Censorship Discussion - Logic Wins

[vincenzo]

I'm afraid not, Mr Brazier - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7270882.stm

[bedorca]

You beat me to it by a couple of hours Vincenzo!!
Fantastic news. Up yours Brazier

[herman]

I think shameless screen are playing a pretty dangerous game with their cover art.

Unfortunately there seems to be a strong possibility of the next election returning a conservative government and since they have an ideology that is based largely on the premise that the masses are easily corruptable we could well face a Video Recordings Act mark 2.

I have a few newspaper clippings here regarding the censorship years and raids on people selling films with (and this is from the article) such lurid titles as Lizard In A Womans Skin (ooo the horror of it all), wonder what such tory no marks would make of "the slut is uncut" or "the bitch with the switch"

For all their faults (and by gods there are many) New Labour in 1997 got a culture secretary who actually liked films and we emerged blinking out of a cinematic dark age. On cinema it would not be so bad if the libertarian wing of the tories were in the helm of the party despite their other crazy ideas, but as long as its the party of the blue rinse brigade a return to the video nasty question will be a strong possibility.

[vincenzo]

Yes the worries of a Conservative government are definitely cause for concern. The sole plus is that we now have the internet, which makes it far easier to buy the uncut versions from abroad. It would be a severe blow to British distributors if Tory policy forces more people to go this route. Hopefully this would be taken into account if Cameron's Clods should get into office.

Alas I also share your fears about Shameless's cover art should they take power. We can only hope that they don't.

[snipsmovies]

I actually had this debate on the TV yesterday on BBC Parliament in work as one of my customers phoned me up to tell me it was on.

True, we do need to give kudos to Margaret Hodge for letting it run out of time, but the whole debate - and it was a 4 + hour debate - does make you wonder about the credibility of these so-called bills - especially private members bills. Some of the comments, points and debating issues were just so badly informed. When they talked about a film they often referred to it as a game and vice versa. SS Experiment Camp was called SS 'Extermination' Camp by a few of them, they brought up the whole Child Play 3 'Bulger' story AGAIN. They raised for debate films that just didn't warrant a mention - such as 'Irreversible' for example for having a scene that glamourised rape ! Have they seen this movie ? ?

Margaret Hodge made a valid point when she stated that she had actually - wait for it........ watched some of the films under debate - shock horror - an MP actually doing some research. She saw 'SS Experiment Camp' and 'This Is England' back to back, stating that there is far more violence and abusive behaviour in 'This Is England' that could influence people - and this was the BAFTAs choice for best British picture (and rightly so). She stated that 'SS Experiment Camp' was just a bad movie !!!!!

Good debate - but highlighted how blissfully ignorant the rulers of this country are - especially the moronic Jeff Brazier (Tory - suprise suprise) who raised the bill in the first place ( I know its Julian - but I feel Jeff suits his demenour far more).

Interesting to note the BBFC banned 'Murder Set Pieces' a day before this debate.......... Just picked the dutch import up from eBay to see what all the fuss is about. Probably just the BBFC exercising its muscle to prove to Parliament that it still knows how to ban stuff.

[Angel]

Murder Set Pieces stood no chance with the BBFC and would have been banned whatever the situation today was. It's incredible they submitted the full 105m version. If on the other hand the BBFC were to pass the film with cuts there would have been major cuts in almost every scene probably going well beyond the cuts they made to Scrapbook - whole scenes would have been removed. The film contains similar footage to what they cut from NUTBAG (cut by 7m) but this film goes further by including some very graphic rape scenes and child murder and mutilation scenes. As the BBFC mentioned it would almost certainly have fallen foul of the protection of children act, The OPA as well as the VRA.

A rejection by the BBFC is almost aways to do with sexual violence depicted in exploitation films eg Love Camp 7, SPy of Darkness, Women in Cellblock 9 etc. Obviously any film could be passed with cuts but if the cuts are going to be very extensive (ie running throughout the film) then a classification is pointless.

[Peter Neal]

Politicians' reactions to "violent movies" certainly tend to go back to 80's "video nasties" scare tactics in quite a couple of European countries right now.
Germany's censors are gearing up for a huge "clean up" regarding modern horror fare and computer games as if the slightly more relaxed last 10 years didn't happen, the possession of violent movies has become a punishable offence in Switzerland and the latest attacks on the BBFC are not exactely encouraging for the UK situation either.

I was all in favour for a binding EU wide policy on movies, but IF it was about to be put together right now, I'm not sure if we'd like the outcome. Who knows what they'd do about the internet in that case?

Right now I'm only happy that things are so relaxed in Scandinavia, but the memory of very restrictive rules on movie censorship in the VHS age in Sweden and Finland before the 21.st century should also be a reminder for us Scandinavian fans that the "Dark Ages" might return to our doorsteps at some point in the not-too-shiny-looking future....

[Sarah@Cult Labs]

It's just another example of the British government not wanting to look at what it's done wrong itself. When somebody commits a mass murder, they're so quick to blame films and media products. They don't bother to look at how, for example, the NHS failed by not having the murderer assessed and sectioned when s/he was clearly psychologically unstable. Instead it's all "Ooh, look, he's got a copy of Wrong Turn in his DVD collection. Clearly he likes violent films. Let's just ignore the fact that he also owns When Harry Met Sally, Casablanca and The Graduate and say it was the horror film that made him do it!"

It's just easy finger-pointing that saves them having to blame themselves.

[Mansonsblood]

Agreed Sarah. Makes me laugh how no one ever blames religion.

[siccoyote]

Well logic doesn't seem to be stopping the extreme pornography bill, which would mean watching some of shameless's films as is would be fine, but if you cut out the best bits and keep them on your hard-drive you could face up to 3 years in jail and be put on the sex offenders register.

As far as politics goes, democracy is a joke, vote once every 4 years and pick between a giant douche and a turd sandwich, yeah that's power.

I'll be voting Lib Dem again but I live in a backwater Tory land.