Charles Lyons - The new censors: movies and the culture wars

Cover

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THE NEW CENSORS

Movies and the Culture Wars

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In the series

CULTURE AND THE MOVING IMAGE

edited by Robert Sklar

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MOVIES AND THE CULTURE WARS

Charles Lyons

TEMPLE UNIVERSITY PRESS

Philadelphia

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Some images in the original version of this book are not available for inclusion in the netLibrary eBook.

Temple University Press, Philadelphia 19122

Copyright 1997 by Charles Lyons

All rights reserved

Published 1997

Printed in the United States of America

The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American

National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed

Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984

Text design by Gary Gore

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Lyons, Charles, 1960

The new censors: movies and the culture wars / by Charles Lyons.

p. cm.(Culture and the moving image)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 1-56639-511-9 (cloth: alk. paper).ISBN 1-56639-512-7 (pbk.)

1. Motion picturesCensorshipUnited States. I. Title. II. Series.

PNI995.62.L96 1997

363.3'1'0973dc20 96-36587

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For Nick, Mari, Jennifer, Paul, and Tony

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A host of people have been close to this project from its inception and deserve to be singled out: My parents, Nick and Mari Lyons; my siblings, Jennifer, Anthony, and Paul; Professor Leif Sjberg (Stony Brook, retired); Professors Annette Insdorf and Charles Musser (who sponsored and advised me through this book's earlier form, a dissertation at Columbia); Professors David Kastan, David Sterritt, and Andrew Sarris, who sat on my defense; Professor Frank Couvares (Amherst) and Professor Robert Sklar (NYU), whose advice was invaluable; and Janet Francendese (Temple University Press), who has patiently guided this book to its present form.

I also thank Everette Dennis, Marion Maneker, Roya Kowsar, Tim Bent, Arlene Donovan, Robert Benton, Lisa Hacken, Glenn Elliot, Chris Hill, Neal Gabler, Steve Brennan, Helena Hjarlmarsson, Trudy Ship, Lyle Mayer, Michael Medved, Lance Hickey, Mimi McGraph, Tina Gianquitto, Rebekah Rudd, Mark Gompertz, George and Dan Hess, Steve and Lori Herek, Miranda Viscoli, and Ibra Morales each of whom has helped me along the way. For kindly allowing me to interview them, I thank Terri Nash, Mitchell Block, Charles Sims, Dorchen Leidholdt, Janet Sakomoto, and Ellen Carten. Finally, I am especially grateful to Bobbe Needham (a terrific copy editor), David Bartlett, and the entire staff at Temple University Press and P. M. Gordon Associates for conscientiously creating this book.

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THE NEW CENSORS

Movies and the Culture Wars

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P rotesters stand in front of your neighborhood movie theatre. Some chant, some carry banners, some distribute flyers. All seem frenzied. What's the commotion? you wonder. What's so outrageous about the movie against which they are protesting? You decide to cross their picket line, to watch the film yourself, to know, definitively, the reason for the all fuss and bother. Boldly, you approach the ticket window. Just as boldly a protester blocks your way. Don't watch that movie! he barks. It's a lie! Is this censorship or simply a healthy instance of democratic freedom of expression?

In this book I argue a simple central point: Although some antimovie actions by groups or institutions may produce censorious results, in a democracy it is far more healthy to risk such an outcome than in any way to limit groups' right to peaceably gather and protest. I also have found that between 1980 and 1995 the Right was far more successful in achieving censorship of movies than was the Left.

In making these arguments, I explore how censorship operates within the movie industry today and reflect on the separate histories of both pressure group and governmental activity against five selected movies. For only by following the history of censorship controversies over a period of time can we approach such questions as these: What do the

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successes of some groups and the failures of others in effecting censorship tell us about power and about the operation of corporate capitalism in the United States today? What does the relationship between protest and legal censorship tell us about contemporary U.S. democracy? Government involvement in movie censorship invites a separate series of questions, most importantly, when one branch of the government in the early 1980s decides to label an anti-nuclear film political propaganda and attempts to limit public access to it, what does this reveal about that government's ideological agenda?

Between 1980 and 1995, protests over cinematic imagery came to reflect larger cultural debates over a wide variety of art. But the battles over movies deserve separate attention for at least two reasons: because groups on the Left and Right so visibly and aggressively participated in them, and because they demonstrate how direct-action campaigns have come to overshadow the only remaining formal means of movie regulation, the rating system.