Discussion on the DVXFest submission acceptance policy

[Tim Joy]

I think anyone who gets offended should be banned.
What ever happened to, "sticks and stones can break my bones, but words will never hurt me' ???

Lighten up people! The internet is NOTORIOUS for messages being misinterpreted. It happens everyday on this forum. I think this goes for films too, especially when they're online, it makes it easier to lose the message or intent. These are people from all over the world, and have very different viewpoints and different definitions about what is 'right' or 'wrong', then YOU go and judge their work based on your own moral code and get your panties in a bunch. It's just NOT WORTH IT.

Imagine how much longer the review process would take if the mods had to look for 'offensive content', debate it...etc. x 50+ entries! I don't want to wait the few days it takes now, let alone the week+ that process would take.

[ramsaur]

Originally Posted by Jason Ramsey

sorry ramasaur... I know it looks like that was directed at you now... it wasn't was to another member who now deleted their posts....

I've edited it out, so it doesn't look like I was yelling at you

later,
jason

oh haha, well my post wasn't much anyways. Thanks for letting me know.

[Darkline]

Without knowing what the film was, it's hard to comment. Are we saying the film in question had a racist/sexist/anythingist offensive title? Or was it just politically incorrect somehow?

I'd like to see it if possible.

[Jack Daniel Stanley]

Originally Posted by Darkline

Without knowing what the film was, it's hard to comment. Are we saying the film in question had a racist/sexist/anythingist offensive title?

Yes to number 1.

Originally Posted by Darkline

Or was it just politically incorrect somehow?

Yes again in content.

Originally Posted by Darkline

I'd like to see it if possible.

Best publicity ever right? I think Jason was showing it to people by request. Not sure though. PM him.

[Darkline]

lol. I'm really curious now. Of course I know the final thing will be trash, but consider me suckered.

I'm dead against censorship but this is your forum guys, and I've seen people banned for less. If it's a personal attack on a forum member I'd remove it, but if its a general social brushoff I'd say let the public decide.

its a real grey area, most festivals don't have to deal with this simply because they all have a selection process. But of course that goes against what this fest is about. Perhaps if you stick with that policy then you should be allowing 'anything' through as long as it fits the rules, otherwise the 'we will screen every film submitted' part of the fest could become blurry as time goes on.

[Darkline]

I just got the link and realised I had already seen it, I had no idea it was the offending film, so that says a lot about me....

still if they can get away with :

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1289414/

then this was pure in comparison.

[Jack Daniel Stanley]

No one on this side of the pond knows what "flid" means. I had to Google. So it's hard for us to make a comparison.

[Jack Daniel Stanley]

Re titles and cultural significance: (as in flid just being a nonsense word to most here) The title "Spicula" is offensive as "Spic" is the Mexican equavalient in the U.S. for the "N-word" so it's not the same as Blackula. It's Equivalent woul be "Nigula". We did include though despite the title and even though it just showed a guy jumping over the border and biting people on the neck and running off going aye yi yi yi yi - the equivalent of a a black guy running around going ugabooga. Despite the title and content, we included it for all the reasons you mentioned. We would let the voice of the members make itself known as to whether or not they were offended and to what degree.

The answer varied. From the one member, a Mexican American (legal) Immigrant, who was highly and very personally offended, to a number of others that were less personally, but socially offended and thought the film should absolutely not have ever been allowed, to those that didn't get what the big fuss was over.

The decision was only made to pull the film AFTER its makers abandoned its thread and showed no interest in participating in a discussion of their film. If they don't care about it enough to hang around, why continue to screen such a contentious downer. The principle of no censorship served no purpose at that point, so might as well stop offending people.

It's not like the film has a life of its own and gets some benefit from being screened. Only the filmmakers benefit from having it screened, and if they don't care enough to hang out and get feedback, then why keep it.

[dsto]

I never saw the thread or the film. I really have no desire to. This is not my site. I am a guest here. I do not have a problem letting the mods make a call on something like this. If it ever came down to something other than socially acceptable material being culled from the herd, I think that this community would make its displeasure known. Who would stick around if it was something other than enforcing acceptable social behavior.

[Darkline]

I think that's fair if they abandoned the thread.

However, there are films on IMDB with the n-word in the title, but that doesn't mean it's ok here.

Flid, certainly in the UK is a very offensive word and I would say more malicious than the entry here because the film's title (kung fu) is making a cheap joke of the disability as well as using the offensive term for the disability (your equivalent may be 'kung fu retard'). But that isn't to say 'spicula' is free from criticism.

I don't envy the decision you're going to have to make. Obviously the film would never make it past any pre-selection in an outside festival simply on quality grounds, but as you don't judge on that basis this decision is more about setting the guidelines for the future, than singling out one short.

The problem with going down the route of censoring is that it's always going to be a subjective decision on what is considered offensive - as your feedback has already shown. If race jokes are offensive, is religion or sexuality? it becomes very grey. What if the title is offensive but the content could somehow reverse it and make some kind of social statement? Then content and title are linked but you arn't allowed to judge on content...so

Not easy. :-/