I have to say, I will always think of Jack Valenti as a reactionary obstructionist. Many of you young uns probably aren't even AWARE of how videotape recorders frightened the film industry so much when they were new that Valenti and crew tried to get them banned, lest the film industry suffer. He thought of the machines in the way file sharing programs are considered by the RIAA today. He actually wanted VCR manufacturers to pay royalties to the studios.
He was also SO threatened by the success of Deep Throat that he put together the nefarious MPAA ratings board to make sure that mainstream Hollywood films from the '70s on would not have the sort of mature sexual frankness that would inevitably followed in the wake of porno chic.
But as Bette Davis is alleged to have said upon being told of the passing of Joan Crawford: "I was always told not to say anything of the dead if you can't say anything nice. She's dead. How nice."
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