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| JACK VALENTI RESIGNS: Let freedom ring! |
by Chris Parry
Every good tyrant eventually either gets overthrown, usurped by another, or simply ages to the point where being tyrannical is more a bother than a passion. So it goes with 82-year-old Jack Valenti, the man who for years terrorized filmmakers and indie distributors from his perch as head of the MPAA. Today, Valenti decided to make his long, drawn out retirement finally official, putting out a press release that it was time to draw the final curtain on a career that has been nothing if not hypocritical, and largely distasteful. In light of that announcement, we thought we'd take a moment to recap some of Valenti's career highlights as we pop a cork for freedom of speech.
The early '70's
Bowing to pressure from government regulators, Valenti's MPAA creates the X rating, meant to identify pornography in theaters. The MPAA then assigns that rating to Midnight Cowboy, starring Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight, a film that is far from pornography. The Academy responds by awarding the film the Best Picture Oscar. A year later, Valenti rescinds the X and reassigns the film an R rating.
The early 80's
"I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone." that was Jack Valenti petitioning the House Hearing on Home Recording of Copyrights Works in the White House to ban the VCR from American homes. He went on, "The audio business today is where the video business is going to be 4, 5, 6 years from now. By that time, Mr. Railsback, it is going to be too late. You can't salvage the business then. I am saying to you first there is use. There ought to be a fee for use. There ought to be a fee for the harm we know is coming. It has to come."
Gee, wonder what Mr Valenti thinks of VCR's today, being as the majority of Hollywood's income has come from video rentals over the past twenty years. "Now, these machines are advertised for one purpose in life," rambled Valenti, adding, "Their only single mission, their primary mission is to copy copyrighted material that belongs to other people. I don't have to go into it. The ads are here. Here is Sony that tells you that you can record one channel while watching another. You can program to record a variety of shows on four different channels for up to 14 days in advance if you like."
Oh, the horror!
1994
Kevin Smith’s ultra-low budget comedy Clerks went before Valenti’s MPAA ratings board who deemed it ‘obscene’ and slapped the movie with an NC-17 rating, despite there being no nudity, no violence and language no worse than any Eddie Murphy film. Miramax appealed, as did numerous filmmakers and film industry boffins, forcing the MPAA to eventually cave in and allowed Clerks an R rating. The original NC-17 certificate is now in the Planet Hollywood memorabilia archive in New York.
1998
Valenti's MPAA assigns the NC-17 rating to Todd Solondz's film Happiness because of a split-second shot of a glob of semen hitting a wall. The company distributing the film, Good Machine, appeal the decision, but when their appeal is rejected they decide to back the filmmaker and abandon the ratings system altogether so the film could be released unrated, something done only 32 other times previously. This course of action aligned Happiness with such titles as Cannibal Holocaust, Blood Sucking Freaks, Re-Animator and Dawn of the Dead, which had all been released unrated for obvious reasons, and the film duly flopped at the box office. Since many theaters across the country have leases that preclude them from releasing unrated or NC-17 films, and many newspapers won't run ads for such movies, the MPAA's action made Happiness a financial disaster and Good Machine would soon go out of business. As the year 2000 came and went, the MPAA began to hit more and more non-violent films with the NC-17 rating, assigning it to Kids, Requiem For A Dream, L.I.E., and Spun, while American Psycho got a PG-13.
Other films that Valenti's group damaged with the NC-17 include such harmless fare as Boys Don’t Cry, But I’m A Cheerleader, Black and White, Boondock Saints, The Cooler, Crash, Evil Dead, Freddy Got Fingered, Freeway, Gummo, Henry & June, Killing Zoe, Monster’s Ball, Ogazmo, Perdita Durango, The Pillow Book, Romper Stomper, The Rules of Attraction, Two Girls and a Guy, Y Tu Mama Tambien and Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! Some of them were granted lesser ratings after the filmmaker agreed to cut certain scenes, but in American Psycho's case, scenes involving grisly torture and gore were allowed to stay in, while the MPAA demanded a butt shot of Christian Bale be removed.
June 1998
The China Film corporation was reportedly wildly offended by a visit to Beijing by Jack Valenti during which he insisted that China allow 30 American films to be released in the country each year, rather than the ten permitted at the time. Said Valenti, "I pointed out that of the nearly 900 films which were made in the US over the last two years, only three were considered objectionable; Kundun, Seven Years in Tibet and Red Corner. I also told them that just as I and my colleagues have to try to understand Chinese culture, they have to understand that in America we honor freedom of expression to such a degree that it is part of our Constitution."
One could only guess as to what Valenti would have said if the Chinese had demanded a guarantee that 30 Chinese films would be put in wide release in the US each year. An official of the CFC reportedly said, "Ordering the Chinese film industry to import more movies was not the right way to deal with... China."
Valenti's demands were, perhaps unsurprisingly, rejected outright.
