Great times.

Well somebody whould be ashamed here.

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You have just told us why you think the scene is bad for the structure and the narrative of the film. But what's the reason to why you think it should be deleted/censored? I can't see an explanation to why you think the Americans aren't "ready" for it. They can comprehend the concept of blood sucking immortal vampire kids but not gender-less vampire kids?

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They had temporarily escaped the factories, the warehouses, the slaughterhouses, the car washes - they'd be back in captivity the next day but now they were out - they were wild with freedom. They weren't thinking about the slavery of poverty. Or the slavery of welfare and food stamps. The rest of us would be all right until the poor learned how to make atom bombs in their basements.

I think censorship is wrong. Full stop.

Are there certain things that I don't want to see in movies? Certainly. Do I feel it's the job or obligation of the filmmakers to keep those things out of their movies? Absolutely not. I that if it is that much of a problem for me, it is my responsibility to educate myself about the content of what I'm going to see before I see it. Not complain later.

We live in a time when there is so much easy access to information that there's no excuse for sensitive people to blindly walk into a movie with no idea of what they're about to see.

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Well because with all the awful filmakers in america theyd handle the subject matter with less tact and craft. I think the story of an immortal child vampire can truly be interesting yet horrific. I read Anne Rice Interview With The Vampire, and she went into some detail with a child vampire. Lets just say the Let The Right One In vamp was alot nicer.

A real director given the story of a child vampire could create intrigue in you, nausea, horror, and never show you the actual scene. Speilberg made his bones on a shark movie where the shark wouldnt work. Now tell me a director today has the storytelling chops to express the loneliness and even sexual longings of a child vampire hundreds of years old. Id say very few could pull it off, and it wouldnt be worth the exploitation from such freedoms to get there.

I don't think we need more censorship. I think as long as films are appropriately classified so people can make informed decisions and kids aren't exposed to things that would be inappropriate, films shouldn't need to be cut. I don't think all films should have to be kid-friendly, why not make adult movies for adults? Why not reclaim the term 'adult' for something that grown-up intelligent people can watch, not just signifying porn.

Interesting that you use the phrase 'American audiences aren't ready'. Because a lot of 'foreign' films are cut to get an R rating in the US. And like markf says, it seems there is a weird kind of belief in the US rating system that violence is ok, but nudity and sex are not. And it is the nudity you picked up on in the film you mention. You can see a naked body if you look in the mirror, does it really need to be censored out of a film? It depends a lot on the context, of course it does.

And Hitchcock wouldn't have? This is the same Hitchcock who made Frenzy with its rape scenes? Because that's more tasteful than a lower body shot...

Can you explain what you mean by this? What exploitation? What 'freedoms'?

Oh so Alfred Hitchcock would think cinema today some product from a big brother society?! LOL! No he'd certainly be blown away with how much violence, sex, language, and other content is shown in film.
"Who is some organization to tell me what I can or cannot watch?! Im an american and thats an infringement on my freedom!" The fact is we think censorships wrong simply because were told "No". If Alfred saw all that cinema had to offer today would he feel everything appropriate simply because it exists?!

I was watching TV, and on a saturday at 2 pm in the afternoon they were showing Pulp Fiction. Little kids just flicking the channel get to see a man raped, an overdose, and the most prolofic use of the swear word M.F. ever seen. You better believe a kid can read lips. Thats sloppy, and stupid. Thats exploiting freedom.

Speak for yourself there, dude. Some of us think censorship is wrong because it restricts the ability of artists to express themselves.

I think we toss the word "censorship" around a lot, but to me it's a serious word, and makes for a serious accusation. If the producer of a film decides that a slight recutting of the film will result in a friendlier rating, and cause far more people to see the film, that's not "censorship," that's an independent business decision by the person who made the film possible in the first place.

