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Joe Vitus

Posted: Wed May 18, 2005 4:27 pm

Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 14498 Location: Houston

I know, they'd just disappear. And I didn't like it. But the fact is, it's only because the Times was lax about it for so long, and seemed to use it just as a formality, that we took for granted a right that didn't exist.

I believe Marilyn was as vociferous as I was in getting the troll banned. And, essentially, we were trying to get the Times to enforce censorship. Can't say I'm sorry, in that case.

Marj

Posted: Wed May 18, 2005 4:31 pm

Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 10497 Location: Manhattan

I just checked the NYTimes site and while they have three pages of agreements, below is the gist of the rules regarding forum posting and deleting:

Right to Delete Posts

While we do not and cannot review every message posted in the Forums and are not responsible for the content of these messages, we reserve the right to delete, move or edit messages that we deem abusive, defamatory, obscene, in violation of copyright or trademark laws, or otherwise unacceptable. All posts in the Forums must be written in English. We reserve the right to remove the posting privileges of users who violate these standards of Forum behavior at any time.

I guess they can choose to use "or otherwise unacceptable" at their own discretion?

Wonder why Coni's posts were never deleted? Oh, well.

Joe Vitus

Posted: Wed May 18, 2005 4:33 pm

Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 14498 Location: Houston

Yeh, that last one is a nice catch. It could mean anything. Or nothing. But, of course, we could have all chosen not to register on the basis of that.

(I'm glad we didn't.)

burritoboy

Posted: Wed May 18, 2005 4:37 pm

Joined: 14 Apr 2005 Posts: 17 Location: Chicago

"Yes they would. Because that would be government interfering in a free press, unconstitutional. Do you think that your comments on the NYT Forum are accorded the same protection.

I'm not saying that I agree with their censorship, all I'm saying is that in that venue they have the authority to do it. The government does not have the authority to interfere with a free press. But there are 'screaming fire in a crowded theatre' exceptions."

"Tim, I'd call the theatre owner someone who is restricting anyone from seeing a Jane Fonda movie in his theatre. I only read the very first part of the article so I didn't know that he refused to show Farenheit 9/11 also, but it certainly doesn't surprise me. It's pretty obvious what his politics are. I was going to suggest much earlier that he may even be a Democrat who was just upset about that incident because of his involvement. Good thing I didn't."

It comes down to a question of power. A theater owner who owns a small number of theaters in well supplied markets with many competitors is probably irrelevant. That single small-scale theater owner doesn't have enough power to influence the overall society.

However, as most of us know, the movie exhibition industry is heavily oligopolized. The top 8 chains own about 40-50% of the available movie screens in the US. In some areas, their dominance goes higher than that.

In that type of situation, a movie-house chain's refusal to exhibit a movie certainly could rise to a more problematic situation. And asserting that "well, competitors will move in and show popular movies that the chains are censoring" - that argument simply doesn't cut it. You're assuming:

1. That there are rival chains (there might not be).
2. That these rivals will quickly realize the market opportunity and quickly grasp it.
2a. The situation might go as follows:
i. a studio makes, as part of it's production of many movies, a movie criticizing a powerful political leader or movement
ii. in screenings, the movie-house chains all refuse to show the movie. The powerful political leader has found out about the movie and insists they do this, because otherwise his political operatives will turn down their zoning/construction permits, have the IRS audit them, turn down their DOJ anti-trust merger requests, etc. Whatever profits this single movie might bring are trivial compared to not being able to build new theaters or have a bad audit.
iii. the studio, seeing only the refusal of the chains to carry the movie (the chains might not tell the studio about the blackmail), believe that the movie is a dud and cut all promotion and advertising expenditures to the movie
iv. the smaller chains, seeing only that the big chains have turned the movie down and that the studio has stop promoting the movie, also conclude the movie is a dude, and generally don't show or promote the movie either.
v. the movie comes out only in a few theaters and promptly flops due to lack of support.
vi. the French discover the movie thirty years later and hail it as a masterpiece. unfortunately, the people who made the movie all died in poverty - the political leader taught them and others who might have wanted to become them a highly useful lesson
3. that there are effective ways to promote the movie without the benefit of the institutional support of studios, pr firms, the movie-house chains, etc. This may simply be impossible for the level of receipts the movie needs to make.

chillywilly

Posted: Wed May 18, 2005 4:42 pm

Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 8251 Location: Salt Lake City

Marj wrote:

Tim -- Wouldn't that be a majority at this point? It doesn't really matter. I agree, which is why the fight against any kind of censorship is so important.

