Tornado Alley (PROG)

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Hollywood directors have turned their backs on families

By Naomi Schaefer Riley



Judd Apatow has a potty mouth and he wants everyone to know it. Reacting to Sony’s announcement that it would be offering sanitized versions of his movies for home audiences, the producer/director tweeted: “This is absolute bullsh*t and @sony and @SonyPictures is gonna get hell for F—ING with our movies. Shove the clean versions up your asses!”


These versions, which are already shown on broadcast television and on airlines, contain less bad language and fewer references to sex. The initiative is launching with films like “50 First Dates” and “Step Brothers” as well as “Captain Phillips” and “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.” But apparently expanding the audience for their movies and earning more money to boot is driving directors around the bend. Adam McKay, director of “Step Brothers,” said he will “never” agree to this.

At the same time, Hollywood has embarked on a strategy of making movies even more hard-core. With the success of last year’s raunchy “Deadpool,” studios have doubled down on racy movies this summer, with offerings like “Baywatch,” as well as Charlize Theron’s “Atomic Blonde,” and “The Hitman’s Bodyguard,” starring Ryan Reynolds and Samuel L. Jackson. (“Deadpool 2” is scheduled for 2018.) The studios gave these movies an R rating because “from the very initial impression we want to make sure .?.?. that it stands out,” Universal’s marketing co-president Michael Moses told The Wall Street Journal.

With its new “cleaned up” strategy, Sony is exercising good business sense. Why not attract more adults to the theater with R-rated flicks, while giving families a different experience in their living rooms? As Sony’s website explains: “The clean version allows viewing for a wider audience, giving people the chance to watch their favorite films together.”

Families today almost never watch anything together that isn’t a cartoon. It’s not only that we’re all on different devices. It’s also that prime-time sitcoms are almost impossible for parents to watch with their children. Jokes about masturbation, premature ejaculation and anal sex are standard fare for shows like “Two Broke Girls” and “Mom.”

Even entertainment that is specifically marketed toward families can’t seem to resist getting dirty. At a recent matinee performance of “School of Rock” on Broadway with an audience full of elementary school groups, a 10-year-old actress tells the star that she doesn’t want to be a groupie because “groupies are sluts.” Kids snickered, parents slunk into their seats, but was this joke central to the plot?

‘Why not attract more adults to the theater with R-rated flicks, while giving families a different experience in their living rooms?’

Actors and directors have decided that in order to be authentic, their shows have to be as filthy as possible. The Directors Guild of America, which pressured Sony into getting permission before releasing these clean versions, said: “These are hard-fought-for rights that protect a director’s work and vision and are at the very heart of our craft and a thriving film industry.” Or, as Seth Rogen tweeted, “Holy sh*t, please don’t do this to our movies. Thanks.”

Apparently, using fewer four-letter words in movies is considered selling out. These days, the only way to show that you’re sincere is by swearing like a sailor.

This degradation of our culture has been going on for a long time and is something we see well outside of Hollywood now.

It’s not just Kirsten Gillibrand and Tom Perez dropping F-bombs in their comments about Donald Trump and his policies. In the wake of the Democrats’ loss in the Georgia special election Tuesday, Neera Tanden, president of Center for American Progress, tweeted: “One important lesson is that when they go low, going high doesn’t f**king work.” Now the heads of think tanks have to use dirty words, too?

Yes, some artistic films need to contain risqué material in order to be taken seriously, and some movies are never going to be appropriate for all audiences. But the notion that a film like “Talladega Nights” is a masterpiece that will lose its deeper meaning without a barrage of curse words is a little silly.

Dirty words and sexual innuendo don’t make movies more important, but they do seem to make actors and directors more self-important.

http://nypost.com/2017/06/24/hollywood-directors-have-turned-their-backs-on-families/