This Blog Has Been Formatted to Fit Your Screen

I own it. I can quote every line.

“Let’s blow off seventh and eighth, go to the mall, have a calorie fest and see the new Christian Slater!”

I could pull it off the shelf at any time, pop it in the DVD player, and enjoy commercial-free teen culture. But whenever I come across “Clueless” on cable, I drop everything and watch. Why?

In theory, it should be a fan’s worst nightmare to watch her beloved film hacked apart by a sadistic butcher, all under the guise of being “edited for time and content.”

“The Seven Year Itch,” the film that gave birth to the iconic Marilyn-Monroe-with-the-billowing-skirt pose, is argued to be the first theatrical film edited for content for broadcast on television. This is widely unconfirmed, but would make sense. The film, released in 1955, is about a married man’s temptation to stray, with sex symbol Marilyn providing the temptation. Definitely racy territory. It has been suggested other films were edited for broadcast before this, but using other criteria like time constraints.

While the timeline of content editing for television broadcast is muddy at best, one date is certain: February 8, 1996. On that day, then-president Bill Clinton signed into law the Telecommunications Act, approved by Congress a month earlier. This Act sought, among other things, to establish guidelines for programs containing “sexual, violent, or other indecent material about which parents should be informed before it is displayed to children.” (Full text of the Telecommunications Act can be found at www.fcc.gov/telecom.html.) The FCC created a rating system, similar to that of the MPAA film rating system, to be voluntarily used and independently assigned by the networks.

Even though nearly all theatrical films made after 1968 carry an MPAA rating, content editing created the need for a television rating. Based on the sexual, violent and/or profane content left after the studio or network edits the film, it is assigned a TV-G, TV-PG, TV-14 or TV-MA.

This way, you can compare the MPAA rating of your favorite film to the TV rating to determine just how ridiculous the edited version will be. It’s my opinion that anything more than a one-rating jump will render a film nearly un-watchable.

That said, some people prefer to leave out the sex and violence. While some would just avoid movies with ratings beyond their comfort level, others seek out edited versions of theatrical films. Companies such as CleanFlicks and CleanFilms used popular online rental company Netflix’s model to offer manually edited versions of major motion pictures. A 2006 lawsuit stopped these companies from offering their edited copies due to copyright infringement, but Canadian companies, such as FamilySafe Movies, were untouched by the U.S. lawsuit and remain in business.

Personally, I would never seek out an edited version. I don’t mind the sex, violence and profanity. So why do I watch the watered-down revisions offered up by network television? Perhaps it’s because I don’t feel as committed to watching as I would if I made the effort to cue up the DVD. Maybe it’s because I don’t have to look through my movie collection and make any decisions; the decision has been made for me. Possibly it’s because I have too much time on my hands and really need a hobby.

Maybe I’ll never know. But for now you’ll have to excuse me. “Dirty Dancing” is on TBS in five minutes, and nobody puts Baby in a corner.

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