Politics & Power Quote by Todd Solondz

Solondz is doing that sly thing he does in his films: pretending to shrug while sliding the knife in. The first move is procedural and almost bureaucratic: “it’s explicit.” He’s not arguing about taste or morals; he’s pointing to the clarity of the power structure. Censorship isn’t a vibe here, it’s a policy with borders and age gates. By framing it as “what the censors say American citizens…are not permitted to see,” he shifts the debate from protecting children to managing citizens. That word choice matters: “citizens” invokes rights, not just consumers or kids, and it makes the restriction feel civic, almost constitutional.

Then he lands the most embarrassing fact about American media regulation: it’s not even globally coherent. “Even though it can be seen by other people all over the world” turns domestic prohibition into a kind of provincial theater. The irony is that the U.S. can project itself as a cultural exporter while treating its own audience like a special case that needs sheltering. Solondz is highlighting hypocrisy without sermonizing.

“I suppose you could call it a political statement” is classic deadpan camouflage. He knows it is political; the pose of reluctance is the point. Artists often get punished for being “political,” so he frames the politics as an unavoidable byproduct of distribution and classification systems. The subtext: my work didn’t become political because I waved a flag; it became political because someone in authority decided you can’t watch it. In Solondz’s world, the scandal is rarely the sex or violence on screen. It’s the anxious machinery behind the curtain deciding what adulthood is allowed to be.