In print | February 23, 2006

One consistent perk of being a Swarthmore student has been the ability to see fairly current movies for free most weekends. Due to last month’s warnings from the Motion Picture Association of America and Swank Motion Pictures, the number of movies shown will decrease and student groups will have less freedom to show movies at events. The expanded powers and budget of the Student Movie Committee will be helpful in securing more film showing licenses, but it is doubtful that the budget will cover the every weekend screenings that have occured in the past.

Movie screenings at Swarthmore are more than a weekend occurance. Student groups from SWIL to SIR have used movies as fun social events or to popularize new advocacy. Making these groups go through another filter, the Movie Committee, in order to get funding, will probably reduce the number of movies these groups show and may politicize the progress. What criteria will that determine who recieves the limited movie funding resources? Historically, SAC has tried not to fund events with a political agenda. Will the same principle apply to the funding of films? Groups may also find themselves in murky territory if they are not sure whether enough people will show up to merit the acquisition of a money license.

Throughout this year, Swarthmore has made reforms to ensure that college money does not go towards illegal purposes, such as the revision of the alcohol policy. However, despite the MPAA warnings, we are dubious that further action would have been taken against a school as small as Swarthmore. The letter Swarthmore recieved was a clarification of copyright law that may have went out to dozens of other colleges and organizations.

If Swarthmore does feel compelled to alter its movie screening policy, perhaps an alternate way of funding would streamline and democratize the process. Students often will avoid going through the extra hoop of applying for event funding, so the new policy may either result in a decrease in movies shown or continued violation of the new policy. Instead, student groups could apply for funding for movie licenses at the begining of each semester and allocate this money to different films throughout the semester without having to apply for seperate film proposals each time they want to show a movie.

« RETURN TO OPINIONS

« PREV ARTICLE | NEXT ARTICLE »