Censorship implies (or should, I think) some form of significant coercion. If it implies anything which restricts a vision, it's elevating the director over the person who actually has to foot the bill, for one, and it's ignoring the fact that nothing is ever going to be translated so flawlessly from a director's mind to the screen. They have logistical limitations, budgetary limitations, and the simple knowledge that they have to try to get people to see it at some point. All these work to modify whatever vision they have in their head. But with the broad definition so often used to refer to film, even their own decisions could be described as "censorship." Methinks it's just reality, and it seems fairer than any alternative.

Of course; there's a huge difference between a naked body and your naked body. I have no problem with a ratings board making such a distinction, because it's self-evidently different.

Anyway, the violence-vs-sex debate always finds its way into these discussions, and someone always ends up implying that the U.S. is overly puritanical or sensitive about such things. But really, I don't think it's as kooky as people often insinuate. For one, I think over-the-top violence is a bit harder to impersonate than sex, and I think most young people probably feel a stronger natural inclination towards sex than they do towards extreme violence. IE: it's not about which action shown is worse if committed, it's about which action adolescent viewers are more likely to already be struggling with. Really, this is pretty obvious; a single gruesome murder gets you a worse rating than an off-screen depiction of genocide. Ratings obviously can't be determined by figuring out which films depict the worse independent act. And, of course, presentation is everything.

One thing that always bugs me is how vague such discussions are about what is and is not genuinely violent. Technically, if ten people get shot in a scene, one would think it's quite violent. But how many movies depict the experience of getting shot as a loud bang and someone simply falling down? Is that really a terribly violent thing to depict when we don't see the wound, much blood, or any prolonged suffering? It's a lot like watching the bad guy get tossed off the cliff and disappearing in the distance as he falls. Sure, the end of that fall's gonna be pretty violent, but the part we saw wasn't.

Here's a hypothetical question for no one in particular: suppose you learned that your favorite film had been heavily modified by studio interference and other such things, and that the finished product, while brilliant, was nothing like the director's vision. Is it good or bad it was made this way?

To make the question a bit purer, we can suppose that somehow the director managed to release some elaborate cut of the film on home video, which you found far inferior, even though it represented a far better representation of their 'vision'. Does this version of the film have some special merit for being a clearer depiction of what's in their head, even if it's not as good? Is it inherently better for this fact? If so, why?

Nuff said.

I can't think of one instance of this happening.

Anyway provided no laws are broken whilst making a film then I can't think of one justifiable reason to censor said film. What happens? Ultimately five, ten, twenty (or thirty if you live in the UK) years down the line, the powers that be realize it was a load of fuss over nothing and release the thing uncut. Pointless exercise because the people who really wanted to see it uncut probably got bootlegs or imported an uncut version, and the people who would have been offended by said film probably steered well clear anyway.

Meaning you don't like hypothetical questions, or meaning you dismiss this one as being completely impossible?

EDIT: ah, it seems you edited after my reply. So I'll do the same:

How would you know, though? I'm not aware of any public record of the degree to which various studios changed most films, particularly films not made within the last decade or so.

Not to mention that we could easily construct a very similar hypothetical where the director was merely heavily pressured to change some things. We could all have an example of this in our list of favorites right now and have no idea.

Nope, whilst you were replying.

I watch plenty of making of documentaries on dvd extras and the like, and this has never come out. It's almost always the other way around.

Not to be pedantic, but it was before then; I saw my reply sitting on the page after the unedited post, then came back a moment later and saw the edit. And now I see another edit, to which I will reply thusly:

Depends on what you mean by censorship. If you mean a state-backed decree of what can or cannot be shown, then yes, anything otherwise legal should be left alone...and it is, as far as I can see. But if you mean that anything legal should be supported by the studio that produced it, I couldn't disagree more. The person who pays for a film gets to make the call, under the same principle that allows you to do what you want with your own property.

I don't think the question is a "pointless exercise" because I don't think it's even remotely implausible, and whether or not someone would seek out a bootleg of the uncut version is entirely beside the point. The question is about what each of us would think if we PREFERRED the interfered-with version. Even if this is implausible, the purpose of the question is to get at just what about unfettered vision (if such a thing is even possible to begin with) is supposedly superior.