CleanFlicks Plays Dirty with Artists’ Creative Rights

CleanFlicks, founded by Utah’s Ray Lines, is a DVD rental company that edits profanity, nudity, violence, etc. from movies and rents them out to people who find those things unbearably offensive. It is wonderful that people have the power to avoid things that they do not want to see, but the problem is that CleanFlicks is editing these movies without the consent of directors. This is akin to putting a fig leaf on a naked statue, clipping out words from a song, or blacking out text in a book.

Film is an artistic medium, and directors are artists. An artist creates a piece of art as a complete work. Every element in that piece of art is there because the artist put it there for a purpose. When companies delete things from art, they diminish the art and degrade the artist.

This is a free-market system where people are supposed to vote with their wallets. Whenever people rent or purchase a movie, edited or not, they are giving the director financial support. If people are offended by nudity, profanity, violence, etc., they should not financially support directors that put those elements in their movies.

If a lot of people start paying for only family friendly movies, the studios will take notice and shift their financial backing to more tame fare. Look at the movies from the 1940s. They have virtually no profanity, nudity, or violence. This is not because of prudish directors, but because the American movie-goers at that time demanded clean movies. Show business is a business, and the entertainment will eventually conform to market demands.

The issue here is not consumer freedom. Consumers should be able to see or not see whatever they want. The issue here is the rights and reputation of the artists. The artist is the creator of the work and accountable for its content. Therefore, the artists (and their financiers) are the only ones who have the right to authorize changes to their work.

Television networks edit movies all of the time, but they do it with the permission of the directors, studios, etc. Likewise, CleanFlicks should be allowed to edit whatever they want from movies, but they should have the decency to get the permission of the director before they do it.

Mel Gibson is currently suing CleanFlicks, because they edited out three minutes of material from The Passion of the Christ. Gibson’s case against CleanFlicks is bound to be a landmark decision for artists’ creative rights.