A violent film called “Battleship Potemkim” was made in 1920 but was only allowed by the BBFC in 1959. Around the 1930s horror films were starting to make their release, in fact the first vampire movie was German it was called “Nospheratu”. America also had a passion for horror films, this meant thy were watching them more so they had to create a new rating for films like “Frankenstein” and “Back from the Dead”. This was called H. This rating was brought in during 1933. In the early 1930s they even had to submit scripts so bits can be cut out.
“Love on the Dole” a powerful movie about poverty in the north of England which was filmed in 1941 demonstrated some of the pressures which were going on with the working class society e.g. loss of jobs. This movie was supposed to be realistic as it included swearing and sexual immorality. The reason the BBFC didn’t want this movie to be shown because they were scared that a revolt might start and all the working class might fight against the upper class society, because their poverty and despair has been reflected to them on tape.
During the run up to the war no film’s about Nazis were allowed to be shown (appeasement). This is because Britain did not want to do anything which could risk the state of their homeland e.g. unexpected chemical attacks, gas bombs etc. being dropped on Britain (films like Pastor Hall could not be released during the war). But once the war was over uncensored newsreels flooded the cinema these newsreels were usually prisoner war camps which showed graphic scenes of dead and decaying Jewish bodies.
In 1955 the films ‘Night and Fog’ by Alain Renais was created, based on a famous war camp. This film was shown in a cinema club. This and films like it were shown in cinema clubs which were open to the middle class, these films were also in these clubs so they could not be viewed by minors.
In the early 50s a new rating was created, this rating was called the ‘X’ rating. The new rating was only to be viewed by people of the age of 16. This definitely killed the film economy because the audience was reduced by 85%. In those days most of the films audience were young because adults didn’t really have enough time e.g. work etc. to go to the movies and watch a film. Films in this rating included ‘Rashoman the Wild One.’
During this time the British government didn’t want British film makers to deal with the British society because they thought this was a delicate subject and would be touching on issues which may disrupt the country or represent the British wrongly to other countries.
In the 1950s groundbreaking, ‘X’ films were released, like 1958 the ‘Room at the top’ and ‘Victim’ which was made in 1961 starring Dirk Borkarde. Both films were include sexual references and were shown at theatre clubs. The unusual thing about ‘Victim’ is that it includes homosexuality which was illegal at the time. ‘The L-shaped room’ made in 1961 was banned because of the subject of abortion, in those days abortion was illegal so if a woman wanted one she would have to get it done in secret, this was very dangerous because doctors and patients can be prosecuted for manslaughter and put in jail. A new boundary was made in 1965 with the film ‘Repulsion’; this film included graphic violence and female sexuality. The film is about a monster and a girl, the creator of the film called it ‘artistic’ instead of just a normal film.
As movies like these were tested the boundaries in the censorship industry a film called ‘Rosemary’s Baby’ broke barriers by having the idea that you could have sex and violence on the screen but not at the same time. This film was very graphic because it involved a woman being tortured and having forced sexual intercourse with the devil. Many were cut out by the BBFC.
Before the sixties which was the decade of sexual liberation many controversial thing happened. The first is Ken Russell’s ‘Women in Love’ which contains two naked men wrestling, to some viewers this could imply sexuality because the men were panting and lying next to each other naked. The controversial film ‘Brighton Rock’ which involved Gangsters and showed Britain’s seedy underworld, the interesting symbolism in ‘Brighton Rock’ is that you can never change and you are the same all the way through e.g. cutting the rock in pieces and finding the same phrase or word on all of them. The film ‘No Orchids for Ms. Blandish’ also sparked controversy because it dealt with perversion and people wee worried on the effects it would have on the public, this film was made in 1948. The film which one thinks sparked up the industry was Andy Warhol’s ‘Flesh’ which was about the day in the life of a street hustler.
