ClearPlay and Censorship: If You Could Change a Movie, Would You?

"It's completely disrespectful to the film makers." 

It's completely disrespectful to the filmmakers?!?! Are you daft??? Why does the consumer have to tolerate and accept immorality, profanity and violence to enjoy quality entertainment??? 

While at a restaurant, if you got food with fecies in it, you'd send it back immediately!  You wouldn't make a mental debate as to whether or not the fecieis had been baked at a high enough temperature to be consumable.  You wouldn't keep it so as not to offend the chef!!!

What happened to keeping the customer happy?  Why can't I have the choice of enjoying a great storyline, without sex, nudity, violence, profanity, etc.?  Why shouldn't I be empowered with the choice to exclude content that my wife and I don't want to be exposed to, or that we don't want our kids to be exposed to, yet?

"Censorship is evil"

Do not apply an umbrella statment to ClearPlay.  ClearPlay isn't the only DVD player on the market and the filtering is optional!!!

No one is forcing a filtered viewing experience on you.  Take your claims of evil elsewhere.

Have any of you anti-filtering types considered there are actually adults that want a clean movie??? 

Because nobody is forcing a filtered movie experience on anyone, why are their such strong feelings?  Why not let like-minded people that want a filtering experience have it, without making them feel bad for it? Why persecute's those that don't want excessive profanity, violence, sex, etc in their movies?

Going back to being "disrespectful" to the film makers;  the "artistic experssion" of a film maker's statment of excessive offensive content  doesn't need to be in the story for me to enjoy the creative mind of the film maker's piece of work.  ClearPlay has cleaned up lots of movies that once I heard what I had missed I was baffled why the skipped content was necessary. 

We don't need to see a transformer humping the leg of Jennifer Fox.  How is a sex scene in The Rock pertinant to Nick Cage's character's ability to diffuse a bomb? In "What Women Want" why do I need to have Mel Gibson's character needlessly pray on the coffee shop girl's invulnerability to get her into bed to enjoy the rest of the subject matter?

I heartily agree! My husband and I would get just as much use out of this as the kids. We enjoy a lot of the action/suspense type movies but it seems like more and more those movies have to come with an excessive amount of language.

Perfect example - I rented "Hurt Locker" from Netflix. I happened to check out the review at www.pluggedinonline.com ( http://www.pluggedinonline.com ) before I popped it in. When I discovered that it contained "At least 75 f-words and 40 s-words" I put it back in the return envelope.

I mean, really? That means the f-word is in the movie an average of every 1.75 minutes.

I don't need or want to hear that kind of language and neither does my husband.

Going to be checking ClearPlay out for sure.

Excellent discussion here. I am always amazed at the multiple perspectives.

I am torn about the usage of this service for my children. I am discouraged that most movies are at pg-13 levels... I agree that viewing some movies provide a unique opportunity for discussion... but I also am tired. Why can't we just have a good clean movie. The words "stupid" and "shut-up" are standard... and I wonder why stuff like that is necessary in movies for kids. Yes, there are far worse words, but ain't nothin' like hearing a 3 year old say "shut-up stupid." Yuck.

I like what @funkball ( http://twitter.com/funkball ) said about using it for the parents. I can't stand nudity and an onslaught of profanity. It'd be nice to have that option.

And as I meander down... I think it's nice to have options.

I have a four year old who watches everything with us.  I would rather be the one around when he's exposed to language, violence and sex in the media because then I can control his reation to it.  One of his favorite movies is Resident Evil and he has often gone around shooting "Zomees",  But he also knows that it's one thing to pretend to shoot pretend sombies and another thing to pretend to shoot mom, dad, or the cats. 

The censoring of movies is like the censoring of books.  Some of the greatest literature contains the worst aspects of mankind, but that is part of the point.  A Clockwork Orange is on the ALA's banned books list, but the violence and language was necessary.  Where do we draw the line? 

Krafty Kitten ( http://kraftykittencaboodle.blogspot.com )

Okay, so I've been thinking about this and I thought of something I would love to take out of movies if I could.  I really do not like (strongly dislike) seeing people get sick, you know, throw up. And so I really do not like it when someone in a movie does it-- don't like to see it or even hear it happening. I am better about this now that I have five children (where one tag-team bout of the stomach flu should cure a person forever!), but I am still quite squimish! And am I the only one noticing that more and more movies are showing this graphically these days?

I really could see myself, given the choice,  taking out that part of a movie. Now, I know that showing someone empty their stomach must have some artistic value to a story, but the value is missed on me because I am so grossed out. If it were taken out and replaced by a little sub-title saying, "vomiting happening here," I would be so appreciative.

If someone feels as strongly as I do, only about sex scenes or curse words or violence, then I understand their desire to view movies with the comfort of knowing they will not encounter such disturbing things. On the other hand, if only they had a little rating symbol like GV for graphic vomiting, I'd likely avoid the movie altogether!

Okay, enough about this. I'm feeling a little queasy! :-)

Could not agree more.

We don't have kids, and I would still *love* to have Clear Play if it were available where we live.