December 1998
Jack Valenti publicly bitchslapped Alec Baldwin for telling Conan O'Brien on TV that House Judiciary Committee Chairman Henry Hyde was "stoned." Valenti, despite admitting to not having seen the sketch in which the remark was made, said in a letter to Baldwin, "It's not something you use as a joke, it's not something you parody. This is incendiary." Valenti told the press that he wrote the letter to Baldwin not as head of the MPAA, but as a friend, prompting Baldwin's publicist to remark, "If Alec and he are friends, as he says they are, then I don't understand why he didn't just communicate directly with his friend rather than turn it into a press issue."
October 2000
MPAA chief Jack Valenti tried to defend his board's decision to hit British film Billy Elliot with an R rating, instead of the more sane PG-13. Valenti was quoted as saying "Thirty to forty times, the f-word is used in that [film]. 'Thirty to 40 times! We folks who live in Washington, New York and California think everybody talks like we do. I get more letters about language than I do about violence." Nothing like killing off a family film so you don't have to deal with angry housewives from Dubuque, eh Jack?
At the same time, the MPAA had dished an R to Urban Legends 2, Get Carter, Dr T And The Women and Almost Famous, and Requiem For A Dream was hit with an NC-17, effectively killing its theatrical run. Meanwhile, the Nutty Professor 2, complete with a scene involving a grandmother giving Eddie Murphy oral sex (with teeth out) got away with a PG-13. Lost World, complete with people being ripped apart by dinosaurs for our amusement, was another PG-13. Those two films were apparently just fine for a 14 year old, but the heartwarming story of a kid who, frustrated by small town attitudes, just wants to dance? That's no safer for kids than Urban Legends 2. Riiiight.
December 2000
The Pentagon spends $295, 000 to hold a dinner honoring Jack Valenti. The party was reportedly intended to showcase the military to studio executives and win influence in how the military is portrayed in Hollywood. According to unconfirmed reports, Valenti had the beef.
November 2001
Valenti takes a group of movie studio executives to meet Karl Rove at the White House where the industry is asked to help contribute their influence to the war in Iraq. When the New York Times asks whether Valenti believes the administration wants Hollywood to turn out propaganda films like it did during World War II, Valenti said, "I think if it's a good story, compellingly told, it is entirely appropriate to see movies that show the heroism of American armed forces." He continued, "I will tell you that I heartily endorse Hollywood getting involved to help out in any way we can in this war. I am hoping we can open the meeting up to hear a lot of ideas from people about how we can be of help."
In a decidedly McCarthy-esque turn, Valenti later said that a team would be set up in conjunction with the government to coordinate a "point person" from the White House being assigned at each of the major studios and networks.
October 2003
Jack Valenti announces that, due to an increase in online movie piracy, no Academy members or film critics would be allowed to receive screener tapes from MPAA member companies. The entire film industry (except for Fox and Disney) calls the decision insane, multiple indie companies call for the ban to be ignored, 350 filmmakers and actors sign petitions demanding the order be rescinded, and eventually it goes to court where a judge says the ban is detrimental to indie films. Film critics across the nation are forced to cancel local critic awards events because their membership won't have had time to watch every film in release. Independent distributors ignore the ban and send out screeners regardless. Valenti concedes that screeners probably only count for a tiny percentile of pirated films, but says the ban will stand... until people start saying that the only reason for the ban is to stop Oscar voters from seeing indie films, which usually clean up at the big event.
Valenti cedes when the heat becomes too hot, and the screener ban dies. At the Oscars early the next year, the screener ban was mocked , with Valenti even showing up in a self-deprecating cameo. I guess we could call that an apology of sorts...
In March that year, after the MPAA settled with a coalition of independent film organizations, members of that coalition warned that should the MPAA attempt a similar tactic in the future, "we will continue to stand ready to act again, if necessary, to preserve a free and fair marketplace."
February 2003
The Mexican government, in an effort to help raise funds for their local film industry, decided to place a one peso levy (approx. US$0.09) on the price of each movie ticket sold, causing an outraged Valenti to bark at Mexican President Vicente Fox, stating, "The adoption of such a measure without previously consulting us... could force us to cancel our backing for the Mexican film industry. This also would cause difficulties to our mutual relations."
Yikes. It's nine cents, for crying out loud. Cut a Latino a little slack, Jack.
November 2003
The FCC orders the makers of computers and digital TV sets to include a digital flag in their systems that prevents digitized programs from being copied 'without authorization'. The new rules go into place around mid-2005, which Valenti said was, "a big victory for consumers."
Uh... how exactly? Philips Consumer Electronics North America President Lawrence Blanford warned that the move could make DVD players and recorders already in the marketplace obsolete, so that must make consumers feel warm inside.
February 2004
After showing a British documentary from 1988 called The Guilty Men, which implied Lyndon B. Johnson knew who JFK's real killers were, Jack Valenti demanded the History Channel dump the documentary and apologize. Valenti gathered several former members of Lyndon Johnson's White House staff and stormed the History Channel offices with their demands, leading the cable station to opt for a humiliating backdown rather than a long drawn out PR war. "I thought it was obscene as you can get. We laid out our case and said it was a blot on a man who's dead," said Valenti, who was special assistant to Johnson, adding, "We let them know we weren't going away, that we weren't going to vanish. Our resolve is sturdy and strong -- we're going to push this to the wall."
