Censorship: the great debate

I agree wholeheartedly with your comments, Mike. I, too, despise censorship.

Richard Booth

"The entire concept of suppressing certain images, subjects or opinions contravenes the notion of freedom of speech." Good point there Mike regarding. I've not thought of it this way before. It's surprises me now you bring it up more people haven't complained about this. Should however (fake) bestiality and paedophilia be allowed? Two subjects I think we can all agree are absolutely disgusting. Would we be allowing people to get off on said content extra fuel if they were allowed to see material such as this? I agree with the sentiment and whole heartily agree with most of your points. Especially: "The notion that these boards are better equipped to decide what a viewer can "handle" than the viewer him/herself is patronising and reeks of abuse of power." Especially when you think the idea that content so strong would either make us all sex maniacs or murders surely means that all censors are going to be both at one time of their lives. Clearly there are none to very few censors in jail. They've presumably seen footage far were than any of the general public has ever seen.

bradavon

The form of censorship that sickens me the most is the greed based censorship studios impose on films. At least now with DVD they are eventually often releasing movies in their proper form on DVD.

Batou

Just to clarify, are you against censorship as in the banning or cutting of certain films? Or censorship as in the BBFC/MPAA/OFLC ratings to limit certain material from younger audiences? Or both?

nwatts

Personally I think even the age thing is a rather thorny subject. I remember as a kid being extremely frustrated at age ratings because they meant that I had to wait for films I wanted to see to come out on video. But then again I was always pretty mature as a child and at times had even been known to complain that I couldn't vote too so I wasn't exactly the type that ratings existed for. On the surface it seems that age restrictions should be acceptable, after all they don't prevent a film from being released, trouble is that the economics of the film industry often means that age ratings amount to de facto censorship, studios are aware that if the MPAA gives a film an NC17 rating it pretty much spells death at the box office so they're encouraged to censor the film in order to achieve a lower rating and make money out of it. To be fair they're beginning to make up for this with 'unrated' DVDs but even this doesn't always happen - personally I'll despise the censors until I find out how Giles' car managed to magically get itself started on the Buffy episode Dead Man's Party.

J.O

A few replies: Bradavon: Quote: Should however (fake) bestiality and paedophilia be allowed? Two subjects I think we can all agree are absolutely disgusting. Would we be allowing people to get off on said content extra fuel if they were allowed to see material such as this? It's a very tricky issue, but ultimately I feel that it should be allowed if it can be proved beyond any doubt that no actual animals or children have been harmed. I have no desire to watch such material, but there are many who do, and let's put it this way: I'd far rather they got their jollies from watching a harmless DVD than going out and doing the real thing. Many studies have shown that pornography can act as a release, and statistics also show that countries in which pornography is restricted tend to have higher rates of sexual assault, so I think we could arguably include paedophilia and bestiality in that category. (Of course, if it is found that the filmmakers involved real children or animals, then those responsible should be dealt with in the appropriate manner.) nwatts: Quote: Just to clarify, are you against censorship as in the banning or cutting of certain films? Or censorship as in the BBFC/MPAA/OFLC ratings to limit certain material from younger audiences? Or both? I personally don't have a problem with ratings, but I do think that they should be advisory rather than mandatory. Every child matures at a different rate and has different tolerance levels. When I was growing up, there was an unwritten "anything up to a 15 is fine, but no 18s" rule in my house, and therefore I saw a lot of 15-rated stuff before I was even 10 years old, with my parents' complete consent. I don't think it did me any harm. Of course, I can't say that this would be the case for all children, so ultimately I think the parent should be the one who chooses. One solution that I've often considered would be to do away with age-based ratings and give each film a rating based on violence, drug abuse, etc. Therefore, for example, a film could receive a rating of 2/5 for violence but 5/5 for strong language. Little Bobby's parent's have no problem with him being exposed to colourful language but they're a little more concerned about language, so they can take him to see this film, which is fairly mild in the blood and guts department. I'm not 100% convinced that a system like this would work (after all, I still think you would need some sort of system in place to prevent young children buying tickets for any movie they like) but I think that it would be more sensible and would provide a better idea of the film's content than the old age-rated scheme.

Michael Mackenzie

Censorship is awful, we're not in Communist Russia any more. (Not to say I'm Russian ;))

Downfall

So the Hays code and BBFC were Russian inventions,eh? Damn Commies!

tokyomonkey

So much to say on this subject, I've been studying it for twenty years now.... All I'll say for the moment is that the BBFC is more lenient now than it has been in over a decade, despite one or two very public decisions, and they have a younger, more film-educated generation of Viewers working for them who take the time to familiarise themselves with genres they are new to. Regardless of the broader issues Michael's raised, the Board is here for the moment, which need to wait until there are changes in the wider political climate, I have to say they're doing a better job than past regimes have done.

