Film Censorship As An Arm of the State

Film, the overbearing power of the film, the power of it to reduce us to tears, to cause us to re-evaluate our lives, the power of it to take on the weight of a spiritual experience, the power of it to make us laugh, make us scared, make us think, make us feel, make us want to be something else, make us want to do good, to understand what motivates bad, its overwhelming, all-consuming power, scares governments in much the same way that I have always assumed psychoactive substances scare governments, because too much of the onus is on our autonomy and personal reaction to the experience.

Perhaps this seems too much like agitprop, but the simple facts don't lie. Until 1954, "The Battleship Potemkin", the legendary piece of pro-Lenin propaganda which was a key film in the development of several film techniques and generally regarded as one of the important films of all time, was banned in the UK because it supposedly peddled pro-communist ideas (anyone with half a brain can see that it is fairly biased propaganda, BUT even if someone does buy into the communist mood, so?).

The Human Centipede 2, which is undeniably nasty, was outright refused a certificate, whereas A Serbian Film, also undeniably nasty, was simply cut in some scenes and released without furore. Their objectionable content is largely the same, focussing on rape and child abuse, and in fact a Serbian Film goes much further in terms of onscreen portrayals of said themes, even in the cut form. The main difference between them? One is set in Serbia, one in the UK. The Human Centipede was eventually released in a cut form, but it was a long and arduous legally mounted battle.

I could cite and cite and cite example after example. The moral panic and spate of protectionism that occurred in the 80's with the Video Nasties panic, and the tedious censorship battles that followed; the vicarious legal loopholes whereby the BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) doesn't technically "ban" a film, because that would never happen in a liberal democracy, but instead refuses to certificate it, which makes it illegal to sell in the UK (effectively banning it).

Despite, yes, the liberalisation of the BBFC and their eventually overturning of the bannings of a number of films in the 80's which are now viewed as laughably tame (although the prison sentences for the shop owners locked up as a result of selling these films on their releases haven't been overturned; one can only presume the apology got lost in the post), we can see that this method of isolating, seemingly arbitrarily, a number of films which are considered to be transgressive or obscene has only shifted into a more socially acceptable form, that of the open and accountable democracy.

The headline of the BBFC is "film ratings you trust", which never fails to amuse me, since whether we trust them or not (and oh boy do I not), they are a legal body that we have no choice in being subjected to. And I'd even challenge the open and accountable bit of their ethos as well. For example, there is no easy list of the films they've banned (sorry, "rejected), which seems a bit odd, since it's always an event when a film is rejected by them, and if they were as accountable as they say, then they would have no qualms about providing that information.

Delving deep into my own mental drip-tray of useless information, one instance of certificate rejection has never failed to get at my goat; their refusal to certificate the awfully titled "Terrorists, Killers and Middle-East Whackos", which from the title alone you just know, you can just feel, is going to be a shockingly racist piece of neo-Nazi agitprop that probably peddles a dumb ideological position that links anyone living in the Middle-East with terrorism (it might be the subtle conflation of those two ideas hidden in the title but that's just me).

I'm hardly Roland Barthes, but that's just what I'm getting from it. A lot of people aren't even hardly Roland Barthes, but I'm sure even the most stereotypically racist taxi-driver in the country might recognise that this is a purposeful "shock-doc" and hence nothing even approaching a thing to be taken seriously.

My point is, finding BBFC information on this thing is an absolute mare. To get there, you've got to "enable adult content", and then type in a different title for the film anyway, and then you're treated to a mini-essay describing the film as essentially a collage of death, talking about how the content isn't in a "serious" enough context and has a "brutalising effect", throwing in a good old reference to the Obscene Publications Act, another thing which amuses me greatly, since if "I know it when I see it", what if I don't know it when I see it? And then finally they talk about how the film would have a a damaging effect on the young, essentially undermining the faith in their own system if they'd slapped an 18 rating on the thing and been done with it.

Anyway, the film is probably inexcusably vile, nasty, brutish, hopefully short, and conjures up all manner of Hobbesian fever-dreams about people being really horrible to each other. But, here's something; why aren't we allowed to decide that? Where's the collective faith in us as a society to reach our own conclusions? Why not? The BBFC talks about minimising "harm", but why? I could walk out of my house right now and drink myself into a paralytic state and that would be completely legal. What considerable harm can I get in viewing images?