March 2004
"I've done my damnedest to preserve, protect and defend the First Amendment," Jack Valenti told an audience at the ShoWest conference in Las Vegas, adding, "I have never ceased fighting to make sure that every creative film artist can tell the story as they choose to tell it without any fear that the government would intervene or interrupt or make them stand mute. Those 45 words that comprise the Constitution is the one clause that guarantees all the others."
April 2004
Valenti says in an interview that 80-85 percent of all pirated movies were originally recorded on camcorders by patrons in movie theaters. A study by AT&T Labs and the University of Pennsylvania reported in the Wall Street Journal, however, has determined that 77 percent were originally leaked by industry insiders. Oops!
April 2004
MIT's The Tech interviews Valenti about why, under his rules, it was illegal to play a DVD legally rented at a video store in a Linux DVD player. Their exchange, seen in full at http://www-tech.mit.edu/V124/N20/ValentiIntervie.20f.html, went like this:
TT: Okay, let’s take a different example. Four years ago, you said that people who use Linux, which is about a million to two million people, who want to play DVDs, should get licensed DVD players and that those would be on the market soon.
JV: And we have those now.
TT: But today, you still cannot on the market actually buy a licensed DVD player for Linux.
JV: I didn’t know that.
TT: So the question is, do you think people who go to Blockbuster, they rent a movie, they bring it home, and they play it on Linux by circumventing the access control, are those people committing a moral transgression?
JV: I do not believe that you have the right to override an encryption. Because if you have the right to do it, everybody can do it. For whatever benign reason you have, somebody else has got one even more benign. But once you let one person deal in a digital copy -- and I don’t have to tell you; you know far better than I that, unlike in analog, the ten thousandth copy is as pure as the original -- it is a big problem. So once you let the barriers down for your perfectly sensible reason, you gotta let it down for everybody...
TT: Indeed, but are you doing that when you rent a movie from Blockbuster and you watch it at home? ... I run Linux on my computer. There’s no product I can buy that’s licensed to watch [DVDs]. If I go to Blockbuster and rent a movie and watch it, am I a bad person? Is that bad?
JV: No, you’re not a bad person. But you don’t have any right.
TT: But I rented the movie. Why should it be illegal?
JV: Well then, you have to get a machine that’s licensed to show it.
TT: Here’s one of these machines; it’s just not licensed.
[Winstein shows Valenti his six-line “qrpff” DVD descrambler.]
TT: If you type that in, it’ll let you watch movies.
JV: You designed this?
TT: Yes.
JV: Un-fucking-believable.
June 2004
Valenti supports a bill that would allow the government to go after those who provide software that is used to pirate film and music. Valenti says the bill is "grounded in the common-sense notion that people who 'actively induce' others to break copyright laws are themselves violating copyright laws and should face legal consequences." Opponents point out that that it would effectively overturn the Betamax decision, which gave consumers the right to record programs off the air for personal use, as well as putting the makers of legitimate software, such as FTP and IRC programs in a legal quagmire.
June 2004
From IMDB News:
People who counterfeit movies are not only pirates, some are actually terrorists, MPAA chief Jack Valenti charged Wednesday. Appearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday, Valenti cited an Interpol report, which, he said, concluded that "there is a significant link between counterfeiting and terrorism in locations where there are entrenched terrorist groups." According to the report, Valenti said, terrorists have turned to piracy as the preferred way to raise funds, since it is less risky than drug smuggling and money laundering. "It stands to reason that if it's low-risk, high-return and if you get caught it's a slap on the wrist, then criminals are going to do it," Valenti said. However, Daily Variety pointed out today (Thursday) that the Interpol report mentions mostly counterfeit household items like shampoos and perfume, and that the only reference to movies was contained in a section about a single individual who reportedly distributed Hezbollah propaganda films as part of his supply of pirated music and video games.
June 2004
In order to get around the MPAA's restrictive R-rating, an Illinois-based theater chain, GKC Theaters, started issuing "R-Cards" to teenagers who have had their parents fill out permission forms agreeing that they allow their children to see R-rated movies. Jack Valenti, however, poopoos the cards saying: "I think it distorts and ruptures the intent of this voluntary film ratings system. All R-rated films are not alike."
True enough. Some of them, like Fahrenheit 9/11, actually deserve a PG-13.
Goodbye Jack Valenti. I'd say it's been a great 32 years, but I'm sure i'd be struck with lightning if I dared utter such lies. Don't let the door hit ya where [censored for your protection by order of the MPAA].
link directly to this feature at http://hollywoodbitchslap.com/feature.php?feature=1158
originally posted: 07/01/04 18:28:21
last updated: 07/01/04 18:35:25
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