Censorship

[Boo Radley]

Okay, so far in discussing censorship I have found out that censorship of violent horror films is really a good thing and most of you agree with whatever spurious reason the BBFC gives and I also found out that no one watches porn.....(Josh, MTDS and me excluded!) So this week I thought I'd have a go at animals. No! Not in the Linda Lovelace way, in the Cannibal Holocaust way.

Britain has a very peculiar attitude towards our furry friends that is not echoed anywhere else on the planet. This is NOT a bad thing at all and I agree with most of the debates on the subject. However in the UK the attitude is blown all out of proportion and taken to extremes.
Today if someone made a film like CH there would be outrage at the slaughter and rightfully so. But the outrage that would follow would be at a ridiculous level of hysteria that cannot be justified.

Take a case in point. A woman puts a cat in an empty bin. An hour later the cat is taken out, maybe a bit frightened but otherwise none the worse off for its time in solitary. The woman then gets her life threatened, she is told she is going to get stabbed and her head cut off, her family is threatened and messages saying they are going to pour petrol through her letterbox and set her home on fire all ensue. The Great British Public have decreed in their animal loving hearts that a cat in a dark place for an hour is definitely worth the life, home and family of a few humans, including those related to the woman who had nothing at all to do with the "crime." Not an extreme over-reaction at all..... (Where's the bloody sarcasm font?)

We love the moniker, "Animal Loving Nation." It gives us that superior feeling that we are just so much better than those other nations that don't reach the levels of madness we do. So when a film comes along that shows the real death of an animal it gives us that opportunity to proclaim that "We Have Decided To Be Offended" and are soooo much better than anyone who disagrees, who should then be killed in far worse a manner than whatever happened to the animal.

In the movies a death of an animal is called indefensible and I agree with that statement.....mostly! My half assed argument here is that it has to be watched and taken in its historical content and where it was filmed. Historically animals killed on camera has been with us since 1903 when Edison electrocuted an elephant to show the power of his new invention. People flocked to it. The 1925 version of Ben Hur killed at least 5 horses but it was 1939's Jessie James that finally drew the attention of the AHA. (American Humane Association.) A horse was forced to jump off a high cliff into a river below. There is some debate as to if it broke its back in the fall or just panicked and drowned. Either way, dead horse, awesome footage and a cracking film. Even Luis Brunel got in on the act with his short, Land Without Bread by chucking a goat off a cliff and smearing a donkey in honey before knocking over two beehives.
On and on it goes throughout film history, right up to the present day. Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now with the water buffalo, Jean Luc Godard's Weekend with the pig, John Waters Pink Flamingos and Sam Peckinpah's Pat Garret and Billy the KId's chickens, Lars Von Triers Manderlay's donkey, Park Chan-Wook's Oldboy's octopi, the Japanese made The Adventures of Milo and Stitch and have been accused of killing dozens of kittens over its production and there are loads of films with the death of horses from John Fords Stagecoach in 1939 to 2006's Luck.
The Mondo Films perhaps ushered in the most offensive animal brutality ever witnessed on celluloid. Africa Addio is a catalogue of barbarity that bunny huggers would be well advised to steer clear off. Ever seen a hippo look like a hedgehog because of the amount of spears sticking out from it? No? Then avoid like the plague. It is the backlash of these that inspired Deodato to make his opus.

Now, in my opinion, if we're talking historically there are a few defences for what they did, times were different back then, the PC/H&S brainwashing was only a dream to be implemented at a later date. Special effects were woefully inadequate and people were far more used to killing and dressing their own food, no Tesco's to pick up a nicely packaged, "sanitized" pork chop or two. In modern times I feel there is no defence as we can fake almost anything to a believable standard.
Nowadays we also have the comforting assurance at the end of a film where we are told "No animal was hurt in the making of this film" .......Even if it's a lie.
According to The Hollywood Reporter animals are still routinely getting hurt and killed in modern movies but the fact is just hushed up and ignored. The tiger in Life of Pi almost drowned and got dragged out of the pool just in time and even The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey in 2011, when 27 animals – including sheep and goats – reportedly perished from dehydration, exhaustion or drowning. It goes on, a husky dog was punched in the diaphragm on Disney’s 2006 film Eight Below to break up a dog fight, the dog subsequently died of the injury, a chipmunk was fatally squashed in the 2006 comedy Failure to Launch, and vast numbers of dead fish and squid were killed during the filming of Pirates of the Caribbean in 2003. When 2005's Flika was accused of killing two horses on set the AHA investigated only to be told to "Go Fu*k Yourselves". Seriously, that's not my interpretation, that's what they said. The disclaimer at the end states, rather obtusely, “American Humane Association monitored the animal action.” which means bugger all.

