The Last Stand for Filtering: How to Save VidAngel

The year 2016 was a bit of a letdown to say the least.  The last week of 2016 wasn’t very friendly either, with such notable deaths as George Michaels, mother and daughter duo Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds, and one very close to my heart, legendary BYU football coach LaVell Edwards.  Just when things couldn’t get any worse, another life was deemed in critical condition: that of the Utah based movie-filtering VidAngel.

Don't let this happen!

Launched in 2014, VidAngel provided hundreds of big time movies alongside with filters that the viewer would select before streaming the movie of their choice.  According to their website, VidAngel was built on the two beliefs that one, movies can change lives for the better and two, people “should have the personal freedom to watch [movies] in the way they choose”.¹ Because of these two founding beliefs, VidAngel allows the viewer to filter out of their movies what they don’t want to see, whether that be full frontal nudity, blood and gore or even a shot of a man peeing into a toilet… or at least they did, until big corporations sued them for it.  Because of this lawsuit, on December 30^th, VidAngel was forced to stop streaming all videos from these companies.  Despite the prospect of being shut down for months on end as the court decides filtering and VidAngel’s future, luckily, they haven’t quite flatlined yet. 

VidAngel has repeatedly stated that they will take their case all the way to the Supreme Court and have deemed themselves “filtering’s last stand”².  Based on rights extended by the Family Home Movie Act of 2005, VidAngel claims it is legal and not infringing on any copyright laws.  The major Hollywood firms of Lucasfilm, Warner Bros., Disney, and 20^th Century Fox say that they are not concerned with the concept of filtered movies but instead claim that VidAngel’s business practice is copyright infringement. Whatever both sides are saying, filtered movies are in serious jeopardy.

Breadlines circa 1930

This isn’t the first-time Hollywood has stood in the way of viewers’ right to clean movies.  Back when the only colors captured on celluloid were black and white and when synchronized sound dialogue was a recent invention, there was a similar battle pitting the viewers against the Hollywood big brass.  The year was 1930 and the world had plunged into the deepest depths of the Great Depression.  Herbert Hoover was president and the unemployment lines threatened to overtake the lines outside of the theaters.  Hollywood, like everyone else, was struggling for business and feared that the increase in poverty would force the American working class to give up their weekly expenses on movie tickets for a much-needed loaf of bread.

Three years after the first all-talking feature “The Jazz Singer”, the elusive draw of movies with spoken dialogue had finally worn off.  In desperate need for a new reason for people to flood the theaters, Hollywood turned to the seductive draw of immorality.  Known as the Pre-Code era, the years from 1930 to 1934 proved to have plenty of immoral material that would not be seen in American film for decades.  Heroic gangsters gunning down police officers with tommy guns, socialite women seducing married men in hotel rooms, and characters challenging the American system of democracy all were a part of movies released by the big studios of MGM, Paramount, Universal and Warner Brothers during this four-year period.  While it helped Hollywood draw in revenue and survive the early years of the Great Depression, it alienated various small-town moviegoers and religious groups that had long been suspicious of Hollywood’s merits.

Will Hays saves the day!

Local and state censorship boards, various women organizations, and Protestant and Roman Catholic clergymen alike advocated for censorship in Hollywood as early as the turn of the 20^th century.  Back in 1922, after various off-screen scandals by Hollywood elite and numerous cases of immorality in movies, Hollywood hired Presbyterian minister and former US Postmaster General William Hays to smooth over public relations with the public and rectify the negative image of Hollywood.  Fighting an uphill battle, Hays spent nearly a decade assuring the public of Hollywood’s moral integrity while also urging Hollywood to reform itself and self-regulate the content of its movies before the government did it for them.  After eight years of a brilliant public relations campaign, Hays was able to persuade skeptical studio heads to agree to follow a code that spelled out what could and couldn’t be depicted in movies.  No shots of women showing off their stockings, no interracial love interests, and no more vigilantes being made into heroes.  This Production Code, he promised the public, would once and for all bring clean and moral movies to the public.    

While the acceptance of this Production Code was a hard-fought win for Hays, Hollywood was not serious about following this restricting lists of do’s and don’ts.  With no way to enforce the newly created moral guidelines for movie-making, Hays was unable to tame Hollywood who instead opted for scandalous pictures and fatter wallets to stay financially afloat.  While Hollywood was able to ignore Hays, they wouldn’t be able to ignore the calls of its customers much longer as the opposition to Hollywood grew and grew as the calendar turned to the year 1934.

Roman Catholic bishops and cardinals alike called for all good standing Catholics to boycott all movies that “offend decency and Christian morality”³.  Women advocacy groups touted national studies that suggested immoral movies lead children to crime.  Citizens of dozens of states pressured their Senators to push a bi-partisan bill that would fine any distributor of an immoral film $5,000 or put them in jail.  Small town patrons directly complained to their local theater managers, letting their neighbor projectionist know that they wouldn’t be attending the theater anymore.  A journalist for the Hollywood Reporter in 1934 may have summed it up best by saying “the cumulative effect of this movement is dangerous.  The matter is beyond the annoyance stage; it is inflicting wounds at the box office”⁴.

In the summer of 1934, the major studio executives finally cracked.  The Big Five Studios created the Production Code Administration (PCA) for the sole purpose of enforcing the Production Code introduced by Will Hays four years prior.  Until the early 1960’s, no movie coming from Hollywood could be shown in public theaters without the seal of approval from the PCA.  During the days of the Production Code, Hollywood filtered out all of the gore, sex, and immoral conduct out of their movies before they hit the silver screen.  Those that decided to speak up were finally heard when they threatened to pull away their money from Hollywood who was forced to accept self-regulation in the face of lower box office receipts.

If it ain't right, TURN IT OFF!!!

Just like the generation of the Great Depression, we have a chance to stand up for clean and uplifting movies.  We can take a page out of their playbook and take the time to write our Senator or Representative in Congress.  We can post about the current issue on Facebook to raise awareness and build support for VidAngel and filtering.  We can sign the #SaveFiltering online petition. We can put our money where our mouth is by not consuming movies that we find immoral or inappropriate.  Let Hollywood know there are films that we won’t buy from them without filtering.  They take filtering away and we take more and more from their pockets because, as we’ve seen in the past, Hollywood speaks the language of money most fluently.

When Hollywood sued VidAngel, they didn’t just threaten a filtering company but a whole entire principle that people should be allowed to watch clean and uplifting movies without the dirt of sex, cursing and unnecessary violence.  The 1930 Production Code claimed that “No picture should lower the moral standards of those who see it.”  I likewise believe that film should be used for the betterment of the individual and of the society.  I believe in film’s power to inspire, to encourage and to enlighten but also strongly believe in its ability to degrade, to negatively impact and to influence those of all ages when injected with filth and immoral content.  I believe in my right to watch movies without such things as cursing, sexual innuendoes, and extreme violence that I find immoral and destructive.  If you believe in this too, stand up with me and others to fight for the individual and for watching movies however the BLEEP you want.  Share this post with your friends and family and let’s all make Hollywood hear us because no one else will do it for us.

1. https://www.vidangel.com/about

2. http://blog.vidangel.com/

3. “Religion: Legion of Decency”.Time. June 11, 1934. 

4. Frank Pope, "Tradeviews," Hollywood Reporter, June 7, 1934.