Dr Kerry Gough, Lecturer in Film, Television and Media Theory at Birmingham City University, discusses the new British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) guidelines regarding sexual and sadistic violence in films coming into effect today.
While some have questioned the legitimacy of film censorship and classification in the new media environment, recent public concern over the excessive sexual violence found in a new breed of film horror, has necessitated a revision of the standards of acceptability surrounding the cinematic horror film release. Fuelled by the success of Hostel (2005, Cert 18), recent torture porn and new born porn titles including A Serbian Film (2010, Cert 18), The Bunny Game (2010, Cert R18) and Human Centipede II (2011, Cert 18) have caused a degree of well-deserved controversy with their depictions of child rape, necrophilia, and excessive sadistic violence.
In response to public concerns over such portrayals of heavily sexualised violence, the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) are set to release new guidance surrounding the representation of sexualised and sadistic violence and torture on screen. Guidance currently offered by the BBFC recommends that work be cut which contains ‘sexual violence or sexualised violence which endorses or eroticises the behaviour’ and demands cuts prior to classification where ‘sadistic violence or torture’ encourages the audience ‘to identify with the perpetrator in a way which raises a risk of harm’ (BBFC, 2009: 33).
With issues of torture, rape and depravity at stake, the BBFC aims to maintain decorum in the labelling and classification of such film products and aligns this in response to public opinion. As Director of the BBFC, David Cooke (2012) states, ‘Since 2000 we’ve had the classification guidelines and they’re based on big-scale consultation with the public which we do every four to five years and it’s 8-10,000 people involved. We have individual issues; violence, sex, nudity, drugs, threats and so on.’
Fuelled by the age old argument surrounding freedom of speech and creative artistic license versus the protection of the vulnerable and the maintenance of standards of social and moral decency, these new guidelines seek to broker the parameters of acceptability when portraying excessive sexuality and violence in order to limit draconian intervention and interference with film art.
While these measures have been rendered redundant by some as a result of the readily available uncut torture porn titles on torrent sites across the web, what the BBFC does offer is guidance on the standards of acceptability through its classifications. Fans of hardcore horror and aficionados of torture porn will continue to fileshare and source uncut titles online, while the rest of us will continue to be reassured by the labelling and classification of ‘safe’ material, protected from the illicit nature of such films with the expulsion of any unsavoury severed remnants into the annals of BBFC history.
As filmmakers continue to push at the limits of horror and the boundaries of acceptability, newly appointed BBFC President, Patrick Swaffer (2012) reinforces how, ‘The classification guidelines published by the BBFC, and its consistent and clear approach to classification issues, have ensured that it continues to enjoy the trust of the public, the local authorities and the film industry.’
BBFC plans for 2013 include additional black card information which will feature details surrounding the film content, keeping the audience informed about the specific nature of that content prior to its cinematic presentation.
While the new guidance issued today represents a pain threshold that the industry is willing to bear for the sake of its horrific art, the torture porn cycle has taken its audience captive and the BBFC have stepped in to protect us, not a rape or alternative act of sadistic violence too soon.
Sources
BBFC, (2009).BBFC: The Guidelines. BBFC [online] Available at: http://www.bbfc.co.uk/what-classification/guidelines [Accessed 20 Jan 2013]
BBFC, (2012).BBFC Announces New President. BBFC [online]Available at: http://www.bbfc.co.uk/about-bbfc/media-centre/bbfc-announces-new-president [Accessed 20 Jan 2013]
Cooke, D. (2012). Film Classification U, PG or 18?. The Guardian [online]. Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-20552619 Interviewed by Tim Muffett. London, 30 Nov 2012. [Accessed 20 Jan 2013]
Kerry Gough
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While the BBFC certificate proudly graces out cinema screens every time we go and see a film, can we really say as intelligent movie goers that it is acceptable for someone else to tell us what we can watch and what we cannot. While I understand the empire of the BBFC stands proud rating our films and the occasional video game here and there, they can’t honestly say their system s not flawed. If you look at how many films have been reclassified over the years due to changing attitudes, especially with such genres of 70s and 80s horror. however they cannot fall back on a generational change into what can now be viewed on the screens by certain ages. Just look at the re classification of The Phantom Menace, can they say they were wrong in how the classified a film in such a short amount of time. Or could the BBFC acting more as a business and taking some advice from the American model of the MPAA.
If a student at university did a report using the same research the BBFC did, they would get a failing grade. In numerous places when the small number of viewers they used to get results disagreed with what the BBFC wanted them to think they actually got them to change opinion by ‘explaining’ why they should be offended.
The article mentions recent controversial movies yet fails to mention the fact that of the three one was heavily cut, another banned then cut and the other banned outright. The current system was working.
For accuracy sake maybe it should be mentioned that most popular book for woman last year involved BDSM and a dominant/sub relationship. Also the BBFC has continued to censor pornography despite fact I can remember at least two recent obscenity trials in which the CPS lost because the jury didn’t find material the BBFC finds obscene as such.
While I appreciate the even handedness you try to take, you should take the ‘public concern’ banner waved by the BBFC with grain of salt and not as the gospel truth for reasons I mentioned above. It doesn’t become true just because others fail to actually look into the facts and repeat it again and again.