Now, killing animals is bad, mmmkay, as anyone who has witnessed a certain turtles head being cut off will concur. But apparently not!! No, a "new" provision has been made but you won't find it written down or explained anywhere. It is not a "law" and if it is a guideline then you cannot find out where it came from or who issued it. Slaughter or Torture. One is fine and dandy, "Cut that turtles head off, Hoo Yah!!" the other, "Poor Cootimundi!!" is not. A quick death is fine, a slower one not acceptable.
Why? Take a minute. It might take a while to filter through all that brainwashing....
Both animals die for the film in horrendous ways. The film you watch for "entertainment." How is one death more palatable than the other?
Really, they're not. That's my argument. If we are watching animal carnage then not one death is more acceptable than another. We either ban it completely and in so doing censor vast amounts of films, or we show it in its director's original vision.

So what do we do? Edison's electrocution of the elephant is an historically important bit of footage for a number of reasons. Are we to burn the negative and all copies because we have chosen to be offended? Erase that bit of history from the archives because we don't like it now?
Do we slash and hack up old classic westerns because a horse fell over breaking its leg? Actually, YES we do - because the poor animal was tripped and hurt- but it's fine and dandy to watch the Grand National on Channel Four or any other jump racing where horses routinely fall and break legs....
Are we to cut modern classics like Apocalypse Now and Oldboy?
What about The Hobbit? Sure, there are no on screen animal atrocities but 27 animals died for it's production. Shall we boycott it, ban it, vilify it, refuse to buy any more copies of Bad Taste and Braindead?

So this is why I say that if a film has gone to the extreme in utilizing real animal death then the footage should be seen as the director intended and not excised from prints. The poor animal is already dead. At the very least it's death gave some meaning to whatever emotion or message the film was trying to portray, when if cut out it has died for nothing. 30 years later we still talk about that bloody turtle which has sparked mucho debates, it's death caused a furore, a legacy, it will never be forgotten and lives on in film history, albeit in a rather unenviable slot! The same goes for Edison's elephant.

There you have it. Any more thoughts on this one than the last? Oh, and no death threats please, they tend to piss me off.

[JoshuaKaitlyn]

Who said I watch porn? lol! I mentioned one movie (Pretty Baby) and its content and from that you deduced that it was porn! Not having a go here just amused at what looks like you jumping to the same conclusion most people would about that films subject, (which is what I said most people would do in my statement). You kind of proved my point there when I said that what one person considers art another would deem it obscene, dangerous(....or porn.)
As for animal cruelty...aint nice and I do find myself a bit squeamish when I see it, but for me cinema is not just to entertain me but also to make me think, shock me, surprise me and the list goes on. The animal is long dead before I see its demise and nothing I can do can bring it back. Just saw Cannibal Ferox and I did feel uncomfortable when that animal was being attacked by the snake and even more uncomfortable when the tribesmen hacked at the turtle. But I've seen survival shows with Bear Grylls killing everything from bugs to octupus' and BBC nature programs showing Killer Whales tossing Seals into the air before killing them and just because it is a nature show with glossy production values and has a David Attenborough voice over it's more socially accepted. Dont take what I said in the beginning the wrong way but you opened up the debate and I'm more than happy to discuss it.

[Boo Radley]

Ahh, my apologies, writing two quick to get a point across properly. What I should have said was, "only two people had the courage to reply to the topic," instead of trying to get a cheap laugh.

It's just, in my experience every single bloke I know has at some point watched porn but no one ever, ever admits to it.
Me? No! No....that's ice cream I spilt on my keyboard....It's difficult to wank eating an ice cream!!

You bring up a good point about Bear Grylls and nature programmes but the thought that hit me straight away was are documentaries not exempt from BBFC ruling? I'll have to look that up.... Ah, here: Exemption criteria | British Board of Film Classification
Hmm, seems the criteria for exemption changes on Oct 1 2014 but no info as to what. But, yeah, documentaries come under the "intent to inform" policy, as far as I can make out.
Does that mean Africa Addio, Sweet and Savage, Savage Man, Savage Beast, Shocking Africa, et all could get legitimate releases....???

[sjconstable]

Originally Posted by Boo Radley

Take a case in point. A woman puts a cat in an empty bin. An hour later the cat is taken out, maybe a bit frightened but otherwise none the worse off for its time in solitary. The woman then gets her life threatened, she is told she is going to get stabbed and her head cut off, her family is threatened and messages saying they are going to pour petrol through her letterbox and set her home on fire all ensue. The Great British Public have decreed in their animal loving hearts that a cat in a dark place for an hour is definitely worth the life, home and family of a few humans, including those related to the woman who had nothing at all to do with the "crime." Not an extreme over-reaction at all..... (Where's the bloody sarcasm font?)