The ‘permissive’ have started and now is a time of ‘flower power’, ‘free-love’ and drug use, many people were anti-American or anti-government because of the Vietnamese war. This was a time of free-love mainly because the pill was born and this meant that women could take this pill and not be worried about conceiving or being pregnant. The sixties were the sexual revolution so from this point and after sex and violence in movies was raised up a bar.
During the future of censorship many things happen, a woman called Mary Whitehouse from a Christian group protested about films containing sex and violence, Mary Whitehouse also had the festival of life because she was worried about sex and violence harming people on TV.
Films like ‘Performance’ and ‘The Devils’ which both included sex and violence but separately made one think ‘if sex and violence are harmless alone why they are harmful together?’ To me they weren’t any more harmless together than alone.
As new technology was being created one big problem for the BBFC was the VHS because this could be obtained widely by minors so the cutting and censorship on VHS tittles had to be stricter than the original censorship, this is how statuary censorship came about.
But too much cutting in movies proved to be more worse than not so much cutting e.g. in ‘A Clockwork Orange’ a rape sex scene had come out ‘backwards’ because of bad cutting. People were still trying to break barriers with ‘artistic’ violence which was created by Stanley Kubrick, this was called Juxtaposition- putting two different ideas together while on always, comes out better e.g. The fight scene in the ‘Wild Bunch’ with background opera music.
One thinks that this kind of contrast used makes the action which is the violence stick out more than the Opera background music. This will also catch onto young kids who will remember the violence, I don’t really think this is very harmful to children because the condition is usually short term e.g. they remember the violence for a while and then later forget about it. Although this isn’t the same in all cases for example the Jamie Bulger case was about a toddler who was killed by two young kids after the had supposedly watched a ‘Chucky’ movie.
This was another reason why VHS was a problem for the BBFC because a nine o’clock watershed (after nine o’clock generally anything can be seen getting more graphic as the time goes by) had been announced but the infants still watched this film. The ‘Hungerford Massacre’ also took place; this is was a slaying ‘Rambo style’. One personally thinks that the ‘Hungerford Massacre’ killer could have had serious background problems.
Moving to the future nothing has really changed things like film and games are being censored. The fastest selling game in history is called Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas it took over $24 million gross during its first week and also sold 667,000 copies. This game is basically about coming up as a drug lord and gangster. People are protesting about this game because of the violence. Jack Thompson a lawyer from Florida says
“San Andreas, the Grand theft Auto and games like these promote loss of life, loss of innocence and the thin wall of sanity we have!”
This game has been rated certificate 18 and the makers hit back by saying that the game is intended for adults who can appreciate its mature themes.
Through the ages many things have happened in the censorship industry. Censorship is usually just cutting from a film during each decade the films have become more graphic with sex and violence so stricter rules had to be placed. Sex and violence weren’t the only problems in the films as we saw in the film ‘Cheese Mite’, the BBFC started in 1913. We saw a big change in the 1940s during the war were our films were made to be non Nazi because we didn’t want to spark anything but after the war newsreels were sent out about the very bad concentration camps. We have also seen new categories come and go e.g. ‘H’-Horror and ‘X’ over 16 viewing.
During the sixties people became more and more free about sexuality due to the pill being invented and ‘free-love’, films like ‘Performance’ and ‘Flesh’ were being made more increasing the boundary between pornography and art. One has also shown how through the years films even censored are ‘considered’ to damage people; this has been shown by the Jamie Bulger case and the ‘Hungerford Massacre’.
In the present day I have seen more ways of censorship from different things, this includes magazines of an adult nature being placed on the top shelf, which is out of reach to most young people, and the more suitable magazines are put at a reach were everyone can get them.
I think that censorship is needed in the media but to a certain extent. By a certain extent I mean that it shouldn’t be taken to far e.g. bad cuttings. I think that the effect that censorship has on children is good because it blocks out scenes which I don’t think would harm children but affect them or make them do ‘bad’ things, because we still don’t know if the effects they have are long or short term.