Thesis+Based+Research+Assignment


 * 1) Biskind, Peter. __Down and Dirty: Miramax, Sundance, and the Rise of Independent__  __Film.__ New York: Simon and Schuster Inc. c2005.
 * 2) “Attempts by contemporary filmmakers both to represent particular events and incidents that took place in America between 1775 and 1781 may end up shedding some new light on such events, place them in an appropriate context, explain why they might have happened, or give audiences some sense of what the past might have looked like.” (15)
 * 3) “Some filmmakers attempt to ‘shake up reified relations’ in both the art world and in society at large.” (89)
 * 4) “Their work challenges received ideas about gender, race, class, and sexual preference; it attempts to destabilize the existing social order through direct intervention in that social order’s spectacle.” (91)
 * 5) King, Geoff. __New Hollywood Cinema.__ New York: I. B. Tauris & Co. Ltd., c2002.
 * 6) It is not hard to read these violent endings in terms of the shifting dynamics of the later 1960s…the events of the 1960s were filled with currents and eddies, not all of which moved in one direction, but there was a distinct sense of escalating violence, and at times absurdity, in the latter part of the decade.” (18)
 * 7) “It is possible, at the rick of some simplification, to divide the social context of the Hollywood Renaissance into two main currents. One, as we have seen, celebrates aspects of 1960s rebellion. The other explores or manifests elements of a darker mood in which alienation leads towards fear and disillusion.” (19)
 * 8) “(In the 1950s) Films might have been targeted at specific groups more than others, but they were expected to be suitable for viewers of all ages. To gain distribution and exhibition, each film had to carry a seal of approval from the PCA, a body created in 1934 by the Motion Pictures Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA).” (29)
 * 9) “This mechanism of self-regulation by the industry was designed to avoid the threat of censorship by others… ranging from local authorities to the Catholic Church.” (30)
 * 10) “Censored: Wielding the Red Pen.” January 13, 2004. University of Virginia.  October 14, 2008. <[|http://www.lib.virginia.edu>]
 * 11) “The Production Code of 1930… affected the content and distribution of all films produced in Hollywood regarding profanity, nudity, sexuality, and other potentially offensive situations.” (Wielding the Red Pen)
 * 12) " Like books and music, visual art often advances a political view or makes pointed social commentary; subsequently, it becomes fodder for political and social debates. Should artistic expression ever be censored? If so, who is responsible for setting guidelines: parents, teachers, government? Should your tax dollars support artwork that you might find offensive, dangerous, or exploitative?" (Wielding the Red Pen)
 * 13) "Often censorship is motivated by a fear of offending or alienating others rather than by any personal objection." (Wielding the Red Pen)
 * 14) “Introduction: Hollywood, Censorship, and American Culture.” Francis G.  Couvares. American Quarterly, Vol. 44. pp. 509-524. The Johns Hopkins  University Press. 
 * 15) “The more one looks at debates over discrete representations of sexuality, or ethnicity, or other controversial subjects in Hollywood, for example, the more it becomes clear that the attention of both advocates and opponents of censorship is focused on wider cultural and political tensions.” (509)
 * 16) “Economic and cultural elites could not agree on what to do about Hollywood, come promoting the close regulation of movies by custodians of conservative morality, others promoting the free market of ideas and amusements, still others looking to education and cultural adjustment to bring movies and morals into closer alignment.” (510)
 * 17) “For a long time, the official history of movie censorship assumed the shape of an appropriately melodramatic story… the Production Code in 1930, the rise of industry self- regulation in 1934 was a tale of responsible businessmen holding off the bogs both of indecency in the movies and of zealotry on the part of the promoters of censorship.” (51)
 * 18) “Then, a generation of scholars influenced by European historians of popular culture and //mentalite// turned to the movies (and other mass media) to explore the character and development of modern American culture.” (52)
 * 19) “The evolution of the early movie industry and the responses to its products by a variety of groups had more importantly been the opening of the records of groups. The production Code Administration in the mid-1980s gave film historians a chance to investigate the day-to-day operations of the American film society.” (54)
 * 20) Stay, Byron L. ed. __Censorship: Opposing Viewpoints.__ San Diego, CA:  Greenhaven Press Inc. c1997.
 * 21) "The American Psychological Association estimates that the average American child sees one hundred thousand acts of violence on TV before reaching the age of thirteen." (147)
 * 22) "A rating system must be developed to determine which programs are too violent." (147)
 * 23) "Sex on the screen and Hollywood sex scandals off the screen were destroying the film capital's image with the public." (149)
 * 24) "The jury is still out on how all that TV violence affects kids in the real world." (152)
 * 25) "Belief in the value of free expression is not so much rational as religious, a matter of faith... A free society demands a free marketplace of ideas where the good can compete against the bad and the ugly and that, given such a marketplace, the good will win out." (153)
 * 26) "'The price we pay for our cultural freedom is that a few noxious weeds may thrive amid the thousand flowers that bloom. Better the rough anarchy of the free market than government, directly or indirectly, telling us what we can hear and watch." (153)
 * 27) "Most psychologists who have studied the question of how aggression operates are convinced that everyone learns violent behavior by seeing it enacted, ready or not." (155)
 * 28) "The more prestigious the person modeling aggressive behavior, the more likely it is to be imitated by observers." (155)
 * 29) Berkowitz, Leonard. “Film Violence and Subsequent Aggressive Tendencies.”  __Oxford__ __Journals__. Pages 217-229. Oxford University Press. JSTOR.  October 16, 2008. 
 * 30) “Media violence, such writers contend, degrades tastes, seduces the innocent, and incites crime and juvenile delinquency. On the opposite side of the argument, however, a substantial group of authorities have claimed that such fantasy aggression often has socially beneficial effects by providing safe, vicarious outlets for the supposedly pent-up hostile energy within the audience.” (Berkowitz)
 * 31) “The experiments obtaining indications of film-instigated hostility typically employed subjects who had not been aroused to anger prior to the aggressive movie.” (Berkowitz)
 * 32) “Agencies seeking to control media depictions of crime and aggression generally insist that a lesson must be taught: the audience must be left with the message that crime does not pay. By and large, these control agencies do not prescribe how the lesson should be taught or the message conveyed, just as long as the criminal is caught and the villain receives his come-uppance.” (Berkowitz)
 * 33) “According to this well-known social science doctrine, frustrations increase the instigation to aggression, whether the interference prevents the satisfaction of some drive, such as for food or ego enhancement, or blocks the individual from making the aggressive responses he wants, and is set, to perform.” (Berkowitz)
 * 34) “Rather than providing an easy and safe outlet for the pent-up hostility within the angered members of the media audience, film violence may well increase the probability that someone in the audience will behave aggressively in a later situation.” (Berkowitz)
 * 35) “Hollywood Censored: The Production Code Administration and the Hollywood  Film Industry.” Black, Gregory D. //Film History.// Vol 3 pgs 167-189.  Indiana University Press. 
 * 36) “The church demanded that Hollywood permanently withdraw from circulation films it viewed as “immoral” and that local theater owners be empowered to cancel any film currently in circulation if they judged it to be so.” (167)
 * 37) “The PCA, created to mollify religious critics and to disarm proponents of federal censorship, exercised a strong, often dominating, influence on movie content for more than two decades.” (168)
 * 38) “Hollywood films were first and foremost ‘entertainment for the multitudes’ and as such carried a ‘special Moral Responsibility’ requisite of no other medium of entertainment or communication.” (171)
 * 39) “TV Films and Censorship.” Noorani, A.G. //Economic and Political Weekly.// Vol  25. pgs. 300-305. Economic and Political Weekly. 
 * 40) “It took nearly two decades for the law of censorship in regard to TV films to develop.”
 * 41) “It can no longer be disputed that the right of a citizen to exhibit films… is a part of the fundamental right of freedom of expression guaranteed… only under circumstances which are set out… of the Constitution.”
 * 42) “Although it is not a TV film, since identical principles are applied to films for public exhibition whether on the small or large screen, it deserves study.”

