Raphael Bob-Waksberg Quotes

Film is such a powerful medium. It's like a weapon and I think you have a duty to self-censor.

I never understood why movies don't have to be as responsible, or the responsibility stops with Rated R. I feel like music, you gotta - you put the sticker on it, you make the clean version, then you're explaining yourself, and then you have to do charities to offset what you just said. No one else has to do this!

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.

The notion of artistic responsibility begs questions with no satisfactory conclusions, the most inevitable and ineffectual being that we should just keep thinking and talking about it, given that the alternative - a governmental body monitoring the movies we make and see - is unacceptable.

Movies these days have made killers into funny people. What's that all about? I've got kids and family and friends, and I don't like bad things. I don't think they're funny, and it's irresponsible to make movies that don't show you how that's not good.

We have pleaded to the entertainment industry to raise their standards and protect our children.

I do have a responsibility, but I would make the most boring films in the world if I woke up every morning worrying about my social responsibility.

If it's something that you are opposed to or you don't want your children or family to see, then do not watch it, and the market can send a message.

We in the media accept the responsibility of what we do.

Regarding the responsibility that a director has to society, first of all, there are ratings. There's freedom to make films, and freedom to watch them or not. It's not like I take those films to a school and force kids to watch them.

The media doesn't need a conscience; people need consciences.

I don't spend my hours worrying how to slip a social message into my act.

We need to police ourselves in the media.

I've been involved with violent movies, and then I've also said at a certain point, 'I can't take it anymore. Please cut it.' You know, you've got to respect the filmmaker, and it's a really tough issue.

In a day when broadcasters and publishers have rather free access into our homes, we must seek clean, uplifting entertainment, whether on television, videos, movies, magazines, books, and other printed material. We should be very selective and choose only those things that meet the test of being virtuous, lovely, of good report, or praiseworthy.

'...all the faults of the age come from Christianity and journalism

The press ... is but the servant of human intellect and its ministry is for good or evil, according to the character of those who direct it. The press is a mill that grinds all that is put into its hopper. Fill the hopper with poisoned grain and it will grind it to meal, but there is death in the bread.

We have to ask people who produce things [entertainment] to consider their consequence—especially with children.

We do not fear censorship for we have no wish to offend with improprieties or obscenities, but we do demand, as a right, the liberty to show the dark side of wrong, that we may illuminate the bright side of virtue—the same liberty that is conceded to the art of the written word, that art to which we owe the Bible and the works of Shakespeare.

Even in an enlightened democracy, the media have to check themselves to make sure they are not contributing to an unnecessary mass hysteria.

Beyonce may be a gifted entertainer, but no one should really care what she thinks about any serious issue confronting our nation.

I was forced to say, 'I will not censor the Internet.' But I was never convinced.

I think there's a difference between calling people out and understanding the role that the press plays in a free society.

I turn down a lot of movies because sometimes they glamorize violence or the darker side of sex or criminality.

On Broadway, there is no censoring, just self-censorship and doing what makes sense.