Economics‎ > ‎Choice‎ > ‎Bans‎ > ‎Censorship‎ > ‎

Movies

Should certain movies be banned?

Banning it was the best thing they could've done, as it gave the film so much free publicity.

What is a Movie?

Definition:

A story or event recorded by a camera as a set of moving images and shown in a theater or on television.
(Also known as films).

Wider definition

  • Is a small clip a movie?
  • Is an animation a movie?
  • Is a script and a set of pictures a movie?

Types of movies

  • Educational
  • Recreational
  • Adult

Genus

Movies are a form of entertainment.

The case for banning movies?

Whats wrong with movies?

Summary

Nothing is wrong with movies, its like saying there is something wrong with communicating, or storey telling. Its a tool, so neutral, but the content being relayed might have harmful consequences, and so the content can cause wrongs.
However the same rules that apply to movies should apply to free speech. Whatever one can exhibit legally, they should be able to show to as many people as are willing to watch.

To that end some people say the content can be damaging and we should limit what movies can be made.

Arguments against types of movies

They say it can corrupt people, kids might see, and they themselves don't want to see it. So it should be banned.

The case against banning movies?

Censorship is futile

  • Surely the ubiquity of access to almost any level of nudity or violence on the internet has made the whole idea of the BBFC a bit obsolete by now.
  • In the age of the internet censorship becomes less and less relevant. Banning a film becomes pointless except as advertising for it.
  • Censorship vs curiosity (curiosity wins)
  • there's a lot of nasty things out there. Pretending they don't exist doesn't make them go away.
  • It is now time for the film censor to go, it is an anachronism. 

Imported Censorship

  • Movies can be as violent as they want, but if you have a naked person in it American shops will refuse to sell it. This results in the UK versions also normally being censored for the sake of protecting American “morality”.

Consistency

  • It's a wonder that they bother with censorship of films at all, when you see what is on the news ! Makes movies look tame.
  • Someone should censor some of the dramas on TV, I can't stand them
  • The UK age of consent is 16; that means we're allowed to actually have sex a full 2 years before we're allowed to watch someone else do it.
  • Theoretically you could have sex at 16, film yourself, and then not be allowed to see it.
  • Who censors the censors?
  • If anything should be censored it is the mind-control-promotion of materialistic 'celebrity' culture.
  • Sex gets censored more than violence, so we can't see a couple being very nice to each other, but we can see them killing. Only penetration with knives allowed?
  • why or how combinations of letters can offend people. The whole concept of 'swearing' or 'bad language' goes way over my head. We have a beautiful, expressive language perfect for songs, literature and poetry but some wish to cut chunks of it out.

Fantasy & reality

There is difference between fantasy & reality. Violence in movies is ok, because it's not real; no-one suffered as a result from shooting that guy in the head, there were no tears shed over his death, no kids left without a father, he was a virtual character in a virtual world. Not real!

Hypocrisy

How come the censors are not depraved by the very same images they seek to prevent us from watching?

From what I remember growing up it seemed that age ratings were designed more to protect adult's prejudices and embarrassments, what children should or shouldn't do, than what actual children were able to safely watch.

Responsibility

Who's responsibility is censoring 'bad' things?

Causality

Imitation

If the Superman movie had affected us as kids, we'd all be trying to jump of buildings in an attempt to fly!

Chicken or egg

Just because some violent kids also watch movies, does the violent kid watch violent movies or do violent movies make violent kids? 

Knife and gun crimes existed way before movies.The point is?

Statistics

It's a triumph of "common sense" over logic and observation that people can still ARGUE a product which millions of people consume MUST be the cause of isolated instances of violence

Why is it, in that case, that violent crime has been down across Western countries for the past 20 years at an appreciable level if movies affect children adversely?

Producer level censoring

  • it's more a matter of the studios censoring
  • In US/UK it's not unusual for a studio to cut to secure a lower age rating. Scenes are not necessarily banned, but would bump a 15 to an 18

Parent or self censorship

  • Do the censors think that viewers can't turn the tv off or leave the cinema?
  • Films containing gratuitous sex and violence simply wouldn't be produced if it wasn't what the majority of people (perhaps mostly men) actually enjoy watching!

Alternatives

What next

Reference

Sources

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15107384

Links

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_banned_films
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-17315918 
Comments