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Filmmaking : The Rights Of The Film And First Amendment Rights

Decent Essays
Filmmaking is an increasingly popular form of creative expression, and with expression comes offensive material. Because of this, films have a long history with governments all around the world. In the United States, this presents a unique issue. One of our government’s attributes that we are most proud of is our right to free speech, granted to us by our first amendment. This means that citizens can say whatever they would like about anything or anyone, including their federal, state, and local governments, without fear of legal retaliation from those governments. This grants a tremendous amount of power to the citizens, and as we all know, with great power comes great responsibility. In the filmmaker’s case, this responsibility, in the federal government’s eyes, was to create films suitable for all ages and mental capacities. Film producers had contrasting views, as one might expect. Filmmakers believed that their work should be protected under the first amendment, as it is a form of speech, but as Albosta says in his paper, “The Supreme Court has held that this does not protect all forms of communication” (Albosta, 2009, p.122). Unfortunately for film, they were originally excluded from the protection of the first amendment. Over the years the view on first amendment rights regarding to film changed. The reasoning behind the exclusion of protection was decided in a 1968 New York court case. The case decided the state did not act irrationally in the withholding of a
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