BBFC decisions you agree/disagree with...

[drush9999]

Originally Posted by Agent Kay

The T2 pal laser was the uncut 18 version, and the vhs was the cut 15, the t1000 was even more cut for no good reason.
d Starship Troopers did the same thing.

Going back to T2, maybe the laserdisc was uncut. But this 18 rated VHS tape:


was mostly uncut, except Sarah beating the guard in the corridor with the baton. I checked this very VHS tape against my Artisan region 1 DVD import in 1998

[CV19]

Originally Posted by GaryCouzens

It tends to be a film that's more disturbing if you have a strong religious belief - specifically Roman Catholic in this case. I do think it's a great horror film but I guess most teenagers now might find the film a little dated now, particularly as it's paced differently to most modern movies - it's the slow buildup before you hit the audience with the horror.

I often wondered if the Church had any influence over the ban. But yes I agree with you, it is a great horror film. In fact I enjoyed it more after watching it the second time, and I ended up buying the so-called "version you've never seen" on DVD when that was released which featured the spider walk.

[HotRats]

The fee structure can be quite interesting https://www.bbfc.co.uk/industry-serv...ion/fee-tariff as can the annual reports (if you can be bothered to plough through them) https://www.bbfc.co.uk/about-bbfc/annual-reports Between 2015 and 2016 the numbers of staff fell slightly but staff costs rose by a quarter. You may also wonder why an organisation with 31 operations staff and 8 admin needs 5 management, a three person "Presidential Team" and 5 non-executive directors.

At least there is some clarity on how things are run now, Ferman was plainly barking. When challenged over his nunchuk obsession by someone who pointed out that attacks with the weapon were virtually non-existant, Ferman said that was proof of how well his ban was working.

[UpsetSmiley]

It used to be things like nunchucks and headbutts the BBFC would take issue with, now it's rude finger gestures and terms like "spaz" which can take a film from a U/PG to a 12.

I remember back in primary school my class mates would call each other "spazzes", never once thought of it as bad language or offensive. Seems like the BBFC heightened its offence value.

[Markgway]

Originally Posted by GaryCouzens

He could and did stand up to calls for censorship - he wouldn't ban Crash, for example - and he was in favour of liberalising the R18 category to allow unsimulated sex between consenting adults and within the law, something which cost him his job and which has now happened more or less.

Yeah, it's hard to believe that Ferman was often accused of being too liberal. Every time a film came out that the Daily Mail didn't like they called for his removal from office.

Originally Posted by AndyJWS

In the early 2000s I wrote to the BBFC and asked about the structure of reissues having different ratings like how there were a number of unrated editions coming to DVD in the US and with the Die Hard 2 widescreen VHS as an example, and got a sniffy reply stating that the BBFC would never allow the same title to have two different ratings even if it was different cuts...

The BBFC allowed dual ratings... then they didn't... and then they did again...

Originally Posted by CV19

I often wondered if the Church had any influence over the ban.

I was under the impression that the Catholic Church was in favour of the film as it was clearly pro-Catholicism (shown as a force for good against evil).

[Mr. Thomsen]

Originally Posted by Markgway

I have a suspicion that the BBFC downgrade certain films just to make a point.

That's the only explanation I can muster for the downgrading of Silence.

When Silence came out there was actually some controversy about it's content.

This is almost like the BBFC's way of saying 'oh, that was in the past. These films aren't troublesome anymore'.

The BBFC routinely downgrades the ratings of films and has done so for decades.

It's really not that mysterious. Taste changes as does what society deems as acceptable. What was once seen as very strong and controversial will often in time soften and become commonplace. Hence why Hammer's Dracula once was highly controversial and had the critics and defenders of good taste in uproar but today can be viewed by any 12 year old.

[Mr. Thomsen]

Originally Posted by CV19

I'm just guessing here, but I'm wondering if the artwork on the covers of these "video nasties" may have contributed to them getting banned. The Driller Killer video is a good example of a graphic cover which I'm sure would have horrified the likes of Mrs Whitehouse, even if the films themselves might not have been as violent or as graphic as the cover would suggest.

Oh, most likely.

I seem to recall a comment from her boasting that she had not seen the movie in question, and that indeed one did not have to to know it was filth.

Which reminds me of our own Mary Whitehouse-esque characters, when we had a similar debate about violent videos in the 1980s here in Denmark.

One of them was a prominent psychologist who still will write the occasional piece in newspapers about the dangers of whatever horror movie or video game that is the current rage.

A couple of years ago I worked at our national broadcasting company making history documentaries. In my spare time I enjoyed digging through their archives and once I found an old debate from the mid-80s about whether to ban violent video movies or not. Said psychologist was called in as sort of a witness for the prosecution, and on live TV she basically told the unknowing public that a lot of these movies were real life snuff. Her example was Cannibal Holocaust.

[dallywhitty]

Originally Posted by Mr. Thomsen

Oh, most likely.I seem to recall a comment from her boasting that she had not seen the movie in question, and that indeed one did not have to to know it was filth.

"I don't need to see visually what I know is in that film."

