Jul 9, 2006

Bowdlerists baffled by bench

A federal judge has ruled that VHS and DVD scrubbers can no longer release edited-for-prudes versions of Hollywood product.
Editing movies to delete objectionable language, sex and violence is an "illegitimate business" that hurts Hollywood studios and directors who own the movie rights, said U.S. District Judge Richard Matsch in a decision released Thursday in Denver.

"Their [studios and directors'] objective ... is to stop the infringement because of its irreparable injury to the creative artistic expression in the copyrighted movies," the judge wrote. "There is a public interest in providing such protection."
These sorts of schemes have always amused me. Kate Winslet's bosom is the least offensive part of Titanic. There's no way you can make sense of a redacted The Libertine. It's not like removing profanity from Wedding Crashers will somehow magically make it upright and moral.

3 comments:

TeacherRefPoet said...

In the TV version of -Do The Right Thing-, a certain hyphenated Oedipal swearword is made into "Mickey Fickey." Swear to God it is.

Jim Anderson said...

I believe you. In fact, probably because of that dub, "mickey fickey" has entered the slang lexicon.

TeacherRefPoet said...

Wow. That was posted in 2005, but the 1997 incarnation of my fantasy football team was named The Tricky Mickey Fickeys. Damn if I wasn't instrumental in the evolution of our language.