British Board Of Film Classification Research Articles

‘Lewd, pornographic filth’: Managing Culture through Local Film Censorship in Britain, 1948–1968

Film censorship in the UK is predicated on a two-tier system whereby the British Board of Film Classification (formerly British Board of Film Censorship Censorship) (BBFC) recommends a classification for a film and this classification is then implemented by local authorities. In cases where local authorities disagree with a BBFC decision they can change the classification or ban the film entirely. Conversely, they can also screen a film which has no BBFC certificate. This local decision-making is permitted under the powers granted to local authorities to oversee cinema exhibition and licensing. Using The Snake Pit, Rock around the Clock and Ulysses, and offering a broad historical and geographic sweep, this article explores local council archives and local press reporting to map local censorship across the UK, drawing attention to inconsistencies in different areas and how councils justified the decisions they took on specific films.

Building a Timeline for LGBTQ+ Global Cinemas (1910–2019): Movie Production Trends from a Collaborative Internet Cinema Database

Building a Timeline for LGBTQ+ Global Cinemas (1910–2019): Movie Production Trends from a Collaborative Internet Cinema Database

Censorship in Context: The British Board of film Classification, the Children’s Film Foundation and Terry on the Fence (1986)

For over thirty years the Children’s Film Foundation (CFF) produced a variety of shorts, travelogues, serials and features which were shown at a network of Saturday morning cinema clubs all over the UK and beyond. At their peak in the 1960s and 1970s they reached an audience in excess of half a million per week. Throughout that period their work caused barely a ripple of reaction at the offices of the British Board of Film Censors, latterly the British Board of Film Classification. That is until the submission of Terry on the Fence (1986), the very last feature to be completed by the CFF (by then renamed as the Children’s Film and Television Foundation or CFTF). The film produced a reaction unique in the Foundation’s history requiring alteration to its content. This article makes extensive use of the archives of the BBFC to show how Terry on the Fence touched a raw nerve in terms of its depiction of juvenile delinquency and exposed some of the same social anxieties that had fed into the so-called video nasties case. It doing so it reflects the degree to which censorship can be seen to respond to prevailing contextual factors.

Shock Value: Audiences on the Censorship ofA Serbian Film

This article argues that censorship studies must concern themselves with matters beyond the actions of the censors if they are to understand how an instance of censorship occurs. It is based on a new study of the experiences of English-speaking audiences of A Serbian Film (2010), which was heavily censored by the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC). It employs discourse analysis of responses to a mixed-methods survey to examine how audiences discuss media violence and censorship. This article identifies four key competing discourses used by respondents, all of which have very different implications, along with the relationships between these discourses. It demonstrates the complexity of the reception of A Serbian Film and theorises the workings of the censorship debate more widely. The invocation of ‘public opinion’ by the BBFC to justify censorship decisions necessitates a better understanding of how everyday audiences talk about censorship.

In the name of the nation: Media classification, globalisation, and exceptionalism

This article examines the relationship between exceptionalism and nationhood in media classification. The history of age-ratings is an international one, and the present challenges associated with digital media circulation are similarly international. We argue that the nation nevertheless provides an appropriate frame for understanding age-rating by attending to the ways national agencies have struggled to articulate the specificity of their work based on the specificity of domestic constituencies. Drawing on archival and ethnographic research, our central examples include the resistance of the Motion Picture Association of America to age-based film classification, the British Board of Film Classification’s examination of American films in the 1980s, contemporary Japanese videogame regulation, and the emergence of the International Age Rating Coalition. We argue that national exceptionalism is itself generalised and that media content regulation is less about producing national culture than about laying claim to a nation by differentiation.

Alcohol Content in the 'Hyper-Reality' MTV Show 'Geordie Shore'.

To quantify the occurrence of alcohol content, including alcohol branding, in the popular primetime television UK Reality TV show 'Geordie Shore' Series 11. A 1-min interval coding content analysis of alcohol content in the entire DVD Series 11 of 'Geordie Shore' (10 episodes). Occurrence of alcohol use, implied use, other alcohol reference/paraphernalia or branding was recorded. All categories of alcohol were present in all episodes. 'Any alcohol' content occurred in 78%, 'actual alcohol use' in 30%, 'inferred alcohol use' in 72%, and all 'other' alcohol references occurred in 59% of all coding intervals (ACIs), respectively. Brand appearances occurred in 23% of ACIs. The most frequently observed alcohol brand was Smirnoff which appeared in 43% of all brand appearances. Episodes categorized as suitable for viewing by adolescents below the legal drinking age of 18 years comprised of 61% of all brand appearances. Alcohol content, including branding, is highly prevalent in the UK Reality TV show 'Geordie Shore' Series 11. Two-thirds of all alcohol branding occurred in episodes age-rated by the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) as suitable for viewers aged 15 years. The organizations OfCom, Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) and the Portman Group should implement more effective policies to reduce adolescent exposure to on-screen drinking. The drinks industry should consider demanding the withdrawal of their brands from the show. Alcohol content, including branding, is highly prevalent in the MTV reality TV show 'Geordie Shore' Series 11. Current alcohol regulation is failing to protect young viewers from exposure to such content.