Iconic. Though less iconic about what Graham Bright had to say about video nasties:

Video Nasties Affect Dogs - YouTube

[CV19]

Originally Posted by Mr. Thomsen

I seem to recall a comment from her boasting that she had not seen the movie in question, and that indeed one did not have to to know it was filth.

Coming from Mary Whitehouse, yes I can very well believe that.

She was often the subject of ridicule in a satirical show using puppets called Spitting Image which was on during the 1980's and 90's. There was one scene in an episode where she turns a gun on her own cat after watching a violent film, but doesn't seem to be on YouTube.......only this more gentle one:

Mary Whitehouse 45secs - YouTube

[Fnord Prefect]

Originally Posted by CV19

I haven't come across that book before, but I've always had the impression she was just an interfering busybody. Didn't she even try to get Tom & Jerry cartoons banned from the BBC - I seem to recall something like that, as she objected to the violence depicted.

Mary Whitehouse was indeed an interfering old busy body, an interfering old busy body with access to many people of power (politics, press, broadcasting, religion) and the moral and material support of tens if not hundreds of thousands of followers. If she'd just remained a Disgusted of Dentford type letter writer we'd never have heard of her however she manipulated her way to the head of the evangelical Christian movement of the 50's/60's and things just snowballed from there.

I don't remember the Tom & Jerry business, but as an example of how clueless and lacking in perspective she was the book I mentioned dedicates a few pages to her and her followers trying to get the song "Teenage Rampage" by the Sweet banned and the band prosecuted for sedition. For anyone not familiar this truly is the music that brings down governments.

Sweet - Teenage Rampage (Official Video) - YouTube

[CV19]

Originally Posted by Fnord Prefect

I don't remember the Tom & Jerry business, but as an example of how clueless and lacking in perspective she was the book I mentioned dedicates a few pages to her and her followers trying to get the song "Teenage Rampage" by the Sweet banned and the band prosecuted for sedition. For anyone not familiar this truly is the music that brings down governments.

Yes, she disapproved of many songs as I recall including Alice Cooper (School's Out) and the one you mentioned - can't think of any others specifically, but I know there were a lot of them. Nothing was safe from her.

As for Tom & Jerry, I don't know if she commented specifically about them, or perhaps she meant cartoons in general - after all any cartoon would have a certain level of violence. Even Doctor Who came in for some criticism from her as well.

[drush9999]

When I was a kid I thought Mary Whitehouse and Barbara Woodhouse were the same person.

[eddyw78]

Originally Posted by drush9999

When I was a kid I thought Mary Whitehouse and Barbara Woodhouse were the same person.

Probably both as annoying

[CV19]

Originally Posted by drush9999

When I was a kid I thought Mary Whitehouse and Barbara Woodhouse were the same person.

Well to be fair, they don't really look too dissimilar from one another. They both have that "nanny knows best" kind of look about them.

[Agent Kay]

Originally Posted by drush9999

Going back to T2, maybe the laserdisc was uncut. But this 18 rated VHS tape:


was mostly uncut, except Sarah beating the guard in the corridor with the baton. I checked this very VHS tape against my Artisan region 1 DVD import in 1998

That was weird, I wanted that one for ages

[Takeshi666]

I have to be totally honest, sometimes you just gotta put things into perspective.

If you think BBFC is bad, video censorship in Finland was far worse than in the UK and probably even in Germany - Dawn of the Dead was cut in Germany but it was still shown, but it was banned outright in Finland. The original Evil Dead - even in it's post-BBFC edition - was a veritable bloodbath compared to the Finnish rental video, which was cut by about 15 minutes!

I actually owned an old Finnish VHS tape of Robocop and it was cut up so badly that some scenes ended up making no sense at all, like cutting out Robocop beating up Clarence until he confesses (yet that bit is shown later when Robo reviews the footage in the OCP building, raising the question "when did this happen?") or the melting man, resulting in Boddicker crashing his car for no apparent reason - and the rape scene was cut out completely!

[El_Fez]

Originally Posted by DeathlyGeneral

Nothing about this makes sense.

It could be worse. I've been taking a deep deep dive into the crazy that was the Video Nasties. Why the hell would you send someone to jail for renting Evilspeak, but take a look at The Beyond and go "Naw, that's fine".

The BBFC ain't got nothing on the crazy that was Mary Whitehouse.

[Shingster]

It's never been verified but apparently some time in the late 70s a young Clint Howard beat up James Ferman with some nunchucks...

[Takeshi666]

Originally Posted by El_Fez

The BBFC ain't got nothing on the crazy that was Mary Whitehouse.

If only I could remember who it was and what talk show it was on, but she was also a guest on it and I distinctly remember someone shutting her down by introducing himself by saying "I'm a professional writer, and you're a professional...what, exactly?"

[UpsetSmiley]

In some aspects I think Mary Whitehouse was right to be overprotective. We now have kids watching Love Island and playing adult video games, I don't even have kids but I can't imagine just how difficult it must be to monitor what they watch or play in this day and age. Can you even discipline kids anymore? Parents feel more pressure nowadays what with the influence of social media and how it's cool to be lenient and easy going. I know how it feels to not fit in at school. It's brutal.

I'm not even sure of how many parents notice BBFC ratings, unless the cover art has something graphic on it accompanied by an 18 logo, like an ex-video nasty.