Standards and Practices "The Mom Rule"

What if someone you liked did something that you thought crossed a line in an online video and no one said anything about it? What if other people embedded that "bad video" on their site and no one said anything about it? What if it was someone that millions of people worshiped and paid millions of dollars to go to their movies? Would you blow the whistle on them? Would you tell people about the bad thing they did in their video?

One good argument for having movie studios and TV networks is that they have lawyers and standards and practices people in place to guard against a producer's momentary laps in judgment or a comedian's lack of judgment in going for a laugh in dangerous territory. But as an independent producer you don't have the luxury of having 12 lawyers on your staff but what you do have is "The Mom Rule."

"The Mom Rule" is a simple rule used by a lot of people who just ask themselves, "Would I be okay showing this to my mom?" Now where you get into trouble is when you are knowingly creating something that your mom won't like, say, sexy girls jumping up and down on beds while having pillow fights. In cases like that you might want to substitute "mom" with a favorite aunt or your sister or someone who you think has good judgment but isn't too much of a square. Having some line in place and knowing what that line is, is really important. Especially if you are going to have advertisers.

Now as far as that bad thing in that movie star's video...

If you tell people about a movie star posting a video that you think crosses a line won't that just send more people to see that movie stars video?