No laughing matter: film advisory boards’ evaluations of award-considered comedies

ABSTRACTHumor research has not addressed the treatment of comedy movies by film advisory boards, the panels informing local moviegoers of the inappropriateness of contents in these comedies. This is especially true for films subsequently nominated for best comedy of the year by various organizations. The assigned age classifications and their justifications by the Motion Picture Association of America, the British Board of Film Classification and the Australian Classification Board (ACB) for films nominated by voters of the Teen Choice Award (TCA) and the Broadcast Film Critics Association (BFCA), as best comedy movies of the year were analyzed. Three findings stand out. First, there is very little agreement among the voters on these panels of films they consider prime examples of comedies. Second, the majority of TCA and BFCA chosen comedies are evaluated more leniently by the ACB in terms of age restrictions. Finally, the film boards consider profanity and sexual references, but hardly mention humor as a justification for their decisions, regardless of the type of award considered.

‘Cuts are not a viable option’: The British Board of Film Classification, Hate Crime and Censorship for Adults in the Digital Age

In March 2015 the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) refused to classify James Cullen Bressack's independent film, Hate Crime (2012). This was the Board's first explicit rejection of a film since 2011, and undermines their attempts to portray themselves as increasingly lenient, in favour of free choice for adults and open about their processes. This case is of particular interest as the film was to be distributed solely via an online video-on-demand platform. Hate Crime has the dubious honour of being the first film to be refused an eighteen certificate under revised regulations pertaining to the streamed Internet distribution of feature films in the UK. Furthermore, this case raises questions about genre boundaries, and about the definition and prioritisation of art cinema within UK institutions. This article engages with the BBFC's refusal to classify Hate Crime in the light of this particular distribution context. Focusing on media industry, genre and gender studies, the article explores whether or not the BBFC's decision can be justified and, further, what the consequences of this certification refusal might be in the current media landscape. It suggests that the BBFC's approach might be out of kilter with the digital world and in this case demonstrates a misunderstanding of genre conventions and an unequivocal bias in favour of art-house cinema.

Power Struggles, Regulation and Responsibility

This article explores the relationship between the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) and government during the implementation of the Video Recordings Act (VRA). It considers the public Parliamentary debates about the VRA, and places them alongside private correspondence between the Home Office and the BBFC, and internal BBFC material from the recently catalogued James Ferman papers held at the BFI. As well as exploring the introduction of the VRA, this article also aims to briefly consider its implications for the BBFC, how they set about interpreting and implementing its stringent recommendations and how this impacted upon the organisational working practices of the Board. While the VRA was without doubt one of the most significant pieces of legislation within the history of film regulation in Britain, the time is ripe for its reappraisal and with it a re-evaluation of the role played by the BBFC in securing statutory regulatory powers.

‘Blood, guts and Bambi eyes’: Urotsukidoji and the Transcultural Reception and Regulation of Anime

The regulation and reception of anime in Britain has, historically, been fraught with difficulty. In 1992, the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) rejected the first instalment of Urotsukidoji, a controversial series of erotic anime, on the grounds of its sexually explicit content; this decision set a precedent for the way in which they would continue to censor anime for the following two decades. Nearly twenty years later, in 2009, Clause 62 of the Coroners and Justice Act, also colloquially known as the ‘Dangerous Cartoons Act’, made it a criminal offence to possess non-photographic pornographic images of children, including CGI, cartoons, manga images and drawings. Through an examination of the BBFC's archival materials on Urotsukidoji – Legend of the Overfiend, supplemented by references to a small number of newspaper articles published during this period, this article offers a range of insights into the historical context in which the current series of debates surrounding the ‘Dangerous Cartoons Act’ can be situated and assessed. These are used to consider the transcultural flow of genres across national borders, and the difficulties that a regulator from one culture encounters when dealing with controversial material originating from another, such as Japan, that has a substantially different set of social values and artistic conventions. Furthermore, this case highlights the important role played by distribution companies in shaping the production and evolution of genres within the transcultural marketplace.