Actually, they are still a minority, but have the voice of a majority. Almost like that phrase "the dog's bark is worse than his bite"

For exmaple, this fucked up organized called the Parents Television Council (Brent Bozell is the head of it)... was a major force in increasing complaints to the FCC, but when all the smoke cleared, it turns out it was a small number of people that knew how to click on canned complaints. The FCC had to admit that the actual number of people that complained were much smaller than those that clicked.

It's not the majority we need to be worried about. It's the minority that acts like the majority. Somehow, they've pushed their agenda into the right ears and eyes.

_________________
Chilly
"If you should die before me / Ask if you could bring a friend"

Marj

Posted: Wed May 18, 2005 4:58 pm

Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 10497 Location: Manhattan

Excellent post Burrito boy.

There's also the simpler problem that once one chain decides this is a fine thing to do, others pick up on the idea. Things like this have a tendency to spread. Correct me if I'm wrong but how is that so many libraries got the idea to ban the exact same books? And I know libraries are a public entity, which made it even worse, but you get the idea.

It's the seed and IMO, a dangerous one.

Gary - the simple reason why this is censorship is not because the theater owner can or cannot play a certain film but because he is preventing others from seeing it. Check your own definition and you'll see it near the end of the list.

Here's a better example. When libraries were allowed to ban books, of course that didn't prevent anyone who wanted to or could afford to, from buying them. But what about those who lived in a town without a bookstore or those who couldn't afford to buy a book. When anyone is prevented from reading or seeing something, be it a book or a film -- that's censorship.

marantzo

Posted: Wed May 18, 2005 4:59 pm

Guest

Another worrisome thing is that throughout our time on earth for sure, the huge corporations are so worried about potential loss of business that they completely gutless when standing up against a vocal little band of bigots. In the 30's Eddy Cantor gave a speech at the World's Fair and criticized a leading religious, harranguing bigot and an out and out American Nazi. He was taken off the air. He had one of the most popular shows on radio. Didn't get back on till much later when Jack Benny insisted that he be reinstated. Just one example of a miriad of cases of Corporate gutlessness in facing bigotery. The times are better now, but not by much. All the big companies buckled into Joe MacArthy also.

Marj

Posted: Wed May 18, 2005 5:00 pm

Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 10497 Location: Manhattan

Thanks Chilly. You make very good sense. As always.

marantzo

Posted: Wed May 18, 2005 5:34 pm

Guest

Marj, the definition at the end is prefaced by a definiton of an official who...then the following definition ends...'in this way' it's in the context of officialdom. If the theatre owner had imprisoned people in his theatre and refused to show them a movie that they wanted to see, that would be censorship. When a parent doesn't allow a child to read a certain book and makes sure they can't obtain it, that's censorship. They are the authority and they have that power. To say that this theatre owner, in America of today, is a censor is ridiculous. He may want to be a censor but he's only got authority over his little domaine and he can't be a censor unless they put him on the film board. The board of a public library do strike books off their lists and that is a case of censorship because they are the authority in charge of a public institution.

This is just semantics anyway. I don't care if some shnook in Kentucky doesn't show a Jane Fonda movie and I have no fear whatsoever that this will influence the large cinema chains who can refuse anything they want anyway. they are out for the money, they have stockholders to answer to.

sioux

Posted: Wed May 18, 2005 7:29 pm

Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 802 Location: philly burbs

The only reason this guy is getting publicity for his "brave" act of banning is cause he asked for it. The guy owns two theaters - he is a small businessman who has a variety of films to choose from. It is a tempest in a teapot. If Marc chose not to show this film because ....it sucks.....he would be completely in his rights and no one would accuse him of censorship. When the Loews corporation makes policy about not carrying the films of Jane Fonda, then I"ll get my panties in a bunch. Until then this is just a macho guy trying to show off his small world of power.

mo_flixx

Posted: Wed May 18, 2005 9:49 pm

Joined: 30 May 2004 Posts: 12533

sioux wrote:

Actually, the film is getting LOTS OF PUBLICITY from this guy's action -- so it's probably paying off in other locations in the long run.