Hugh K.David

It's a thorny one alright. I for one fall on the anti-censorship side, but obviously there are limits to what I would show my child. At a yound age I was allowed to watch some pretty racy/scary movies by my parents, but by all accounts the two that immediately spring to mind are considered classics (Wicker Man and Midnight Cowboy). I therefore have no problem with someone of more tender years (10+ say) watching this if they think they can handle it. I think the quality of the film in question has as much to do with it as anything else therefore. Pulp Fiction is violent and the language very colourful, but would I deny a child of the age mentioned above watching it since it clearly is a movie that needs to be watched at some point in ones life? Although I've not seen it, the buzz I'm getting about 9 Songs is it isn't actually that good a movie to begin with. I therefore see no point in exposing a young person to sex scenes if it's a rubbish film in the first place.

Gavin Kagan

I'm personally not a big fan of the "artistic merit" argument which suggests that the same content that would otherwise be considered unacceptable somehow becomes justified if the film in which it appears is considered good (which, as we all know, is very subjective anyway). I agree that there are some things that young kids shouldn't see (especially immature ones), but if I had any little brats, I would far rather they watched something like 9 Songs, which features some harmless rumpy-bumpy, than Pulp Fiction which, to an undeveloped mind, could be seen to glamorize gun culture, hard drugs and even (to some extent) racism.

Michael Mackenzie

Michael: Then you obviously don't understand how sensitive children are towards glamourised sex in comparison to that of glamourised violence. Violence is a facet of society that is introduced at a stupidly young age. Every kid knows what a gun is, and would know where to pull in case of fire! Where as sex is something that they learn and experience when they're far older, and (hopefully) mature enough to realise what it is. Letting a youngin' watch the likes of a Tarantino film won't impact them to anywhere near the depth of something from the likes of Michael Winterbottom. The point you mentioned regarding 'artistic merit' is pretty good though, and one I agree with. A rubbish film with an excess of sex is porn! Add some colourful lighting and widescreen cameras it becomes art! Hrmm... My ONLY problem with censorship is that it is limited only to film, and not other artforms. Last week's art gallery visit (i'm a fairly frequent gallery-hopper) confronted me with two, huge, rather overweight women, completely naked, photographed in as many different poses that you could imagine. It's not that I have a problem with artistic expression, it's just that if that is not banned, why was Anatomy of Hell (here in Australia). I personally believe that there are some elements of society that shouldn't be promoted (and I see negative promotion still a form of promotion, Requiem for a Dream was fairly anti-drug, but it sure did introduce me to a world of underground sex and drugs that I was otherwise ignorant to), but should be censored or banned. But that's just me. I can't work out whether i'm a raving liberal or a concieted convserative. Today, I fall on the right! But tomorrow I may be marching to promote freedoms to all!

nwatts

Quote: Michael: Then you obviously don't understand how sensitive children are towards glamourised sex in comparison to that of glamourised violence. I guess it depends on whether or not you consider that to be a problem. :D Statistically, countries that expose children to sex at an earlier age have a lower rate of teenage pregnancies - evidenced by the fact that the UK, which arguably has the most restrictive sex policy in Europe (both for film and in a general sense) has the highest teenage pregnancy rate, versus the Netherlands, where children are taught about sex as soon as they start school and the teen pregnancy rate is one of the lowest in Europe. I'm not saying that watching a film is the same thing as a decent educational system - I just don't think that there is much of a case for exposing kids to sex being a bad thing.

Michael Mackenzie

Exposing and teaching are different things. :)

nwatts

I wasn't implying that you get away with sex, drug use, violence etc by wrapping it up in a nice bow and calling it "art". I was just saying that "quality" shines through no matter what, and therefore if something has merit no matter what the content, it shouldn't be banned simply because it contains something that some people might find distasteful. Therefore filmakers should continue to push the boundaries of what is acceptable (all credit to Micheal Winterbottom), but 10 years from now will anyone remember 9 Songs?

Gavin Kagan

I think people probably will remember 9 Songs, although perhaps not for the film itself so much as the boundaries it broke in getting an 18 certificate. I suspect that we're going to see a lot of filmmakers saying "But look what you allowed in 9 Songs - why can't I do that?"

Michael Mackenzie

In my home I censor the things my two daughters are allowed to see. And some bits in movies get skipped on dvd (great invention dvd that is ). But I think that it is my duty as a parent to make sure that my kids get to see things they can handle. I don't see any goverment or filmstudio as a parent, I want to decide for myself what to see. And if I don't like it it is my decision.:cool:

chimera01

Chimera, has got it exactly right. Parent's should be the one's doing the actual censorship, all the government should be doing is providing enough detailed and clear information to the parents so that they can make that choice (ie classification and enforcing the ratings boxes etc) However the obvious argument against this, is that are parents responsible enough? And that's tricky...personally I think parenting isn't as good as it used to be. Too much random blaming of anything but themselves for their kids bad behavious.

cjb110

looks like i've discovered this debate too late, but for what it's worth, i think Mr. Mackenzie has put it perfectly. i am in complete agreement with him on the issue of censorship. this was a very interesting debate, and i only wish such discussions actually had some effect on policies in real life. :rolleyes:

ajji