Imagine watching a movie with your family and an intimate scene appears on screen to put you in an uncomfortable position. It’s never nice is it.
If you wish to have a way out of those awkward situations by getting a way to filter out the violence in gangster flicks and sex scenes, there is a streaming service that can act as your very own Pahlaj Nihalani and cut out all the content which your folks might find inappropriate.
As censorship is a major issue in present day India with the censor board officials discovering their inner sanskari side, Utah-based firm VidAngel does a far better job by censoring content as per the viewers wish, instead of making cuts which at times seem ridiculous, Quartz reported.
Launched in 2015, VidAngel allows home viewers to choose if they want to remove violence, nudity or offensive language, according to their own standards of morality. Through this a niche audience of conservative or religious families can get films which are already free from any content they would prefer not seeing in a mainstream movie.
Internal reviewers at VidAngel dissect the film and digitally tag scenes like those with drug use, profanity or violence, which viewers might find objectionable. Viewers can check filters they want to apply, before enjoying a film on VidAngel’s on-site player, Nasdaq reported.
Subscribers can then go through a Netflix style interface and purchase films or TV shows at $20 each, and even sell movies back to VidAngel, as $2 per day for HD movies and $1 per day for standard definition is deducted.
One of the most widely used filter has been one that removes Jar Jar Binks from Star Wars films, indicating that a lot of people do not like the character.
Co-founder Neal Harmon told Quartz that,
“We agree with Hollywood that the director should have the right to determine how their work is performed in a public setting, that’s free speech. That’s everything America’s about. [But] once you take something into your own home, it makes sense that nobody has the right to tell you how to consume something in your own home.”
While such a service does alter a filmmaker’s vision and raises concerns about what’s fair, it offers an alternative to censorship which decides what is appropriate for public viewing rather then let people decide what they want to see.