‘Knowledge-U-Like’: The British Board of Film Classification and its Research

‘Knowledge-U-Like’: The British Board of Film Classification and its Research

A new media landscape? The BBFC, extreme cinema as cult, and technological change

Disreputable films involving explicit representations of sex and violence have long attracted the attention of the censors and cult film audiences alike. In late 2012, the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) announced it was tightening its regulation of representations of sadistic and sexual violence, simultaneously enhancing the subcultural capital and potential cult status of the films in question (Thornton, Club Cultures: Music, Media and Subcultural Capital, Cambridge: Polity Press, 1995, 11). The subsequent publication of the BBFC's revised guidelines in January 2014 confirmed its increasingly censorial stance (British Board of Film Classification, The Guidelines, London: BBFC, 2014a). The Board's rationale for implementing these changes was that a succession of technological developments had created ‘a new media and entertainment landscape’ requiring stricter regulation (British Board of Film Classification, BBFC Guidelines 2014: Research Report, London: BBFC, 2014b, 15). This paper traces a series of changes in film regulation during the post-Ferman era, focusing in particular on the pedagogical turn taken by the BBFC under the directorship of David Cooke (2004–14). Drawing on a range of reports and documents, I argue that by discursively framing these policy adjustments in the context of the so-called ‘sexualisation of culture’ debate, the BBFC have obscured a more fundamental shift in their purpose and remit during the Cooke era.

There’s something rotten in the state of Texas: Genre, adaptation and The Texas Vibrator Massacre

Abstract The main focus of this article is to critically assess the recent hardcore porn film The Texas Vibrator Massacre. Following the decision of the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) to ban the film in August 2008, this article explores the contexts of such regulatory control in response to what has proven to be a problematic conflation of hardcore porn and horror. Although the film is coded as a sex work, its callous tone and representations of violence have meant that the film complicates what is, on the surface, a pornographic parody film. Using the rejection of the film as a starting point, the article explores the now conventional porn parody sub-genre and how Rob Rotten positions himself in relation to this type of pornography. Moving beyond issues of parody and into the controversial representation of sexual violence, I position The Texas Vibrator Massacre as an example of both hardcore porn and graphic horror that problematizes the critical assessment of these respective genres. In discussing the film through the prism of censorship and the practicalities of classification, I argue how this framework of regulation can be used to outline the wider implications of conflating horror and hard-core pornography.

Media – the Video Appeals Committee

Review of the work of the Video Appeals Committee which hears appeals from makers of videos from decisions of the British Board of Film Classification, to refuse certificates or to grant certificates in respect of videos works, with which they disagree. Article by John Wood (Solicitor with Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, London; former Director of the Serious Fraud Office and Director of Public Prosecutions, Hong Kong) published in Amicus Curiae - Journal of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies and its Society for Advanced Legal Studies. The Journal is produced by the Society for Advanced Legal Studies at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, University of London.

Alcohol imagery and branding, and age classification of films popular in the UK

Background Exposure to alcohol products in feature films is a risk factor for use of alcohol by young people. This study was designed to document the extent to which alcohol imagery and brand appearances occur in popular UK films, and in relation to British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) age ratings intended to protect children and young people from harmful imagery.Methods Alcohol appearances (classified as ‘alcohol use, inferred alcohol use, other alcohol reference and alcohol brand appearances’) were measured using 5-min interval coding of 300 films, comprising the 15 highest grossing films at the UK Box Office each year over a period of 20 years from 1989 to 2008.Results At least one alcohol appearance occurred in 86% of films, at least one episode of alcohol branding in 35% and nearly a quarter (23%) of all intervals analysed contained at least one appearance of alcohol. The occurrence of ‘alcohol use and branded alcohol appearances’ was particularly high in 1989, but the frequency of these and all other appearance categories changed little in subsequent years. Most films containing alcohol appearances, including 90% of those including ‘alcohol brand appearances’, were rated as suitable for viewing by children and young people. The most frequently shown brands were American beers: Budweiser, Miller and Coors. Alcohol appearances were similarly frequent in films originating from the UK, as from the USA.Conclusion Alcohol imagery is extremely common in all films popular in the UK, irrespective of BBFC age classification. Given the relationship between exposure to alcohol imagery in films and use of alcohol by young people, we suggest that alcohol imagery should be afforded greater consideration in determining the suitability of films for viewing by children and young people.

