Brüno, Market Forces, and Social Conservatives

While "bad word-of-mouth about the filthy flick sent its box office into a tailspin," some conservatives are doing their best to reverse that — 'Bruno' getting lifeline from right? Author Sonny Bunch explains:

It looks as if "Bruno" finally has shown just how far Hollywood can push audiences and the boundaries of taste before moviegoers push back. The cultural watchdogs on the right would do well to let this movie self-immolate instead of turning "Bruno" and Mr. Baron Cohen into free-speech martyrs.

The absolute worst thing conservatives could do would be to call for its banning, as Ted Baehr, founder of the Christian Film and Television Commission and publisher of its film branch, Movieguide, has done. The organization sent a letter to local government officials across the country asking them to ban the movie from their multiplexes.

The letter "asks officials to get an injunction against screening the movie … until officials can look at the movie and determine whether it should be banned because it does not fit the 'community standards' in their area, as defined by U.S. Supreme Court rulings on obscenity and pornography."

This is an extremely counterproductive course of action if Mr. Baehr is actually interested in getting fewer people to see the movie, as opposed to generating publicity by calling on the government to ban the film. Audiences already are voting with their wallets and their Twitter accounts against Mr. Baron Cohen's film; is there anything to be gained by whipping up publicity and encouraging cultural liberals to see the movie in an effort to stick it to the radical right?

The only real way to encourage studios to make fewer movies like "Bruno" is to show that they're money-losing propositions. Let the marketplace finish the work it started last weekend instead of calling for the heavy hand of government censorship.

That posted, I tend to support the idea of "local government officials" banning whatever they like from the communities they serve. When it comes to censorship and other forms of government meddling, I'm stricty a localist. Most of what I oppose the federal government doing I think localities should be free to do.