Do we need Censorship in the Media?

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Philip Tete-Donkor 11.1

Do we need Censorship in the Media?

Censorship is the cuts and remakes of media mainly movies. Censorship is usually when ‘obscene’ scenes and actions have been removed from a piece of media. Censorship has been around for a long time, censorship is supposed to protect ‘us’ from the things which happen in media for example movies which contain horror, sex or violence.

Censorship is said by the government to help us because it cuts out scenes which may mentally affect us for example a film about poverty and the working class which could trigger a revolution because our minds are not mentally strong able to take that it is just a film. We might even need censorship in some movies to protect young people fro m watching adult movies which could change them for a short or long term period.

The areas of media I am going to look at are films, video, music, printed word and video games all these areas of media are widely available to many groups of people, this includes adults and children.

Censorship has been around for a long time but the censorship of movies really began in 1898 with the movie called “The Cheese Mite.” The cheese mite movie contains insects eating some cheese, this movie was banned, movies like these were banned by the British Cheese Foundation because the content of the films could cause a decrease in the sale of cheese, and this can go onto causing other problem factors e.g. loss of jobs. To hide the facts of movies like these being banned the tents were shut down for safety reasons these were two reasons. One of the reasons could have been they didn’t want the working class to see these films because of a revolt, or because the films were made out of nitrates which are highly flammable. By 1909 the safety laws were passed, and in 1913 the British Board of Censors were introduced.

In 1916 films like “A fool was there” which included female sexuality and “Intolerance”, were banned. During 1916 “Intolerance” was one of the most expensive films made at that time, “Intolerance” created trouble because it contained sexuality and Jesus, having Jesus in the film touched the subject of religion which was very sensitive, films like these were shown in theatres or a club called “The Film Society”. Films of these kinds were shown here because middle class people usually attended venues, and it was thought they could handle these films better than the working class. More action and horror films were starting to come out.

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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 ...

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