Topsy turvy

[tinyjo]

Why is it that a film involving a lot of swearing gets an 18 certificate and a film involving almost any nudity gets an 18 certificate but a film involving mass murder and vigilantism only gets a 12A? After all, you're legally allowed to have sex when you're 16 but you're never going to be legally allowed to kill someone unless you join the army and then only in very specialised circumstances.

Comments

[zoo-music-girl.livejournal.com]

Because swearing is common and sex is dirty and immoral but vigilante violence is manly and righteous. Or something equally stupid.

[smithi1.livejournal.com]

Because public morals don't make any kind of sense.

My favourite bit of commentary on this topic is the South Park movie which derides this exact bit of nonsense very neatly.

What, and miss out on the next generation of prepared war-fighters?

[(Anonymous)]

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2002/10/04/MN128381.DTL

(sad but true)

Zac :)

[sparkymark.livejournal.com]

>After all, you're legally allowed to have sex when you're 16 but you're never going to be legally allowed >to kill someone unless you join the army and then only in very specialised circumstances.

So there's less risk of imitating it I guess.

Depends on which film board...

[(Anonymous)]

Pillow Book and Propspero’s Books got 12s in places like France and Finland. Pillow Book has violence and got an 18 in the UK, Prospero’s Books has a largely naked cast and got a 15.

By the way, The BBFC definition (http://www.bbfc.co.uk/website/Customers.nsf/Guidelines/GuidelinesTheCategories15?OpenDocument) does not limit non-sexual nudity in 15s. In fact even U films may contain ‘natural’ nudity in a non-sexual context (http://www.bbfc.co.uk/website/Customers.nsf/Guidelines/GuidelinesTheCategoriesU?OpenDocument).

Of course very few nudie films qualifying for these ratings will appear, because they would be cut off from their biggest market (the USA), where nakedness is much more taboo. Contrariwise, there is a lot of pressure on the BBFC to give kiddie ratings to violent American movies which the Americans think are OK for kids. Spider-Man and Jurassic Park arguably fall in to the latter category.

—Damian