LOS ANGELES, Jan. 26, 2012 — No sooner had YouTube been forced by massive public outcry to reverse their own censorship of the preview waterboarding scene from The Last War Crime movie, now MTV is refusing to accept even a paid ad for the film, reports writer and director The Pen. The Last War Crime is a full feature-length movie about indicting Cheney for torture. "And isn't that something billions of people want to see?" asks Pen. Already thousands of protest messages are pouring into the main corporate headquarters of MTV's parent company, as evidenced on the new action page.
Action Page: http://www.lastwarcrime.com
The proposed ad is a 10-second video intended for MTV's 44.5 high-definition screen in Times Square. Pen exclaims, "The thing that was so astonishing about MTV's rejection of our ad was they made it so clear that it represented censorship of the The Last War Crime movie itself. Their ad manager actually had the temerity to demand a synopsis of the film the instant they heard its title." There's a link on the action page to the actual email exchange in which MTV makes these admissions in writing:
The Pen: "Must MTV approve the underlying content of a movie to accept an ad for that movie (you asked me to tender a synopsis)?"
MTV: "Yes"
The Pen: "Does that not implicate some kind of possibly arbitrary political censorship?"
MTV: "Yes"
Pen complains, "The Supreme Court in the Citizens United decision ruled in essence that money and free speech are the same thing, a further radical escalation in the crowning of corporations in the form of super-Pacs as a kind of super people. Except that even if you have the money, if the corporations don't approve of your message you cannot even BUY 'free' speech."
The First Amendment to the Constitution guarantees that the government "shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech." But Pen reasonably asks, "What happens when the corporations control our entire government from top to bottom, even to the point of writing all our laws, word for word, drafted to their specifications through their lobbyists and revolving door former executives? Must they not also be held to the same free speech protection standards, especially as to a movie like this which addresses vital public policy issues?"
Now that MTV's parent company is facing an avalanche of thousands of personal protest messages, Pen anticipates, "We would not be surprised if MTV tried to make some other excuse why they cannot take our ads. The last word we got was they were throwing around words like 'disturbing,' as if the most disturbing thing was not one of the largest media conglomerates on the planet self-appointing themselves as public discourse censor. We didn't pick this fight, and we are certainly not walking away from it."
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