Deep Thoughts with Andrew Johann Datoush

Censorship & Cinema

At the dawn of the home video market, then president of the MPAA, Jack Valenti famously said "The VCR is to the American film producer and to the American public as the Boston Strangler is to the woman alone." Really? The VCR is that much of a threat to the film industry? I would think censorship would be the biggest threat. You have the dreaded Video Nasties list that outright banned certain movies from many countries. If it weren't for the VCR, nobody in those countries would have been able to see these movies because the theaters weren't showing them.

This issue also continues today in the streaming era. Movies still get censored. Hell, some of them even get changed. In the 90s, George Lucas began changing Star Wars by creating his "special editions". This version of the trilogy includes out of place CGI characters, recastings, new music / soundtrack, sped up lightsaber duels, and more. Years later, he did the prequel trilogy, and with that came more changes to the now not-so-original original trilogy. Today, this is the version you can stream. The original version of the film no longer exists, except for those of us who have those original VHS tapes.

And this doesn't just happen to the media we have physical copies of. A few years back, the streaming platform Netflix had a series called 13 Reasons Why. To my knowledge, it never officially got a physical media release. You wanna watch this? You'd better get Netflix. But the problem here is that when there was a public outcry, due to the show's subject matter, Netflix decided to remove a part of the show, which was kind of the climax of sorts. For those of you not aware, the show dealt with a teenager who decided to end her life after some bullying. Now, I can understand how a scene like that would be upsetting to people, but it's the subject matter of the show. It shouldn't have been removed. Maybe offer a more "PG-13" version of the show for the more sensitive viewers, but because a percentage of people were outraged over this, unless you watched the show within the first few days of it's release, you won't see that scene in particular. It's gone. And there's no physical media you can obtain that'll have it unless you've found a bootlegger making copies of it.

Censorship prevented movies from being seen.
The VCR and the VHS tape helped many movies get seen. Censorship began altering and even destroying these movies. Piracy is saving these films in an effort to preserve the original films. The home video market was never a threat to the film industry. It was always censorship, right from the very start. Even before the home video market really began, censorship threatened the very existence of film. The original Nosferatu was nearly lost for all time due to Florence Stoker trying to enforce all copies of the film be burned, which was a tactic of the nazi's when they burned art they didn't like. Thankfully a few with the reels to the film saved it so that the movie could be seen by future generations. Fuck censorship. Fuck Florence Stoker. And just to bring it back to the original point, fuck the MPAA.