I have been watching Russian Soviet era TV, and compared it to the broadcasting in Amnerica at the time, and I have to say, the writing of Krushev or Breshnev or even gorbachev pre-perastroika is better than I would have imagined, and much better than that written after perastroika.

This all started from a movie that was made in about 84 in Russia that I just loved- even though it was a little chick-flick for me normally, it was just so darned good I was held to it.

There are a group of classmates called back for a television interview- all of them nobel prizewinners and super succeful types, until they came to the one classmates no one knew- and they asked what she did, she said "I am a mom"- they said "fine, that is very good, but what do you DO" and she said "I am just a mom, that is all"- and all through the movie, everyone describes thier life accomplishments- while this "just a mom" reminesces about her raising 13 KIDS!!- and it turns out, at the end of this movie- all thirteen kids were as succesful as the classmates she was sitting with! Great movie, and illustrating the Russian ideal that a good mother is as important as any nobel prize winner- to me, a wonderful story and lesson.

This was written during censorship, just as heavy as in Krushev's day. It touched on the difficult life in soviet Russia, but also accurately showed the fairly decent standard of living during that time.

Then, I had watched an Iranian movie about a year ago, http://groups.msn.com/iraniancinema/articles5.msnw and the films were amazing- despite massive censorship of the Iranian goverment.

Now- compare this to the West's near total lack of censorship and the crap we see today- or even then to compare time period to time period.

So my question is this:

Do you think that some censorship is actually more healthy for good writing than no holds barred stuff we have today?

I'm not following you here Cruising Ram. What type of censorship are you referring and applied to what kind of writing?

Do you mean government censorship of the news media or popular novels or are you talking about censorship of the cinema, recording industry, radio and television networks?

The concept of censorship is typically abhorrent to me as it usually denotes thought control, but I'm afraid I am uncertain if that is the point you're trying to make. Are you saying that when limitations are placed upon writers it actually forces them to write better because they aren't free to express themself without restraint?

Please explain.

I'd have to agree with nighttimer with this issue. Censorship is not something that has any bearing in a democratic society. If we look at some of the nations of the world that do not have freedoms, we can see that most media and artistic expressions usually take the form of propaganda supporting the government's cause. For instance, all we ever here about in regards to China is its incredible economy and growing military might. But who is telling us about this? China! They keep everything quiet and then wrap all the news they get real nice and send it out to the world.

While i think censorship is wrong, i do however believe it is the responsibility of both the public and the media and artistic community to ensure responsible journalism and expression of thought. A society where the media can make blind accusations without any proof and affect public opinion is just as bad as one with censorship.

I think you are suggesting the wrong reason for the difference in quality. Certainly censorship existed at the time Russian television and film studios were producing some quality products; however, the censorship meant that many subjects were not open to artistic examination. What accounts for the quality difference is the lack of commercialism not the censorship. The non commercial BBC also produces some quality programs whereas American T.V. is motivated by the commerical need to attract the least common denominator audience so that quality programming is seldom attempted. The same thing is true to a lesser degree of American film studios. I think we made a great mistake in the 30s when we past up the chance to establish a substantial public broadcasting presence.

I don't think censorship itself is healthy for good writing. Restriction and artistic creativity do not go hand in hand very well. Perhaps the fact that the writing in countries like Iran or the former USSR is of such a high quality is related to the strong cultural ideologies? That's one of the things the Western world seems to lack these days.

Do you think that some censorship is actually more healthy for good writing than no holds barred stuff we have today?

What's healthy for good writing:

- A good editor (bless their little blue pencils)
- A good style guide (Chicago rules!)
- Thorough knowledge of the subject
- Plot, character, theme, plot, plot, plot
- Reading great literature and knowing why it is great
- Reading popular literature and knowing why it is popular

Beyond that, keep the mitts off. No government censorship!

As an exercise in novel writing, we ordered up a set of current NYT best-sellers (paperbacks), and I have to agree -- the popular stuff isn't exactly good writing, but people must like it. Some is downright bad writing, but still people must like it, else it wouldn't sell. Those are the ones that are sequels to something else that hit the NYT list. They probably sell by name recognition.

But I think this debate question is about movie scripts. Hey, we have our share of propaganda flicks too, most notably those made during WW II. We had some too during the Cold War, like The Green Barrets. Just because it's propaganda doesn't mean it's bad cinema. The script is just the skeleton in this situation. How the film is shot and edited has more to do with its value.

CR, you experienced emotion while viewing the flicks, and they got you to thinking. That's great cinema, no matter if the theme might be dishonest. To some extent, all themes are somewhat dishonest because reality is too boring, too horrible, too perverse, too violent and so on.

What is bad about government censorship is not that the art of cinema suffers, but that the art is restricted by what themes it can express. We might be inundated with stupid reality shows and inane movies at the present, of that I have no doubt. But it sells.

Someone must like it. If the quality has gone down, then take a look at who buys the tickets. I'm looking at who buys the books. The stuff I'm seeing would not give a government censor any worries anyway.

