Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!snorkelwacker!mit-eddie!thakur
From: bryan@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.cinema
Subject: Re: `Flamingo' flap tickles producer pink
Message-ID: <24878.26948a05@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu>
Date: 9 Jul 90 17:44:24 GMT
References: <1990Jul6.104902.5993@eddie.mit.edu>
Sender: thakur@eddie.mit.edu (Manavendra K. Thakur)
Reply-To: bryan@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu
Followup-To: rec.arts.cinema
Organization: University of Kansas Academic Computing Services
Lines: 39
Approved: thakur@zerkalo.harvard.edu


In article <1990Jul6.104902.5993@eddie.mit.edu>, john@semi.harris.com (John M. Blasik) writes:
...
> MBI sent a 14-year-old girl into American Video Network at 2053
> American Blvd. to rent the movie after the complaint.  They showed it
> to Orange Circuit Judge Bernard Muszynski who ruled it could be
> obscene.  The MBI then showed it to the grand jury, which indicted the
> store owner Steve Zlatkiss on two charges.  The most serious was a
> felony, distribution of obscene material to minors.
...
> "MBI ought to use tax dollars to fight real crime, because we have
> plenty of it," said Jane Gerhadt, a store owner

I guess I don't understand why the people who were offended to begin
with didn't complain to the store rather than to MBI.  I'm no great
champion of free enterprise, but it seems like the best place to hit a
store would be some kind of boycott rather than a bunch of stupid
legal action.

I'm also betting that they won't get far with the case.  If the Miller
v. California standards hold, the prosecution will have a hard time
proving _PF_ is obscene when MOMA owns a copy of it.

> "All this does for me is make my lecture fee go up.  Thanks for the
> publicity on a 20-year-old film people were starting to forget in the
> first place," Waters said.

Waters was here in Lawrence just prior to the release of _Hairspray_.
I went to pick him up at the airport and spent some time with him
before introducing his lecture.  He was amusing, but didn't contribute
anything earth-shattering in his lecture.

He wrote an essay on his battles with the Maryland Censor Board, which
is quite funny, certainly worth a read.  I believe it's in _Shock
Value_, but it might be in _Crackpot_.  Both books are worth reading.
And for the real hard-core Waters buff, he's published an anthology of
three screenplays as well.

					- Bryan