Because it's cruelty against a defenceless animal, and that animal could have been in there far longer than an hour, and lost its life.

[Boo Radley]

Originally Posted by sjconstable

Because it's cruelty against a defenceless animal, and that animal could have been in there far longer than an hour, and lost its life.

I don't want to put words in your mouth here, but your post implies that the treatment meted out to that woman and her family is justified. I must have picked that up wrong and if so please accept my apologies wholeheartedly. I "upset" JoshuaKaitlyn by implying the wrong thing, it's easily done!
But, lets look at that scenario for a minute.
Yes, the cat "could have" been in there longer than an hour....it "could have" stayed in there for days slowly turning insane from dehydration, It "could have" eventually died ripping its claws out in a desperate attempt to free itself.
But it didn't.
And even if it died in the way above that is certainly no reason to threaten to kill a whole family. This is why I'm sure I must have picked up the wrong implication of your sentence because if someone can equate the life of a cat to that of two or more human beings then there are some seriously disturbed individuals out there, far more scary than any horror fan.

Hell, they just found a bag of cat heads on a road in Manchester with a lot of Indian restaurants, half of us have probably eaten cat at some point and not realized it!

[bizarre_eye@Cult Labs]

It's not the act itself (it could of been a dog in a cupboard, a frog in a box, a rabbit in a toaster) nor the time-frame but the fact that the person contemplated and acted on the thought, in order to purposefully cause harm and distress to a creature who couldn't defend nor object to the actions that were being done to them. For that, they deserve all the pain and misery they get in my opinion.

[Rondadoronron]

Originally Posted by bizarre_eye@Cult Labs

It's not the act itself (it could of been a dog in a cupboard, a frog in a box, a rabbit in a toaster) nor the time-frame but the fact that the person contemplated and acted on the thought, in order to purposefully cause harm and distress to a creature who couldn't defend nor object to the actions that were being done to them. For that, they deserve all the pain and misery they get in my opinion.

a rabbit in a toaster

Obviously you never saw Paul Daniels do this trick back in the 1970's.

[sjconstable]

Originally Posted by bizarre_eye@Cult Labs

It's not the act itself (it could of been a dog in a cupboard, a frog in a box, a rabbit in a toaster) nor the time-frame but the fact that the person contemplated and acted on the thought, in order to purposefully cause harm and distress to a creature who couldn't defend nor object to the actions that were being done to them. For that, they deserve all the pain and misery they get in my opinion.

Precisely, and I think it's wonderful when people get outraged about animal cruelty, a while ago locally when videos were leaked of a family abusing their dog all the time, I felt great satisfaction when loads of people went and smashed their windows in - let them feel terrorised and scared for once.

[Boo Radley]

Originally Posted by bizarre_eye@Cult Labs

It's not the act itself (it could of been a dog in a cupboard, a frog in a box, a rabbit in a toaster) nor the time-frame but the fact that the person contemplated and acted on the thought, in order to purposefully cause harm and distress to a creature who couldn't defend nor object to the actions that were being done to them. For that, they deserve all the pain and misery they get in my opinion.

Death? And the death of their family that had no notion of the crime? Doesn't strike you as a bit extreme?

Look, I get it, I really do, the woman is a bitch and deserves punishment, but punishment by law, not mob justice that wants to kill her and anyone she's with. What's next, hanging for feeding a live mouse to a snake? Crucifixion for slaughterhouse workers.
It's perspective and it appears it's warped out of all recognition. We're a nation of animal lovers but a quick trip down to the nearest animal shelter shatters that particular myth.

You cannot seriously be stating that the reaction is right....can you??

[Make Them Die Slowly]

Originally Posted by bizarre_eye@Cult Labs

It's not the act itself (it could of been a dog in a cupboard, a frog in a box, a rabbit in a toaster) nor the time-frame but the fact that the person contemplated and acted on the thought, in order to purposefully cause harm and distress to a creature who couldn't defend nor object to the actions that were being done to them. For that, they deserve all the pain and misery they get in my opinion.

Does that mean that every dog owner ever to use a choke chain deserves pain and misery? This is a very emotive subject and perhaps people should take a few seconds to gather their thoughts before they post.

Also imagine the childhoods of animal abusers, what the hell damage was done to them to think this is acceptable behaviour. I am not saying people should not be responsible for their actions but just that like abused animals some people have little choice in their actions due to genetics and socialization.