I'm not sure how or why you are drawing the conclusion that censorship is (or might be) responsible for "good entertainment". On what have you based that reasoning? The former USSR had some good shows, and Iran has had some good shows, so clearly censorship is the mechanism for quality entertainment? I'll bet the former USSR and Iran had a few stinkers, too. I'd also bet that they had fewer channels than the hundred+ we have to choose from.

Of course, "proper" censorship would lead to "better" programming and entertainment choices for me. "Proper" censorship would be anything I personally deem suitable for viewing. My version of proper would of course differ from others and therein lies the problem.

Not censorship. But how about a little self-restraint and better judgment on the part of those who produce and present the tripe we see in movies and on television? Good taste seems to have flown out the window.

I would start by having a voluntary news blackout on Tom Cruise and his fiancee.

I can see where CR is coming from. He is somewhat right by saying that TV programming back in Soviet Union was somewhat of "better quality" (imagine a mix of History channel and PBS and throw away all the commercials) - but let's not forget that they had only two federal and one local channel. It is much easier to fill three channels with quality programming than 100+ channels. Same applies to Hollywood. Surely it produces 2 or 3 gems per year (though not lately) - it's just the rest is total crap. Soviet movie industry was producing movies at the rate which is probably 1/100th of yearly Hollywood output. Of course it easier to maintain higher quality of movies when your output is limited.
Also the discussion here operates under the assumption that there's no censorship in the Western world and in United States in particular. Of course there is. What are all those FCC fines are all about? What about those 5-second live broadcast delays? The censorship is alive and well, of course - only that we tend to concentrate our attention on nudity and sex rather than on general dumbness of TV programming. Seeing a breast of Janet Jackson will corrupt our children's minds, and hours of MTV and reality shows won't? R-i-i-ight....

I am not saying censorship is right- but, like persecution of a religion, the believers tend to be a little more committed to believing -

I understand very much that writers like AM and NT cringe from the word censorship, as it is the nemesis of thier industry, a bad guy, I understand and agree for the most part.

But if you look in America- when there were "broadcast standards" (in many ways as strict as any censorship at the hieght of Stalinist russia, if you look at the rules and bodies of work at the time, let us not even get into "blacklisting" during McCarthy times) - and the body of work doing those times was a million times higher quality than we see today- I think only Schindlers list and saving private ryan can even come near the quality of say, anything prior to 1970!

That being said- NT and AM and other authors- put aside your natural reflex to say "oh my god, that is horrible" (once again, I am not being sympathetic to censorship- only wondering if quality declines in it's absence) - but I am wondering, in the absence of external control, if quality takes a major nosedive- to the point there is no improvement at all, to the point we are at now, where the only pieces of quality programing are: animated satire shows and Battlestar Galactica? Good movies are based on comic books, and new good movies are based on old good movies.

I hope I am making myself clear here? I am not singling out America or Russia here- America has the biggest movie industry on the planet- and it is pretty bad though!

That is an unbelievably short list, CR. What about the series 'Band of Brothers'? That was a thousand times better than 'Saving Private Ryan'. 'The Piano' was at least as good as 'Schindlers list'. You are really concentrating on the bad here. Maybe you are preoccupied with visions of reality television, which I agree is awful. The fact is, prior to the 80s we didn't have nearly as many choices, so there there were both fewer bad shows and fewer good. 'Sex in the City' and 'Deadwood' are infinitely better than 'Battlestar Galactica' . You can't really place restriction on stupidity in a free society. How do you define it, as it applies to entertainment, precisely? One person's stupid is another's 'funny'. It doesn't help that we're living in a world full of imbeciles.

Let me back up again Mrs P- I totally get what you are saying, and concede your point- entertainment is in the eye of the beerholder LOL- and I have, at times myself, wondered why a movie has to have a point, can't it just be some good ol' escapism (I am sorry, Battlestar is the best TV show on, well, ever at this point LOL- I am just totally blown away by the writing, even deadwood, which I love alot, doesn't hold a candle for the sheer drama that battlestar has, I was not a huge fan of the popcandy original, have you seen this show yet? Amazing? )

Let me say it this way- sometimes we perform best under adversity and pressure- and yes, there are some good things coming out these days, every once and awhile (BTW- I hated the piano LOL- and BTW- was that even American? I thought it was a New Zealand thing? Maybe I have the wrong film?)

But what you listed as best were mostly historical pieces- mostly done by Spielberg, of all poeple, correct? And Tom Hanks?

What I am getting at is this- I see, IMHO, a serious decline of ability to write good Mass media since the decline of outside/external control of this arena.

Now, to be clear guys, I am not saying that we need to go back to those "bad old days" of McCarthyism and such, but that it's absence has made the overall quality decline.

There was a black nobel prize winner for economics that proved that Slavery was economically sound in the south- not that it was right, or that we want to go back to those days, but that it made economic sense- prior to that, most said that Slavery was not even a good economic model for the south at the time- but just because it was economically sound doesn't mean I want to see the south re-institute slavery! -

The discussion is that if the adversity and external control of mass media actually improves it's quality, not if it is an ethical or right thing to do.

