Editing artwork

With the concern over sexual content, violence and strong language in movies, a number of companies have come up with editing or edited alternatives. One such company provides families with a device that would edit out objectionable scenes as parents see fit. Another company edits the controversial footage and sells the revised versions. Opponents have said the technique violates copyright law, or that such editing disturbs the artistic vision of the original movie. Is it ethical or fair to edit out objectionable material from a movie, a TV show or music without the permission of the artist?

In 1818, Thomas Bowdler published his “Family Shakespeare,” in which he deleted “objectionable” lines and scenes to purify the Bard’s works. His goal was to eliminate “offenses to the religious and virtuous mind,” remove “everything that can raise a blush on the cheek of modesty,” and render Shakespeare fit to be read in a family setting. Bowdler later tried to do the same with “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.” A new eponym was introduced to our speech: “bowdlerization.”

Moving movies up the alphabet from “R” to “G” by sanitizing them, removing the raunchy, purging the profanity and vitiating the violence without the cooperation of the authors or permission of the artists is a thieving infringement on creative vision. Bowdlerization, blurs, bleeps and outright expurgation of scenes constitute flagrant affronts to the creator’s labors. They also border on the hilarious. I read that the snitizers located and erased 30 seconds of language considered offensive in the popular PG-rated movie “Shrek.” Seven minutes, including 58 audio and video cuts, was cut from the family-friendly “Dr. Doolittle.” I can rest easier knowing that a more moral America will emerge from such dogged exposure of licentiousness in “Shrek” and such detection of debauchery in “Dr. Doolittle.” Such naughty films can only produce naughty children!

The purifiers sometimes rework a film to the extent that its original thesis is muffled or perverted (yes, perverted!). Robert Rosen, dean of UCLA’s film, theater and television school, highlights a sanitized version of “The Hurricane,” the story of African American boxer Rubin Carter, that expunged racial epithets hurled by law enforcement officers investigating Carter. “That,” according to Rosen, “undercut two of the movie’s central themes, racism and police corruption. This has very little to do with protecting children. There are all kinds of religious, political and ideological biases at work.”

Bowdlerization, judging a creation as offensive and mutilating an artist’s vision, is a constant temptation for the puritanical among us. Many agree that the cinematic violence and depiction of sex streaming out of Hollywood is excessive, but their simplistic solution is cut and paste and hit the mute button. It is ironic that those who decry Hollywood’s preoccupation with brutality flocked to “The Passion of the Christ,” in which the gore is primal, unrelenting, sadistic and horrific, if not gratuitous. Audiences gave enthusiastic “amens” and “hallelujahs” to the “perfectly appropriate” savage carnage. Apparently being skinned alive is acceptable as long as the bloodbath is “religious.”

Parental empowerment is a positive ideal. True power is better exercised by the right of the consumer to not view “Schindler’s List” at all, rather than be offended by unclothed concentration camp inmates. The response that is superior to bowdlerization is: Don’t buy or rent the movie!

What will the moralists, who advocate the censorship of films under the pretext of shielding our children, say in response to my views? Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a darn!

RABBI MARK S. MILLER

Temple Bat Yahm

Newport Beach

Anything that gets beloveds, especially family members and particularly parents with children, communicating with one another about what is ugly in life and what is beautiful is good. If these sanitizing options elicit such discussion, then they serve a good purpose. I would much rather we discuss profanity and nudity and violence around our family altar, whether that is our dining table or our television or monitor, than pretend that such realities are not part of life.

All clergy have an “art is in the eye (or ear) of the beholder” story. My favorite has to do with the movie “Ghostbusters.” I found some excellent theological points in that l984 movie, preached on them and announced that I would be showing the video to that Bay Area parish’s youth group later that Sunday; many parents and other adults came. Once, only once, what my mother used to call “the ‘f’ word” was used. When I’d watched “Ghostbusters” by myself, I did not even hear it; with parents and other parishioners in the room where I was showing it to our children, I felt the heat of parental glares on the back of my head. But I would not have rented a video of that movie which advertised that it had been “edited for obscenity,” understanding that “obscenity”, too, is “in the eye (or ear) of the beholder.” (If I’d heard that “‘f’ word” when first watching “Ghostbusters,” I would have forewarned those to whom I was showing it.) I assumed that artists like Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis included what they did for a good reason, that it all provided material for our reflection and discussion (as it did!) and that I should either take what they offered in its entirety or not at all.

Our free market economy will make this call, not ethicists or theologians. There is clearly an audience for these products as last January an ABC News survey for American Movie Classics found that more than forty million individuals said they’d be “very likely” to rent “sanitized movies.” Promise of economic success will lead marketers to ignore artistic freedom and rights. Money, and our legal system, will decide whether such “editors” are violating the 1st Amendment to our Constitution.

(THE VERY REV’D CANON)

PETER D. HAYNES