//Thesis:// Based on my research, I believe that there should be a stronger hand in the censorship of film and the enforcement of ratings of movies with questionable content. I think that the direction in which Hollywood has taken is a negative influence on children and teenagers.

The decrease in censorship in modern film has desensitized American movie goers to violence and obscenity, allowing these aspects of film to be socially acceptable as well as lowering the moral standard for children and growing teens.

//Findings:// Filmmakers use past cultural history as an inspiration for modern film, while using modern effects to draw in an audience. Support: A1, A2, A3, A4 Censorship in film has become increasingly more relaxed. Support: B1, C1, E3, D2, E1, Hollywood sets a bad example for children who are prone to imitate violence from celebrates. Support: E3, E7, E8, B3 Censorship of film content goes against the right to freedom of speech and of press. Support: A3, E5, B4, D1, D2 Violence shown on TV and film has a proven effect on children. Support: E6, E7, E8, B1, D1

From this research I have learned the origin of censorship, how and why it came about and the ongoing debate as to whether or not it should still be in place. The American public should not have to limit themselves of their creativity; however, they should respect the innocence of children and the restriction should come from the rating system and who is allowed to view films with questionable content. The high-order thinking skills I employed were the conceptual debate between right and wrong. The research skills I need to improve is the effectiveness of sources and choosing which ones are worth reading. From the research, I learned that the violence on TV screen is more adhesive in a child’s mind then the violence that may occur in their actual life. The influence of celebrity is more so then I ever had realized.
 * Process Reflection**

This research helps me to better understand the reasons why film in censored and the effects it has on the mental development of children. This research allows me to plant roots in censorship and restricting the American voice and the debate whether it is right or wrong. The background to this will allow for me to make my own short film that will be a positive influence on children by leaving out profanity and violence while still maintaining interest in the movie.
 * Connections to Overall Project**