In my view of watching Russian foriegn language films for my own language education, there is a remarkable decrease in quality shortly after the perestroika reforms- a very noticable drop.

Now, my wife, who is from Russia, has another opinion, and she says it is the money thing.

She points out that being famous in Russia does not = rich. If you watch Russian movies and TV, they are not the "beautiful poeple" - they are there for thier love of thier craft. We have a joke among Russian and American families here, "In America, all the beautiful poeple are on TV and you never see them on the street, never in real life, no one in America in "real life" looks like that, but in Russia, all the beautiful poeple are walking down the street, and the ones that look like average Americans are on TV" LOL-

But my feeling is that the quality is improved because the stakes are higher for failure in censored medias.

I don't think censorship really had anything to do with it. However, I do think that repression drives people to poignant and hopeful artictic expression. And with or without political repression, some of the greatest art is created by people who have experienced great suffering. Suffering and repression often makes the artistic individual focus on the basic, meaningful questions of life and liberty.

We live in a hedonistic consumer society, and our art often reflects that - shallow, escapist themes that pander to the lowest common denominator of the consuming public.

Censorship could showcase great art - if the censor was someone with incredible artistic taste, and the censorship was based on quality, not on 'politically correct' content. But it wouldn't work in the real world, where consumers determine the viability of the media markets. Too many people actually like reality shows, Rosanne, Married With Children, and Bill O'Reilly!

It's not impossible that a repressive government has excellent artistic taste. A dictator is just as likely to have great taste as you or I are. The difference is not censorship - in an authoritarian government, consumers are dependent on the tastes of the leaders for the art they get to see. One censored society might show great art, while another shows only velvet dogs playing poker with Elvis.

Musically, Cuba is a great example. Castro is a repressive dictator, yet he subsidizes and fosters incredible musicians. It is much harder to become a recognized musician in the US, because we are dependent on what the market wants to hear, which sadly isn't usually really good music. In Cuba, talented musicians are subsidized and encouraged by the government.

There's lots of great art in America - but you have so much to choose from, you have to look harder to find the good stuff.

Okay, I'm understanding your point a little better now Cruising Ram but I don't think I'm any closer to agreeing to it.

It is a natural part of our maturing process to look back fondly at what was and think it better than what is. I have a far greater fondness for Led Zeppelin than Good Charlotte and The Isley Brothers over The Pussycat Dolls. But standards fall. They always do. It takes wading through a lot of junk cinema, junk music, junk television, junk art, junk politics, junk religion, junk sports and junk food before you find the quality stuff overwhelmed by the crap.

I disagree that good movies are based on comic books. Months after seeing it, I still think Crash is the best movie I've seen this year. Wertz turned me on to City of God and I'd strongly recommend it for anyone sick of the typical Hollywood dead-teenager-on-a-stick fare. Good movies are released all the time you just have to sort through the chaff to find it (and I'll put Sin City and A History of Violence on my short list of good movies based on comic books, just like Tom Hanks and Paul Newman in "The Road to Perdition" which was also based on a comic graphic novel.

Quality work is not created through censorship. It is created in spite of it, not because of it. I do not think innovation, originality and brilliance is fueled by the threat of a official edict as to what is or is not permissable. Censorship kills creativity in its crib.

My father always told me that enough bad of anything will drive out the good. I believe he was right and still is. But let's not look back at the past with nostalgic eyes. I have no interest in returning to the days of Father Knows Best and the rest of early television where the only time you saw a black face was the happily plump maid catering to the whims of the white family she worked for.

There's good stuff out there CR. It just takes more work to find it. But part of the fun is in the search and getting there before the masses do.

I'd like to share some of those diamonds among the dirt with you, but then I'd have to kill you so you didn't tell it to the great unwashed nodding out in front of the latest season of "American Idol" and "The Simple Life."

I think Quarkhead hit the nail in the head when he noticed that



The absolute, total collapse of any standards in TV programming and popular culture in modern Russia (even more dramatic since they happened in a very short period of time - 15 years) shows that television is NOT a form of art - it's just a venue of mass entertainment, and without censorship which may keep the standards artificially inflated, the standards will fall as low as the standards of the viewing public. Unlike real art, TV and pop-culture is driven by profits; they will show whatever public is willing to pay for.

As far as censorship here in the States, here it is. Ouch....

In no circumstance is censorship acceptable. Silence has always been proven method at chaos, to ignore something is to deny its existence. So, therefore, the unspoken problem is the problem not being solved. As a society where we are allowed to say and do anything within reason of the law, we are entitled to know what is going on around us, anything less is simply wrong on the part of the media and those pulling the media's strings.

Healthy? Wrong. Anything I do not know now is another thing I will not be interested in later. Ergo, everything that is news should be accessible and the public as a whole should decide consequences or praise for the story. It should never be censored by anyone in order to save the public any grief or time. All information should be treated as such and it should be up to the individual to what use they will put it to.