MPAA Vows To Fight "Cultural Exception"

IMDB.com ^ | 24 October 2005

[paudio]

MPAA Chairman Dan Glickman has warned that his organization intends to wage a legal battle against a UNESCO convention passed last week that would allow countries to protect themselves against what they regard as a cultural invasion by America. "If countries start passing laws that are in contravention of World Trade Organization rules, there will be conflict," Glickman told a film industry conference in Beaune, France on Friday. He expressed concerns that some nations will use the UNESCO "cultural exception" to impose limitations on the number of U.S. films that can be distributed in their countries or to impose special taxes on films from abroad. Earlier, however, French Minister of Culture Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres told the convention that nothing less than his country's identity was a stake. "Our battle has nothing to do with [economic] protectionism," he said, pointing out that U.S. films already account for 85 percent of movie ticket sales worldwide.

[paudio]

Hmmm... Not everyday we see a battle between Hollywood and United Nations/French...

[gondramB]

I thought we didn't sign the thing.

[BenLurkin]

Let me get this straight.

Other nations want to protect their people from Hollywierd's tsunami of filth and garbage.

Hollywierd wants the one world government to step in andforce them to take their filth and garbage.

Personally, I hope Hollywierd loses this one.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

"If countries start passing laws that are in contravention of World Trade Organization rules, there will be conflict," Glickman told a film industry conference in Beaune, France on Friday.

Apparently the MPAA has decided to adopt the RIAA's business model of suing its customers to get what it wants.

[penowa]

This will end up being a battle between the US gov't and UNESCO. Hollywood seems to be the only industry in US with enough political pull to get our gov't to try to pressure UN or the WTO or any of the world organizations to protect them. It's ok if the rest of the world steals products, passes laws against our products, dumps stuff here below price of production, etc., but NOT ok to rip off Hollywood!

[NewJerseyJoe]

>> French Minister of Culture Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres told the convention that nothing less than his country's identity was a stake.

If the French truly are concerned about their "country's identity," they would do well to pay heed to their most rapidly-growing ethnic group........

[weegee]

Hollywood/America never made the filthiest/sleaziest movies on the planet. But they do step in to copy the forumula when other films proved successful.

42nd Street exploitation fare like Emmanuelle In America, Cannibal Holocaust, and Thriller/They Call Her One Eye are all foreign films.

Unfortunately such X/"un"rated films can now be found at Borders and Best Buy rather than the grimey part of town.

Even the rise in gun play in American films can be traced to the excesses of John Woo's Hong Kong films.

If the people in those other countries want to see American films, they should be permitted to do so.

How does the rest of the world treat music? I know that Canada has set asides for percents of radio time for Canadian artists.

[paudio]

We'll see. Hollywood artists now may have to choose: their bank accounts or their 'works for the humanity'...

[Durus]

You got it crooked. The "one world government" you mention has determined that they must stop the spread of American "culture" to promote "diversity". Despite your obvious disdain for the products of Hollywood (and I tend to agree with you) the treaty states that they can control what people in the member states can see and hear which is plainly tyrannous.

Don't let your disgust with Hollywood to blind you to the importance of the free exchange of ideas, literature, music, and films.

[MARKUSPRIME]

Yep anything to stamp our american culture or influence.This time I side with Hollywood.

[doc30]

With the degenerate cr@p that comes out of hollywood, can you blame foreign nations from wanting to block it? After all, this is the stuff that generates the impressions of America around the world. Maybe that's why 'they' hates us so much? They think we are all equally represented by that same Hollywood rubbish.

[traviskicks]

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[traviskicks]

From:
http://www.ejectejecteject.com/archives/000017.html
When France passes laws saying that some minimal percentage of their television programming must be produced in France, then that is an admission – and it must be, if you will pardon the pun, a galling one – that huge numbers of their people prefer our culture over their own.
You don’t have to have the vast intellectual reserves of a French Minister of Culture to understand why our movies and music have such appeal abroad. They are, more often than not, each small ambassadors of freedom and optimism. From James Dean to Brad Pitt, Americans are cool; cool because they don’t spend their evening sitting around bumming cigarettes and discussing global warming. They have bad guys to fight and motorcycles to ride, vast stretches of open road to get lost in and a disdain for any authority whatsoever. Where the European hero is a deeply conflicted soul lost in an existentialist nightmare, the American counterpart is a member of a rag-tag group of Rebels flying out to destroy the Death Star. Or a no-nonsense cop who plays by his own rules. Or an ordinary person, who, as the result of chance (Spider-Man), determination (Batman) or accident of birth (Superman), uses amazing personal power to aid the weak and fight evil.
These are our myths. They lack the patina of history that elevates those of the Greeks and Norse and countless other mythologies. But they are not created in a vacuum. These stories come from our common heritage and our common beliefs. Our heroes are what we make them, and for this country, the most successful have been young men and women thrust into extraordinary circumstances, who fight evils and monsters and never, ever use their powers for personal gain.
Yes, these are fantasies. No, of course real Americans are not so altruistic. But these are the standards we create for ourselves, and these American heroes represent what we represent as a nation. Action over endless discussion and moral paralysis. Rebellion against authority. Defense of the weak and helpless. And most of all, the optimism of the happy ending.