Research-Film Censorship Ms B

Film Censorship

film censorship is when a film is revised due too the content it shows. A film will either be banned or asked to be cut several times before the BBFC are happy with it. Going through the BBFC is a legal requirement for all films as they need to make sure that the contents of the film is appropriate for the chosen age rating. 

The British Broad Film Classification 
Their role is to protect the public from anything offensive or could cause any harm.
Decisions they make:
Age certificate for a film.They will need to ban it completely, cut or censor it depending on the content.

The things that get censored!
-Violence

-Sexual violence

                          


-Corrupt the young

-Sex and nudity

-Language

-Animal abuse

-Drug abuse

Banned-When a film is taken away from cinema viewing completely due to indecent, harmful or offensive material.
                                                       
An example of a film that got banned and still is in the UK today and many other countries is Mikey. The reason why it got banned is because there were many graphic scenes of torture and murder. Also the fact that two young boys tortured and murdered a toddler in 1993.

Another example of a film that got banned in many countries is The Exorcist. It was released in 1973 banned for horrifyingly scary and in some cases for religious.

 Also Natural born killers is another example  The film was about two lovers who embarked on a vicious murder spree. The movie was banned completely in Ireland, and denied distribution in the USA because the amount of blood and gore.

Cut-When a film is edited or has had a scene taken out , to make it appropriate for the viewing.

An example of a film that's been cut to suit its audience is Shrek 2, a scene where Cameron Diza's character headbutts prince charming has been changed to neck chop in the U.K version. This is because BBFC thought that children will copy and might try the headbutt where the neck chop is not so easy for them to try and do it.  

Venus in Furs  is another example ,was rejected in 1970 but later released in 1970 .

 Reasons for cuts - scenes of a graphical sexual nature

Forna vs Kermode

Don't Look Now: A case for censorship (Aminatta Forna)

1.  The power of the words and images on public. Freedom of expression is following.
2. Social stereotypes 'kkk'
3. TV adverts create an impact,public associate themselves with the characters they see.
4. Undesirable acts such as rape and illegal incidents encourages the audience to carry out these acts.
5. Manipulate human desires , seducing the audience.
6. Films start to break down barriers. A film about a woman getting raped then enjoying the rape.

Eyes Wide Open: A case against censorship(Mark Kermode)

1. Being told you can't and can watch,audience know the difference between right and wrong.
2. Fear of expression - freedom of speech
3. Sex /drugs/violence doesn't occur during the making of the films so there's no need to consor it.
4. The public should be able to distinguish between fiction and non-fiction.
5. Everyone has their own response to things not just a general emotion.
6.  Responsibility-policing film is impossible- are films encouraging people or just showing them realistic situations.

My Opinion;
Personally i think films should get censored because most  of the things we see is inappropriate even though there's age rating, its still not acceptable for the people to see people getting tortured or murdered and also corrupt the young minds. Just because its just its not real it doesn't mean its okay to watch it. If people keep watching these kind of films they'll get the idea that its fine when the situation occurs in real life and won't be as shocked due to these films they watch.Some of the female audience may have experience sexual violence's such as rape and may be effected by it and ,as some are watching it to entertain themselves.


Conclusion;

Overall film censorship and the BBFC made me think about some of the contents not to include in my thriller trailer and thinking about it carefully. Also what the age certificate for my thriller, For now I'm thinking the age would be 15 as i will need to discuss it with my group because we might decide to include some violence scenes.