Motion Picture Commission : hearings before the Committee on Education, House of Representatives, Sixty-third Congress, second session, on bills to establish a Federal Motion Picture Commission (1978)

MOTION PICTURE COMMISSION. 53 The Chairman. Is not that more expensive to you gentlemen than picture censorship? Mr. Busn. Oh, there is no question that it is expensive, both to the men who produce, the men who distribute, and lastly to the man who exhibits. The Chairman. But that exists and it is going to exist? Mr. Bush. Yes, sir. The Chairman. Now, if we could have a general censorship, would it not be a greater prctectioin to the public morally and to you gentle- men financially? Mr. Busii. Mr. Chairman, I quite agree with you to that extent. Viewing censorship as a lesser evil, and that is the most favorable view that I can ever take of it, but, viewing it as a lesser evil, I say this: If the censorship which it is intended to establish by this bill would supersede and exclude every other form of censorship in this country, probably it would be a lesser evil. Mr. Fess. Mr. Chairman, I can see, I think, your point of view, and I think I sympathize in a degree with it, although I am rather in- clined to think that there is more good to come out of the censorship than evil. I fear that we do not distinguish between a matter of taste and a matter of equity. For example, I will go down and see something and take a friend with me. and I will see something on the stage I do not like. My friend will say, " Well, Mr. Fess, you are too narrow on this matter. Now, that has done good." But to save my life I can not see the good. It seems to me that it has the other eflPect, and I would be a poor censor. My teachings would make me pretty puritanical, yet others will say, " Fess, you are to narrow; you have allowed the whole State to be stirred up as to what kind of statuary shall be placed on the statehousc front, for example, whether a certain style of statuary would be allowable at all. Others say it would; half of the people say that it would not, and the whole State is in an uproar over it." Now, I am unfit to be a censor, since I have allowed my personal taste to control rather than be controlled by a sense of eqiiity. Now, the question is, Where shall we draw rein ? Mr. Bush. You have struck the very heart of this question. No man or woman—and Avomen, I think, less than men—can wholly de- tach themselves from their own feelings, personal feelings, and opinions. Mr. Fess. If you will permit another interruption, I will say that I was at a show this week, and the most disgusting feature of the thing was the most popular thing, judging from the applause of the house. Now, I do not know whether the joke was on me or not. Mr. Thacher. We have all been there. Mr. Bush. It is merely a question of taste. Now, take, for in- stance, these so-called western pictures. For years and years they have been made. And why? Not because there was a demand in this country. The demand for them in this country has died out. But the people in Europe are crazy about them, and they send them from this country to Europe. Now, that is purely a matter of taste. I do not admire"those pictures; you do not admire them; and I do not think there is anyone else here who admires them, but there are a large number of people who take amusement out of them. There is one point that I want to urge upon you which I can not urge too