Warning: Parental Advisory (TV 2002)

The story of the 1985 Senatorial hearings to place "Warning: Parental Advisory" labels on music albums with "obscene" lyrics and themes - and the rockers who tried to fight it.

Director:

Mark Waters

Writer:

Jay Martel

Stars:

Jason Priestley, Mariel Hemingway, Dee Snider

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Jason Priestley	...	Charlie Burner
Mariel Hemingway	...	Tipper Gore
Dee Snider	...	Himself
Deborah Yates	...	Pamela Stone
Lois Chiles	...	Susan Baker
Tim Guinee	...	John Denver
Deborah Jolly	...	Shirley
Lee Burns	...	Andrew Norris
John S. Davies
Griffin Dunne	...	Frank Zappa
Jim Beatty	...	Al Gore
Richard Dillard	...	Senator Sam
Gail Cronauer	...	Sen. Paula Hawkins
Joe Berryman	...	Donald Bean
David Born	...	James Baker

Storyline

The story of the 1985 Senatorial hearings to place "Warning: Parental Advisory" labels on music albums with "obscene" lyrics and themes - and the rockers who tried to fight it.

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Plot Keywords:

heavy metal | censorship | music industry | 1980s | free speech | 

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Taglines:

Censorship is a dirty word.

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Genres:

Drama | Comedy | Music

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Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

21 April 2002 (USA)

Also Known As:

PMRC

Filming Locations:

Houston, Texas, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Charter Films Inc., Haft Entertainment, R.O.I. Films

Technical Specs

Runtime:

100 min

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.78 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Dee Snider's speech before the Senate is, word for word, the exact same speech he gave during the real Senate hearings in 1985.

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Goofs

Tipper Gore says she was dancing with her kids to Prince's "Let's Go Crazy", and comments on the lyrics of the next song, "Darling Nikki". Both songs appear on the soundtrack to Purple Rain, but the songs are tracks 1 and 5; they are not consecutive.

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Crazy Credits

During the final credits, the movie cuts back and forth between the video for the Twisted Sister song "We're Not Gonna Take It" and shots of the movie's cast and crew dancing and singing along with the song.

User Reviews

A Documentary Would be Better

I was somewhat interested in watching this movie, especially after seeing a little "Behind the Music"-esque VH1 show about the PMRC and Senate Hearing. Unfortunately, that 30 minute blurb was more interesting than this movie.

Warning: Parental Advisory fails for several reasons. First, it starts off wasting a LOT of time explaining the Blank Tape Tax the Record Industry was so interested in. This has some importance to the story but could have been simply explained quickly. During this waste of time we also have a "love interest" introduced for no good reason. I tuned in to see a dramatization of the events leading to those annoying stickers, not a predictable "love story".

Another big problem was that since they managed to get Dee Snider himself to appear the movie seems to be written around him. We get to hear Dee's entire speech. The real travesty of the movie is that they butchered the best speech of the whole affair: Frank Zappa's! If interested you should do a Google search to find a copy of this. I guess maybe he copywrited it and they could only use an excerpt.

The scenes involving the creation of the PMRC were ok, and in general, the movie moved along at an ok pace. The senate hearing itself should have taken up a LOT more time. The most important part of the story was rushed.

I guess VH1 felt like getting into the "fighting censorship" action by letting Dee Snider actually say "motherf***er" with no "bleep" or "mute". Ewwww, controversial!

Not.