(And this completely overlooks that whole thing about the Internet providing a gateway to much worse images anyway, but they're trying to police that thing too, so it's okay.)

My only explanation for this rampant, patronising, paternalistic protectionism is simply that the BBFC, and by proxy the Government since the BBFC is a legal body, are scared of us FEELING something. They're scared of us being outraged, scared of us seeing something reprehensible, something vile, scared of us thinking for ourselves. Maybe even really really terrified of us engaging with something transgressive. I don't deny that the films being rejected are just loathsome and horrible, but why can't any of us come to that conclusion by ourselves?

I've long thought that the best way to see what a Government really wants to achieve is to see how it censors its films, and while we don't have a great deal to complain about compared to the restrictive bodies in place in a country like Malaysia, or even the corporate mess that constitutes the American film censorship board, we still don't have it perfect, or easy, and so we should fight, fight, fight to defend our right to see films that could upset and offend us. Because the alternative, that we have a big invisible body decide for us, is only ever a piece of rushed legislation away from cherry-picking everything we see.

And we wouldn't want that, would we?

The Profound Inanity of Hashtags

As arguably the most prevalent tool of social media, the hashtag as a phenomenon is one that consistently beguiles, intrigues and annoys me. The premise behind the hashtag is simple, originating on Twitter and constricted by that website's particular format; a short phrase, beginning with a #, which relates to or tries to sum up a recent event. Famous hashtags include "JeSuisHebdo", expressing support for victims of the Charlie Hebdo massacre, "#HeForShe", Emma Watson's call for gender equality, and "#GamerGate", pertaining to the ongoing debate about treatment of women within the videogame industry and the videogames themselves, particularly regarding its male-centric image at the current moment.

And of course, in the way that only social media can do, there are silly and hashtags as well, such as "#MisheardLyrics", which speaks for itself, and even some questionable hashtags such as "#CutForBeiber", a satirical (we hope) trend which did the rounds when Bieber announced he was quitting music a few years back- whether this was exploitation of young girl's fandom of a famous popstar or an absolutely scathing but nevertheless questionable poke at overblown emotional reactions on the social media sphere is a debate that could be had, but I won't be having here.

Hashtags are simple, easy to use, easy to understand, require minimal effort and allow literally anybody to join in the conversation, which is probably why they've (relatively) endured on the ever shifting sands of the online realm. And I think that as a social media tool they have good and bad aspects, but only really in the way that speech as an overarching social and human construct has good and bad aspects; it is purely how they are used.

But to get theoretical for a moment, there is always that nagging question in my head whenever I see a particular hashtag rise to prominence, and that is simply "is this actually achieving anything and does it actually mean anything?" It sounds blinkered and cynical, but there's something almost vapid to the very nature of the hashtag which almost cheapens the often very serious topic that the hashtag is referring to.

Take the Hebdo massacre. Any loss of life is a tragedy, and in this case the event was unspeakably tragic, and I also think that it served as a call to reconsider our position of responsibility when it comes to freedom of speech and the negative consequences that can sometimes arise by exercising it; whether this means we should be more careful or more dogmatically pursue our right to exercise it; just take a long hard look at ourselves in the wake of this horror.

But what, really, did that hashtag do anything other than simplify it into an easily recognisable meme, when really it's the kind of thing that we should all confront in its entirety out of respect for the victims and their families. It's not an easy thing to try and confront, and anything that makes it easy, in any way, doesn't sit right for me; and if there's one thing hashtags are, it is easy.

I cannot deny their use and handiness as a social tool, and they make looking for topics and trends on Twitter, as well as interests and hobbies incredibly easy to pin down. But there's something too safe about them, something a bit bandwagonesque (what an album) about the entire venture that could, I might argue, be construed as somewhat disrespectful.

We live in an era where, on social media, the opinion has been commodified and any fool with a keyboard can type out their opinions and if they are savvy enough, people will read it (proven by the fact that you're reading this). The stock market, often enough, on these formats, is not insight, profundity or succintness, but banality, recognisability, and retweetability. The hashtag is used so often as a joke, as an ironic statement of postmodern detachment, that when it does explode around a serious topic that deserves our attention, it just doesn't feel right.

But that's just the opinion of a vaguely miffed politics student.