This doesn't answer your question (other people have better insight than me), but here's an interesting aside with George Lucas talking about making films in the Soviet Union compared to America:
[In America] you cannot lose money. So, the point is, that you're forced to make a particular kind of movie. And I used to say this all the time when Russia was the Union. They'd say, "But oh aren't you so glad you're in America." And I'd say, "Well I know a lot of Russian filmmakers and they have a lot more freedom than I have." All they have to be careful of is how much they criticize the government. Otherwise they can do anything they want. [In America] you have to adhere to a very narrow line of commercialism.
It's a fun quote but I've never been confident of its accuracy tbh. Tarkovsky for example bumped up against Party censors on Andrei Rublev and the reasoning was pretty ridiculous
I think what it's saying is that the US censors content based on whatever will bring in as big of a profit as possible, where in USSR you could make a movie that loses money as long as the message was good.
That's how I interpreted it anyway. George is just saying he thinks the profit algorithm that determines what movies get made is more restrictive than USSR content moderation.
Yeah, I have no clue how accurate it is. It's an interesting way to contextualize how "freedom" doesn't really mean "freedom" in a capitalist market, though. It succinctly makes an important point about how much power capital can have independently of government.
This doesn't answer your question (other people have better insight than me), but here's an interesting aside with George Lucas talking about making films in the Soviet Union compared to America:
Link
It's a fun quote but I've never been confident of its accuracy tbh. Tarkovsky for example bumped up against Party censors on Andrei Rublev and the reasoning was pretty ridiculous
I think what it's saying is that the US censors content based on whatever will bring in as big of a profit as possible, where in USSR you could make a movie that loses money as long as the message was good.
That's how I interpreted it anyway. George is just saying he thinks the profit algorithm that determines what movies get made is more restrictive than USSR content moderation.
Yeah, I have no clue how accurate it is. It's an interesting way to contextualize how "freedom" doesn't really mean "freedom" in a capitalist market, though. It succinctly makes an important point about how much power capital can have independently of government.