Lee Daniels Quotes

We don't have any rules about how we depict violence, or how much violence is in a movie. It's a calibration on a case-by-case basis.

A film has to maintain a certain decorum in order to be broadcast to a vast audience.

Censorship is a stupid thing. There should be certification, and not censorship. People are smart enough to understand that if a film is meant for kids, then kids will watch it and if a film is meant for adults, only adults will watch it.

In TV today, you can say I pricked my finger, but you can't say it the other way around.

We exercise great caution in airing an audio- or videotape released by a terrorist organization holding a hostage. These are decisions made by CNN's editorial staff and not by any third party.

I don't watch a lot of TV anymore. A lot of it isn't the kind of thing you can feel comfortable with watching with your kids. And I still feel that way even though, now, my kids are in their 30s.

Some of the most provocative TV that I'm inspired by is in the U.K. You guys take it for granted, but in America, we can't do it.

Loopy as the Motion Picture Association of America's ratings system is, it's better than what you'd probably get by putting such decisions in the federal government hands.

The only place we were really told to tone it down - where other people would use the word censorship, but I wouldn't - was when we did MTV right after the Beavis and Butt-head thing.

I don't think there's one thing I've ever said on the radio that would have been found indecent or obscene.

I'm not against ratings per se. I think more information is always good. But I certainly don't think the government has to step in and set guidelines for how shows should be rated.

Europe has a press that stresses opinions; America a press, radio, and television that emphasize news.

They're pretty particular about what they show. They certainly edit the scripts and have conversations with the writers about what they are and aren't willing to portray. But the writers and the network are pretty much on the same page.

It was like fighting with the MPAA... to me it was like this is an R easy... but it was NC 17 over and over and even with this cut they were like, you are right on the edge buddy, one more thing and it's NC-17.

The Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act of 2004 helps address the continuing degradation on the broadcast airwaves and helps send a clear message to the broadcast industry that Alabama families, like the rest of American families, have had enough.

What is acceptable in our culture, I think, is really detrimental. I think we ought to have a little more ownership over the kind of material and the content that we put in front of people, especially young people.

There are obviously legal restrictions on what you can do on TV in the States, as there are everywhere.

In the United States, viewers don't get to see a lot of things we can show in other countries. We didn't get to show our naked Twister game from Wild On Jamaica, but we definitely filmed it.

In the U.K., journalists are a little bit more ruthless than in Denmark. I have a feeling the tabloid press in the U.K. is pretty harsh.

Even a very brief tape-delay introduces a form of censorship into the broadcast - not direct governmental control, but it means that a network representative is in effect guessing at what a government might tolerate, which can be even worse.

They'll say, That's funny, but you can't do that on TV.

Television should be regulated like a toaster.

In deciding the ratings of the films, no consideration is given to artistic, technical or dramatic values. Only moral content is weighed.

The use of violence in movies is a subject that's worth addressing. I'm not standing on a soapbox or wagging a finger, but I'm interested in those subjects for sure.

I think it'd be great if the evening news broadcast, for instance, were unsponsored and unrated.