Sanitizing a Film Is Not Censorship

I was surprised and dismayed by John Balzar criticizing those who are earnestly trying to clean up films (“Censorship Chews a Hole in Our Cultural Fabric,” Commentary, Sept. 29). His technique of equating editing films with editing great writings like Ernest Hemingway’s is a joke. There is no comparison here. Films are entertainment in about 99% of the cases, and you never hear the directors complaining about films shown on airplanes, all of which have been modified in one way or another.

Those of us who do not need to hear the F-word one more time and who can do without meaningless blood and gore (please let us use our imaginations!) are happy that somebody is doing something about cleaning up films.

Now the directors could take a cue here. They usually film about six takes per scene, and one of those could be the G- or PG-type scene. Thus, a film could be distributed as both a G- or PG- and an R-rated film at the same time. What a simple way to increase revenues.

David Seale

Santa Clarita