The declining moral standards of society, fueled in some large part by the television media and mainstream movie industry, has been much bemoaned by parental groups, religious organisations and other guardians of our collective morality but without an awful lot of impact being made. The perceived decay of traditional values and weakening of moral fiber continues daily to a point where things which would have made a dock worker blush 30 years ago now proliferate into mainstream network media channels and even into children's programming slots with censory-numbing regularity.
There can be few parents reading this who haven't sat through a movie they would have loved to have shared with their children but for one or two unsuitable scenes. Or who have been simply unable to enjoy a movie everyone is talking about due to the level of sexual content, violence or other unsavoury content. Renting a Hollywood movie is almost guaranteed to ensure you an unhealthy dose of sex and violence and with the censorship boards becoming increasingly liberal, the PG rating bar allows more and more questionable content to limbo under it.
Well now, all that is starting to change with the help of a few of society's good guys. We've all heard of the slogan "sex sells", but hey guess what? "NO sex" sells just as well and has opened up a whole new industry for DVD rental and retail sales.
Family Edited movies are the new 'big thing' to hit the entertainment world with a few pioneers such as Cleanfilms.com stepping up to scrub Hollywood clean!
A family safe movie is basically exactly the same movie you find on the shelves of your local rental store but with all the offensive content edited out. Edited scenes typically include the removal of foul and offensive language, including non-religious reference to deity, the removal of graphic violence, nudity and sexual/overly suggestive imagery and reference to them and basically anything which is liable to cause offense on moral or religious grounds.
The editing is akin to that seen on network television channels with professional editors ensuring there are no obvious breaks in the flow of the movie, so that the only clue the viewer has that they are watching a family edited DVD is that there is no offensive content.
Surprisingly, considering a whole new market has been opened up for their movies and a demand has been shown, Hollywood is not too happy about such services. However, under copyright laws, so long as the editing company holds a copy of the original, unedited movie in their offices for each one they sell, or the customer owns a copy, then this is all above board and legal. Score one for the good guys!
Unfortunately, this kind of messing around means the adult content edited movies do cost more than unedited versions but there are also subscription rental services out there as well (like the aforementioned Clean Films and naturally, there are some movies which it simply isn't worth editing because the required number of cuts would mean there would be very little comprehensible movie left, so the range of movies available is lower.
Even so, these kinds of services are invaluable for anyone who yearns for the golden age of movies, is tired of having their entertainment spoiled by questionable scenes, or for parents who seek to protect their children from Hollywood's often dubious standards of morality.
Recommended Resources:
Clean Films
