The Bigsibling Blog

Reading the StartNewsOnline.com headline “Republican: Scripts need reviewing” set off all kinds of warning lights in my brain.  Red rotating flashers like what was on top of the old police cars, accompanied by the blaring woooOOOT..woooOOOT..woooOOOT sound of the Enterpises ‘red alert’ claxon.

WTF is this?  A republican senator wants the government to vet hollywood scripts?  What kind of socialist propagandizing censorship is this?  Once past the first paragraph, my blood pressure starting returning to normal…a little.  

The senator in question is not a U.S. Senator, but rather state Senator Phil Berger of North Carolina.  And he doens’t want the government to approve all Hollywood scripts, and not even all scripts for films shot in North Carolina. Only scripts for films that seek the state’s filmmaker incentive.  The state has a program whereby tax money would refund as much as 15 percent of what the production companies spend in North Carolina.

While this seems on the surface, to be almost, but not quite censorship, in reality it is just that.  Censorship is defined as “deleting parts of publications or correspondence or theatrical performances.”  What Sen. Berger’s bill would do is give the government control over what they deem to be acceptable, before the film is even completed.

The current law that entices filmmakers with the kick-backs already has a provision for denying the benefits based on the content of the finished product.  If the content is obscene or what-not, the production company will not receive the money.  Seems to me that the problem Sen. Berger wants to fix is already fixed in the current law.  A new law will only cost more tax dollars as one would have to figure the state is going to pay someone to go over the script.

It seems that Sen. Berger is offering a knee-jerk reaction to outrage by some people about a scene in a film they have not even viewed.  Sure, the scene’s description sounds horrific (Fanning is raped by a man…and it is Fanning that is acting throughout the scene).  And sure, by the current law this filmmaker will probably not get any of the tax supplied kick-back money.  And so the system works.

Go to North Carolina, make your film, apply for the kick-back, and if the government believes the film is a worthwhile venture that will not harm or degrade the public interest, then you’ll get your kick-back, otherwise you won’t. No harm no foul.

The next logical step in the Senator’s plan, would be to deny the fimmakers who make films with which he and his cronies disagree, the priveledge of filming in North Carolina.  And by proxy, deny the business and other individuals and entities their fair share of the Hollywood dollar in the process.

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Tech Tags: North Carolina film industry Hollywood censorship Hounddog

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