Observations and inanities by a second-shift assistant supervisor in the Puppy-Grinding division of the Evil Atheist Conspiracy® (our motto: "Sure it's cruel, but think of the jobs!"), your host, Brent Rasmussen.
Just too damned funny.
Do you remember hearing about those companies which would take mainstream Hollywood movies, cut out all the bad language, sexual references, nudity, et cetera, and then marketed the edited movies to religious folks? They claimed that they had the right to do this under the guise of an 'educational loophole' in the copyright law.
Did you then catch last month how one such company in Utah had finally been called to task by the people who own those copyrights, and forced to stop? Good news, right?
It gets even better. Via a link posted in this thread over at PZ's place, news that the owner of that company in Utah was recently arrested for paying a couple of 14 year old girls for sex. From the Salt Lake Tribune:
Daniel D. Thompson's business catered to Utah residents offended by something as racy as a PG-13 movie. Now the former film sanitizer is accused of a crime by Orem police that is far more salacious than any date movie. Thompson, 31, and Isaac R. Lifferth, 24, were arrested in Orem this week on suspicion of having sex with two 14-year-old girls.
***
Thompson and Lifferth were booked into the Utah County jail on suspicion of sexual abuse and unlawful sex with a 14-year-old. Lifferth also admitted to having sex with the teenagers' 16-year-old friend on multiple occasions, according to the documents.
Thompson formerly operated Clean Flix - a business in Orem that edited feature films to remove or alter conduct deemed inappropriate for children or discriminating movie-goers. The store closed in December after threats of legal action from Hollywood studios.
And even better - Thompson claimed that his film sanitizing business was just a cover for making porn films.
So, which do you think it is: that this guy is just yet another religious hypocrite who wants to tell everyone how to live their lives, yet secretly harbors his own kink? Or is he another scam artist who saw an opportunity to cash in on the whole religion thing? Weigh in.
Jim Downey
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Why is it OK?
Hmmm....
The studios already put out 'sanitized' versions for public TV broadcast, so why are their panties all tied in knots when some people want to watch those versions?
Simple
Because it wasn't those versions that people were watching, it was someone else's and it was someone else getting the pay. It's the same reason anime companies get upset when people buy subtitled bootlegs from people.
Not so simple....
That "someone else" was or was not a video rental shop? Were they paying royalties or not? I don't remember anything in the controversy about them being bootleg copies - I thought the only issue was the "Artistic Content" being modified from the "director's original vision" for the film. If this is the central issue, I still think the studios are talking about both sides of their mouths. They can make a sanitized (and sometimes neutered or even silly) version for TV, but not for the rental audience?
Right now, I am watching Mr. & Mrs. Smith on FX - and they trimmed some of the more explicit language - substituting "Chicken twit" and "Pansy" which I will admit sound silly. But there are some people who prefer to not hear the cruder words. Why should they be forced to listen, when the studios already have made an "acceptable" version, but won't let anyone have it?
Shocked, SHOCKED I tell you!
Religious hypocrite and scam artist are mutually exclusive?
Inquiring minds want to know
If I were the producer or studio or whoever "owns" the film, I wouldn't let these kooks chop up my movie either. It's a piece of art. If you can't handle viewing it the way it was intended, get permission to do a "made for tv version" or forget the whole thing. How hard is that to understand? I guess since these morons go around telling each other how America is a Christian nation they think they have special rights to do whatever the flunk they want.
As to the hypocracy of the religious nuts running the company, I'm not surprised. As usual, these folks preach purity and innocence, yet turn out to be the biggest perverts (and criminals) known to society. I just happened to click on one of the links in Brent's blogroll the other day and found a pretty good one. It's called Deep Thoughts.
If you happen to look through just the first page, this guy has at least a half dozen stories similar to the one Jim just posted. Priest does this creepy thing. Pastor molests this girl. Minister abuses little boy. On and on and on.
I would love for someone to do a study and see if there is a correlation between fundamentalism and sexual deviance. Maybe it's just my prejudices and hyper-sensitivity to these incidents because I'm an atheist, but it seems to me that everywhere religious people are doing fucked up shit to kids (besides the indoctrination and supression of free thought, I mean). Inquiring minds want to know.
movies are art?
Now admittedly there are some movies I'd call "art" but most are just entertainment. Not sure what exactly the difference is, but people keep saying it's there and then bad mouthing video games for not being artistic even though anyone who has every played Okami can tell you those people are barking out their asses. I guess it's to do with not all entertainment being artistic and not all art being entertaining.
However, a decent portion of movies are violent or have "objectionable" content in order to be attract people that want that kind of content. In those cases eliminating the objectionable content doesn't really mess with the overall story so much as make it really really boring (which is probably people don't usually seek their entertainment in plot synopsis).
And of course they preach purity and innocence, if they're co-opting kids for sex probably want them to be pure and innocent. That and the idea that whoever farted complains loudest about the smell so no one thinks it was them.
I agree!
Well, with the first two paragraphs, at least.
The third is an unrelated issue - There are perverts out there of all stripes.
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