Well said funkball! 

Clearplay isn't for my kids.  It's for my husband and I.  We love being able to watch movies without worrying about nudity, sex scenes, and profanity.

I've had Clear Play for years and love it. And you know what? We don't really use it with the kids. My wife and I use it for ourselves. Yes, believe it or not, we adults who like a variety of movie types but actually don't want to hear all the unnecessary profanity and don't care to see the nudity.

The great thing about this filtering system is it's all about CHOICE. People who claim "It's all or nothing" need to get a grip. They can choose to see it with all the "director's intent" they want, but I don't need that crap in my head.  I've watched so many movies using Clear Play and very rarely do I feel like I'm missing anything that would actually help the movie. If we do, we can always adjust the many different filters to see what it was we might have missed.

I shouldn't have to justify watching films with objectionable content. It's kind of like saying, "This chicken is great. There's just a little salmonella in it... but it's totally worth it."

Movies studios should LOVE Clear Play. They actually get more dvd rentals and purchases because of it. 

I am beginning to sound like a media-basher. But the marketing is the problem. I agree, Mashadutoit and Maria. I can do dark, and I love a good movie twist. I love to be surprised with something new and unexpected. But that's not what WTWTA was. I really, really resent that bait-and-switch BS marketers do.

Armed with your info though, Mashadutoit, I just may have to explore Eggar's book and then approach the movie again. Interesting.

If you don't think your child should be watching the film, don't let them watch it. Don't butcher a movie that someone spent a hell of a lot of time and energy on for any reason, period. I hate this idea with a passion. Not to mention that really, it fosters lazy parenting. "Let's just avoid controversy all together rather than have a potentially fruitful discussion with our kids?" No thanks.

My children watch all kinds of movies, with all kinds of ratings. The corrupt, biased MPAA has no place in my home - I can screen films for myself, thanks. I choose what they watch, I talk with them in depth about what they see. They are little film connoisseurs and that wouldn't be possible if they were restricted to Rated PG films and movies with absolutely nothing in them to talk about. Movies are more than entertainment - they are art. They're meant to foster thought and discussion. There's only so much to be said about The Princess & The Frog, but you can talk forever with your kids about Where The Wild Things Are, and there are actual things to be learned from it (I took issue with WTWTA only because it was marketed much differently than it was. It was pretty lame to have parents and children going into a theater with no idea that it was as dark a movie as it was).

Bossy would rather decide about a movie's overall content than alter the intentions of that movie. Does Bossy sound like someone who has written screenplays and is jealously guarding her words and ideas? Um, right.

But possibly not -

I was interested in your reaction to "where the wild things are" -

I didn’t even consider that the boy would get on my nerves so much. ClearPlay would not have been able to take out the messages of recklessness and disrespect this boy was modeling for my 10-year-old son, who was watching with me.

Which is a demonstration of how differently we can view a movie, and also what different people want, or need to censor.

Where the wild things are was actually not based on the Sendak book.  It was based on another book,("The Wild Things" by Dave Eggars ( http://www.amazon.com/Wild-Things-Dave-Eggers/dp/1... )) which was in turn,  inspired by Sendak.  The reason I'm saying this is - the Dave Eggers book is not a children's book, and so the movie is not a children's movie.  The publicity did not make this clear, and a lot of people assumed it was a movie version of the Sendak book .

I found it a profoundly disturbing movie - but also a fantastic exploration of the issues of anger, self control, guilt, manipulation - all those things we all have to deal with as adults and children. I dont think I would take a person younger than about 12 to go see it, and I would have found it very scary when I was little.  Is that censorship on my part? I dont think so.

Also - is a parent switching off a movie when its clear that it is inappropriate for their sensibilities - is that censorship?

I think it is very important to make a distinction between different "filtering" behaviours.  I would guess that most parents employ a mix of "lets discuss it" and "umm. dont look now "  to deal with the challenges of bringing up kids in a wild and scary world.

That "dont look now" or "lets stop watching now" is fundamentally different from watching a movie from which something has been removed.  

I have a very good friend who has raised her grandchildren on the old classics. She loves them and the kids love them--black and whites, old musicals, Betty Davis, et al. They feast on movies, like Gone With The Wind, that have those interminable intros and intermissions!

They consider themselves movie connoisseurs... and are they ever tough critics of the newer stuff. I agree, old movie classics are a satisfying way to go!

My family enjoys many of the older classic movies, musicals and tv shows.  Luckily with Netflix and cable TV there is plenty to choose from.    We would not want to rely upon a device that would censor a movie or TV show and change the writer or director's original matierial.

My children aren't naive, and they know why we don't watch violent TV or listen to profane language.  They know we are at war and why.  We often talk about current events, but sometimes we have to turn down some of the stories and newshows broadcast on NPR. 

The beauty of the digital world we live in is that  I know  can go back online and listen to the radio show I had to turn off, or watch that TV program or movie later when the kids are fast asleep.

For what it's worth,  I too watched my fair share of inappropriate movies, I saw  The Godfather (I remember the horse in the bed), when I was 7.