Couple of positive items regarding the media:
1) The panel in the House of Representatives has approved the Family Movie Act, clearing an early obstacle that puts it on the road to become law.
The Family Movie Act, if enacted, would clarify copyright law to protect the right of companies to manufacture devices that will skip offensive content in DVDs, etc. Thus parents could purachase the ClearPlay DVD player for their household so that when kids watch movies, offensive content is blocked (e.g., by dropping the volume level to zero when cuss words are uttered or jumping forward in scenes with nudity).
The Family Movie Act would protect companies that manufacture such devices (at the moment, that’s basically ClearPlay) from lawsuits alleging copyright infringement by Hollywood bigwigs.
No word yet whether the bigwigs will try to sue manufacturers of remote controls that have “Mute” and “Fast Forward” buttons on them.
To become law the Family Movie Act must be approved by the full House and the Senate.
2) MTV has some competition. A new venture known as The U Network (TUN) is scheduled to begin airing on 150 college campuses (compared to 700 campuses for MTV’s college outreach channel).
TUN executive promise to offer college students cleaner, more intelligent, more politically balanced programming compared to the filthy, “dumbed-down,” left-leaning content offered by MTV.
Great news! Thanks for the links, Jimmy.
On some movies, that family-friendly DVD
player would probably skip straight to
the end credits!
Hollywood “bigwigs” aside, aren’t you at all concerned about devices that alter the presentation of an artistic work (I’m using the term generically, not as a judgment) based somehow upon whatever the manufacturer of the device programs in?
Clearly the difference between this and and the “mute” and “fast forward” button are the fact that the viewer (here, hopefully the parent) assumes the responsibility.
All in all this looks like pork-barrel legislation for the benefit of one particular constituent.
And I checked out ClearPlay’s website and they say their player will allow us to watch “great Hollywood movies without having to worry about the PROFANITY, NUDITY and GORY VIOLENCE.”
Hmmm, “GREAT Hollywood” movies!?! I always wished there was a way for the kids to see A Nightmare on Elm Street without all the pesky gory violence, profanity and nudity, that really aren’t integral to the plot anyway.
Come on, anyone really concerned about these issues shouldn’t be watching these movies anyway.
“Hmmm, “GREAT Hollywood” movies!?! I always wished there was a way for the kids to see A Nightmare on Elm Street without all the pesky gory violence, profanity and nudity, that really aren’t integral to the plot anyway. Come on, anyone really concerned about these issues shouldn’t be watching these movies anyway.”
Without weighing in on the ClearPlay controversy, permit me to make the crashingly obvious observation that while it’s true that there are many films, both rotten and terrific, that would be so compromised by screening technology that they would hardly be worth watching in that form(not to mention in many cases not being worth watching in the first place anyway), there are also many other films, again of all ranges of quality, that would suffer only minor omissions and thereby be acceptable viewing for a wider and younger audience.
For example, obviously it would be a travesty to go into a film like “The Mission” and try to delete or pixelate shots of bare-breasted native women. OTOH, the brief bordello sequence in “Seabiscuit” could be neatly removed with hardly a ripple, and the film would remain substantially intact and more family-friendly.
In principle, such films need not be any more artistically compromised than they would be if broadcast for network television with studio-approved cuts (though again I prescind from the rights issue and the fact that studios and filmmakers would have no say over the ClearPlay “cuts” of the film).
Thanks for your thoughts Steven.
BTW, I always enjoy your visits to Catholic Answers.
Perhaps if the demand was demonstrated, studious could include “tamer” versions of movies on the DVD releases.
The studios have certainly responded to the apparent market interest in alternate versions that are even MORE explicit than the theatrical-release versions.
This is one of the benefits of digital bandwidth.
Sounds like a great product! I’d buy it right away. Thanks, Jimmy!
As for TUN, I hope it’s better than the garbage we’re getting on our campus airwaves already. I’m a college freshman at a public university and unfortunately, all public televisions (such as those in the dining areas) are all tuned to MTV.