Family Movie Act

[Fire Walk With Me]

http://www.family.org/cforum/fnif/news/a0036237.cfm

Censorship.. Old news, but the latest attempt to force a set of values, and worst case, open the way to saying what you can or cannot choose.

Alternate:

http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D89IM8S01.htm?campaign_id=apn_home_down

Didn't find this in a search, delete if it's a dupe.

[sui generis]

1. I personally think we should insist on even more ratings

Let's please add a picture of Betty Bowers, representing religious content, and a hypodermic representing insulin for sugary sweet completely unrealistic stories.

Any movie that makes a social commentary about "moral values" should have a man in a pointy white hat logo, and movies that have artificially replaced normal "expansive" language used by real people in reality should have a little logo of a man with duct tape over his mouth.

We can fight back in the ratings war. Why protect the fundamental zealots? Let's try protecting some of us adults.

[elehhhhna]

2. A BLack X on anything starring Jen Lopez &/or Ben Affleck would help!

[Fire Walk With Me]

3. Or the Olsen Twins

Hey, we're supposed to be AGAINST people who want to limit our choices.. Argh..

[Lydia Leftcoast]

4. And a dunce cap for any movie

that consists entirely of special effects, car chases, explosions, and people jumping through plate glass windows.

Or stars Adam Sandler.

[Igel]

5. I don't see the censorship.

The government's not banning anything. Or even limiting speech or distribution.

If you're referring to people having their DVD players skip over things they find offensive, then there are 6 billion people guilty of that kind of censorship, and the word just means "having control over what one perceives."

I routinely censor newspapers, the radio, and--worst of all--tv. I don't like the article, station, or program, off it goes.

[Fire Walk With Me]

6. To start, they had to sneak this into a barely-related bill

Parents should spend time with their kids and determine what their kids are watching. That family thing in action. Of course, that's not 100% possible, but how many kids will just go over to a friend's house if they can't see it at home?

This gives a single company power to do a V-Chip-like alteration to the hardware. Sort of how Diebold does the voting thing. Competition, checks and balances and all that. Lawmakers shouldn't be inside my home entertainment system.

I do agree that ratings should be available for people to determine ahead of time what they wouldn't enjoy for specific reasons (referring back to the Pauly Shore alert, only half-faceitious). Doesn't Blockbuster already censor films, so they have a safe haven to rent from?

It boils down to an opening, an option for a law to mandate taste and content. Considering the state of the country, that's a very bad thing.

[Igel]

7. Yes, but odd amendments wind up being in bills.

We haven't plugged in our tv since last July. Our kid's still too small to understand what he sees, but that'll change in a year or two.

With a DVD, you can preview it: but that means one of watches the movie with the kid elsewhere, then we watch it together. If there are things that he shouldn't see, in our opinion, it means keeping track of the elapsed time on the DVD and playing with the remote. Hardly a pleasant process. And it raises the questions with a 5 year old as to why he shouldn't see things we deem inappropriate, which he's hardly in a position to understand.

I don't expect directors or movie studios to match my sense of morality, and wouldn't want to force them to. I'm not sure I'd use the technology the bill envisions. If there's not a market, it won't be sold.

[Fire Walk With Me]

8. You don't use the G, PG, PG-13 ratings already present?

I don't mean that disrespectfully. There are already standards in place, which, if used, allay most, if not all of the issues being brought forward in the interest of giving one company a presence in all of our homes.

This is the old game. State a problem while ignoring the existing systems in order to get your solution in. Worked for the Patriot Act, like we didn't have a CIA, FBI, NSA, yadda yadda which could be strengthened and organized, instead of altering our privacy and nearly the Constitution.

We don't need it as much as they put forth.

If it had been in a solo bill, it would get the response it deserves. Adding bits like this should be removed from the lawmaking process. Perhaps we could use a chip technology to scan the bills and remove the undesirable bits? Turnabout is fair play.

[Fire Walk With Me]

9. And the moment I see the word "Family" pasted onto something

I get the feeling that it's framing for a power grab in the name of protecting the children.