ENGAGING CULTURE

I try to keep this site clean and family friendly. To me, that means avoiding profanity and sexual content, and trying to keep violence to a minimum. I do this as a service for my readers, knowing that many of them object to such content, or are offended by it. However, personally I don’t mind violence, though it does wear on me if used gratuitously. I’m not personally bothered by profanity though I hate it when they make child actors curse or curse in children’s movies. And I can tolerate some sexual content, especially if it is humorous and not erotic, and as long as it doesn’t cross the line to becoming pornography.

I make this distinction because it seems that the latest showbiz bandwagon to be on is to release red band trailers. Most trailers are still “green band,” they have an all-green graphic at the beginning of the trailer, usually reading “The following PREVIEW has been approved for ALL AUDIENCES by the Motion Picture Association of America,” and sometimes including the movie’s MPAA rating. This signifies that the trailer adheres to the standards outlined by the MPAA, which includes limitations on foul language and violent, sexual, or otherwise objectionable imagery. But trailers that do not adhere to these guidelines may be issued a “red band”, which reads “The following PREVIEW has been approved for RESTRICTED AUDIENCES ONLY by the Motion Picture Association of America.”

After the release of the Federal Trade Commission’s report on movie marketing in 2000, exhibitors (a.k.a. movie theaters) decided to stop showing red band trailers. In response, studios stopped creating these trailers because they would never get screened. But then the Internet changed everything and gave studios a new venue. Currently, when we see a red band trailer on a movie website, we are generally forced to enter our age, giving our digital consent to the viewing of the objectionable content, and hopefully hindering the wandering eyes of the seven-year-old that has clicked a few links from PBSKids.org.

The popularity and effective marketing of these trailers (why should a raunchy adult comedy have to produce a PG-rated trailer?) has caused at least one theater chain, Regal Cinemas, to rethink its stance on red band trailers. In March they announced that they would begin showing red band trailers before R and NC-17 or films that are unrated. So since that time the studios have been cranking out these red band trailers left and right. A few upcoming films have only released red band trailers, which I think is a good move considering their target audience. And some of these movies look worthy of some attention, and their trailers have significantly raised my excitement for those films.

Because I want this to be a family-friendly site I will avoid embedding these trailers, and out of respect for the film, I will not embed the all-audiences trailer that doesn’t do justice to the films R-rated content. Primarily, I want you to be aware of what is going on, and to know what you are getting into when you set out to watch one of these films. From now on, I will include links to these red band trailers on other sites, such links will be [in brackets] and bold and red in color. If the post is devoted to the description or review of one of these films I will include the words Red Band in the title of the post. I will do my best to tell you what to expect so you can make the choice in keeping with your conscience. Thank you for enduring this rather lengthy and informational announcement.

What do you think about red band trailers? Should R and above rated movies be encouraged to produce this type of trailer to let the viewer be more aware of content? Do you think I’m a heretic for linking to such “naughty” sites? Let me know with your comments.