I suspect in regard to his 2 theaters there is a glut of product anyway...it may make perfect box office sense for him NOT to show "Monster-in-Law" (which might not appeal to his audience) and show something else a little more boffo in his pt. of KY.

ehle64

Posted: Thu May 19, 2005 12:19 am

Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 7149 Location: NYC; US&A

If Monster-In-Law isn't made to hit the heartland of places like Elizabethtown, KY, I'm not quite sure where it's supposed to hit. Plus, with numbers like it made last week, I'm sure it's doing well in all of the "not so goddamned picky" establishments across the Bluegrass State.

_________________
It truly disappoints me when people do something for you via no prompt of your own and then use it as some kind of weapon against you at a later time and place. It is what it is.

censored-03

Posted: Thu May 19, 2005 4:10 am

Joined: 24 May 2004 Posts: 3058 Location: Gotham, Big Apple, The Naked City

When I was in the 9th grade back in 1970 I was president of my class. We decided to print an "underground" free-press style newsletter/paper. I was not directly an editor but as class president an ex-officio (by virtue of office) editor. Our first (and only) issue had a scathing article about some of our perceptions of the corrupt behavior of the school's board of trustees. It also featured another article protesting the building and planned use of the SST airplane (my article). The most important article was about the wrongful deaths (murders) at Kent State that Spring and how students across America were going to strike to protest the actions of the Ohio National Guard and the Viet Nam war in general. (I co-wrote the article with two other students) We encouraged our school's students to get involved and strike for a day or half a day (I don't remember which) to join in solidarity with the families of the dead students in Ohio and all of the dead American soldiers in Viet Nam.

We printed and handed out the paper on a Friday during and after school. On the following Monday the two editors and myself were called into the principals office, we were sorely repremanded for our actions for writing and distributing the paper and were ordered to recall as many copies of as possible. Needless to say we didn't get a single one back. The student body was excited and very happy to have a paper that represented many if not most of them and their feelings about the current state of affairs in the school and the country.

The following week an article written by the vice-principal about the incident appeared in the school's staid, conservative and most often censored "school paper". The two editors, myself and all of the contributing writers, artists, photographers and printers were called on the carpet and called (and I quote word for word) "left-wing trouble makers, ill-behaved and misinformed at best." I was singled out as "the ring-leader of this group, bent on undermining the peace and tranquility of school and country and adding to the overall disgusting communistic attempt by America's youth to overthrow the decency of the American Dream." he continued..."We burned all the remaining copies left of Scenes from Cleveland's Bedroom (the name of the paper)...even the smoke was filthy !" No shit...I live with these memories to this day and for the rest of my American life. I am censored-03

_________________
"Life is a comedy for those who think and a tragedy for those who feel."
-- Horace Walpole

jeremy

Posted: Thu May 19, 2005 4:38 am

Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 6794 Location: Derby, England and Hamilton, New Zealand (yes they are about 12,000 miles apart)

America, like Britain to lesser extent, is a very legalistic country, where what words say and mean is important. Documents like The Bill Of Rights and The Declaration Of Independence, though well-crafted and beautifully and simply written are not perfect,. They have a tendency to make people think in terms of absolutes about such things as the right to freedom of speech. But morals, standrards and even freedoms are only ever a dynamic compromise between competing and changing demands.

_________________
I am angry, I am ill, and I'm as ugly as sin.
My irritability keeps me alive and kicking.
I know the meaning of life, it doesn't help me a bit.
I know beauty and I know a good thing when I see it.

Mr. Brownstone

Posted: Thu May 19, 2005 7:12 am

Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 2450

"All posts in the Forums must be written in English."

You know what was the first thing I thought of when I read this?

"Wonder why Coni's posts were never deleted? Oh, well."

Dammit. Beat me to it.

"ENGLISH, MOTHERFUCKER; DO YOU SPEAK IT?"

_________________
"My name is Gunnery Sergeant Major Highway. And I have drunk more beer, pissed more blood, banged more quiff and knocked more skulls than all you numbnuts put together." - Clint Eastwood, Heartbreak Ridge

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