Shouldn't that be, it's not over until the fat lady gets butchered by some homicidal maniacs? :pound:

To be honest, the issue that bothers me (more so than being told what I can and can't watch) is that this sort of decision can seriously damage small UK businesses.

There are many people who refuse to buy cut titles - and fair enough, it's their money - but this means that the BBFC are inadvertently supporting businesses in the US and other parts of Europe, but hurting homegrown companies.

Exactly. Most of the titles Shameless (and Arrow) release, aren't going to sell huge numbers, and cutting the films will only make some people seek out alternate versions, hurting UK sales. The BBFC are well aware that people can easily, and legally, get uncut versions from other countries, so their decisions to cut films is pretty pointless. They're not protecting anyone, our self appointed moral guardians!

I realised that years ago when i was going to Amsterdam in the mid 90's and buying uncut versions of mainstream Hollywood films of course things are nowhere near as bad now as it was back then, but i'm reminded when just last week i was in Amsterdam and i saw Cannibal Holocaust (uncut of course) on the shelf for just 5 euros, in the age of the internet the BBFC have become totally irrelevant for the consumer, but for the distributor it's still a major ball and chain to have your films cut and pay £10 odd a minute for the privilege something has to change this situation can't go on forever.

As i understood EU law i thought if something is available in one part of the EU it should be available in all parts of the EU i thought that's the point of a free market but it certainly isn't a level playing field for British video distributors at all.

This is an interesting point. At the risk of sounding like an old fart, I might write to my MEP to enquire about this...

I know this is a long shot, and a llittle different from the cut to Arrow's Inferno, but perhaps some nice emails to the BBFC may help (a little).

Indeed.

It's a very different situation to Arrow because the cuts here are all in relation to depictions of sexual violence so I don't think it'd be helpful for people to start saying about their right to view whatever they want. We don't want to reinforce their opinion that we're all a bunch of sick pervs!

However, I think polite, sensible, non-sabre-rattling emails about the negative effects on small UK distributors like Shameless would be fine e.g. film fans end up spending their money abroad rather in the UK, thus having a negative effect on UK businesses. So, if anyone does want to contact the BBFC, please go down this route. :)

Contact info can be found here.

Absolutely if i were a distributor i'd give it bloody good go but they'll probably fob you off by saying something along the lines of our Video Recordings Act supersedes EU law

Probably. But if enough people were to write it might get raised as an actual issue. If anyone else would like to write to their MEP, you can find out who they are with this site.

Absolutely Sarah, that's the way to go. At the end of the day, I don't think there's anything in the film that contravines UK laws, just the BBFC's own (made up by themselves) guidelines, and as such, it shouldn't be cut.