Speaking as somebody with a doctorate in hard science as opposed to a soft, non- subject, such as Media Studies, it appalls me how the Humanities departments of universities up and down this country have been hijacked by louche feminist thinking, and its trickle down effects to students who’d do better working in an apprenticeship rather than dreaming of becoming the next Tarantino, and soaking up their post feminist agenda. I can assure you that this narrow-minded denier of freedom does not speak for me. If it was up to her, I’m sure we’d all be sat around discussing the marginal merits of Faster, Pussycat, Kill, Kill. How boring.
Hi, points of information, echoing the commentator above : both A Serbian Film and Human Centipede (neither really part of the ‘torture porn’ cycle, which, like ‘video nasty’, was a discursive construct by hostile media rather than a coherent genre cycle) were heavily cut by the BBFC and The Bunny Game was banned outright and not passed at R18. Other films often linked to torture porn that feature rape and torture, such as I Spit on Your Grave, Grotesque and Murder Set Pieces, have also been trimmed or banned. The BBFC also makes substantial cuts to many (up to a 1/4 each month) R18 films, and I can assure you that rape, torture and heavy BDSM do not feature in the videos they pass. Aside from the films you mention, what exactly would you like banned? The Hostel films are actually rather good, believe it or not, and some of the most celebrated of the recent ‘sadistic’ films, such as The Killer Inside Me, Killer Joe, and Django Unchained, are acclaimed films, if not always successful films, by serious directors. It is not as if the BBFC are casually letting through Japanese ‘guinea pig’ films or the collected works of Max Hardcore. The BBFC’s research in this case – unlike earlier research led by Martin Barker – is as weakly impressionistic as most of the discredited media effects tradition. Unfortunately this sounds like a replay of the whole video nasties farrago, encouraged by people who don’t know much about horror, pornography, censorship or audiences.
All I can say is, I hope I don’t bump into any BBFC members in the street. All that ‘harmful’ material they watch must have made them into complete psychos by now!
Bunch of hypocrites the lot of them.
Thank God for Unrated imports from US/Germany etc
PS a useful piece on the BBFC’s new policy is here: http://www.strangethingsarehappening.com/news-bbfc.html
Your apparent belief that an ‘audience’ (whatever THAT means) can be held ‘captive’ by a particular genre of filmmaking explains your claim that we need ‘protecting’ by anyone, BBFC or otherwise. I don’t suppose we might try thinking for ourselves, and assuming that our fellow human beings are capable of doing the same when they watch a film?
I am appalled that you lecture in Film and TV and yet you of all people cannot get your facts right. “The Bunny game” was not classified R18 (a classification which is reserved for sex shops only) but is was Rejected outright ie banned in the UK,
Obviously the British population are far too immature to see this film which is available to adults in the USA & to over 16’s in Scandinavia.
And to set the record straight I have not seen this film nor do I have much desire to see it. But I would like the right to see it should I so wish.
I prefer to make up my own mind about what I watch rather than have movies cut by a state appointed censor. Despite decades of interference and periodical scaremongering from rags like The Daily Mail they’ve never come up with anything that proves violence on the screen breeds violence in real life . A disturbed mind could find a trigger in anything yet the millions of viewers have to tolerate cuts in order for the censors to pander to that one in a million nutter. While I can see some worth in the BBFC offering guidance for viewers to make an informed choice its way overdue for the UK to adopt the US idea of distributors having the option to release unrated material. There are lots of fans who won’t buy any release that’s cut and the ease of importing makes the BBFC censorship more pointless than its ever been – and its always been pointless.. Granted we’ve come a long way since the dark days of Ferman and his one man crusade but we’ve a long way to go . Not forgetting the BBFC are still cutting R18 content saying its obscene when at least 2 court cases last year decided otherwise . Public opinion seems fine for the BBFC but only when it suits them
I love that line “In response to public concerns…” Whose concerns ? A few rantings from some censor happy national newspapers was it ? The BBFC getting a few people to tell them what they want to hear, so their future place in the censorship regime in this country is assured ? The religious right who think that only “wholesome” material should ever be seen ?
Personally I belive that censorship without well researched and demonstrable proof of harm is a human rights violation, and one day it will be seen as such. Those who advocate and impose censorship on others without showing the unequivocal need for it to prevent real and manifest harm, will be judged villains, rather than heroes by future generations, and their place in the annals of history will therefore be assured, perhaps not in the way they currently hope it might be however.
If the material is to be censored, it should be only that material which is illegal to possess. However some of that material (unless it involves child abuse) should NOT be illegal to possess. I note the type of inividuals who have been caught out with the “dangerous pictures act” – so often the great and the good, rather than the dirty raincoat brigade who I am sure it was intended for. Some otherwise fine people owing material made illegal by this ridiculous and repressive law have lost their jobs, and public standing, for what sensible reason ?
Most justification for censorship in this country is simply due to fake science by bad scientists, and mass hysteria by journalists in newsparpers (who really ought to know better in my opinion), and is completely unnecessary.