Legal games: the regulation of content and the challenge of casual gaming

The regulation of video games in the United Kingdom has come under the authority of the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) since the 1980s, but the system was extended in 2010 and a new authority will take over from them in due course. This article considers the history of this regulatory system, arguing that the limitations of the Video Recordings Act (VRA) (the governing statute) and the assumptions made by legislators are a result of the gulf between legal and academic understandings of games. Furthermore, the range of games now played, such as casual downloadable games and applications on smartphones and mobile devices, means that the dividing line between regulated and unregulated may be based on history instead of necessity. The author draws upon legal decisions, regulatory statements, and general and specialist press reports, alongside the academic literature on games from the humanities and the social sciences, arguing that an alternative form of legal control could be informed by advances in the academic and cultural understanding of video games.

Tobacco and tobacco branding in films most popular in the UK from 1989 to 2008

BackgroundTobacco promotion is now tightly restricted in the UK and many other countries, but tobacco imagery including brand appearances in the media remain potentially powerful drivers of smoking uptake among...

‘Blue is the Pervading Shade’: Re-examining British Film Censorship in the 1970s

Much has been written about film censorship in Britain, with a particular focus on the 1970s (Phelps 1975; Dhavan and Davies 1978; Robertson 1979). While fully acknowledging the work carried out by James Robertson and Anthony Aldgate (Robertson 1985, 1989; Aldgate and Robertson 2005) in laying the ground for further debates on British film censorship, my own research examines hitherto unexplored aspects of film culture and censorship in Britain in the 1970s. In studying over 100 film files from the British Board of Film Classification (which represent only a fraction of the films submitted for classification in this period), I have begun the painstaking work which is needed in order to contribute to a long-overdue reevaluation of British film censorship in this much misunderstood decade. However, utilising the material from the files at the BBFC is not without problems. There is evidence that in the earlier part of the period, the files were badly organised; some offer nothing more than the official documentation, while others are empty or missing altogether. However, despite their extreme variability, the files do offer an intriguing perspective on film censorship in the period, particularly when material relating to overlooked films and genres is considered alongside well-documented cases. Causes celebres such as A Clockwork Orange (1971) and The Devils (1971) have been the obvious test cases for examining film censorship in the 1970s and James Robertson (1989) refers in detail to both these examples. However, the detailed scrutiny accorded to these well-known cases often obscures the larger censorship debate and for this reason I have chosen to examine less well-documented examples. Selected case studies are included here but have been carefully chosen to illustrate the organic relationship which many films had with the wider policy and actions of the BBFC in this period.

Introduction: Screen Londons

Our aim, in editing the ‘London Issue’ of this journal, is to contribute to a conversation between scholars of British cinema and television, London historians and scholars of the cinematic city. In 2007, introducing the themed issue on ‘Space and Place in British Cinema and Television’, Steve Chibnall and Julian Petley observed that it would have been possible to fill the whole journal with essays about the representation of London. This issue does just that, responding to the increased interest in cinematic and, to a lesser extent, televisual, Londons, while also demonstrating the continuing fertility of the paradigms of ‘space and place’ for scholars of the moving image1. It includes a wide range of approaches to the topic of London on screen, with varying attention to British institutions of the moving image – such as Channel Four or the British Board of Film Classification – as well as to concepts such as genre, narration and memory. As a whole, the issue, through its juxtapositions of method and approach, shows something of the complexity of encounters between the terms ‘London’, ‘cinema’ and ‘television’ within British film and television studies.

Exposure of US Adolescents to Extremely Violent Movies

Despite concerns about exposure to violent media, there are few data on youth exposure to violent movies. In this study we examined such exposure among young US adolescents. We used a random-digit-dial survey of 6522 US adolescents aged 10 to 14 years fielded in 2003. Using previously validated methods, we determined the percentage and number of US adolescents who had seen each of 534 recently released movies. We report results for the 40 that were rated R for violence by the Motion Picture Association of America, UK 18 by the British Board of Film Classification and coded for extreme violence by trained content coders. The 40 violent movies were seen by a median of 12.5% of an estimated 22 million US adolescents aged 10 to 14 years. The most popular violent movie, Scary Movie, was seen by >10 million (48.1%) children, 1 million of whom were 10 years of age. Watching extremely violent movies was associated with being male, older, nonwhite, having less-educated parents, and doing poorly in school. Black male adolescents were at particularly high risk for seeing these movies; for example Blade, Training Day, and Scary Movie were seen, respectively, by 37.4%, 27.3%, and 48.1% of the sample overall versus 82.0%, 81.0%, and 80.8% of black male adolescents. Violent movie exposure was also associated with measures of media parenting, with high-exposure adolescents being significantly more likely to have a television in their bedroom and to report that their parents allowed them to watch R-rated movies. This study documents widespread exposure of young US adolescents to movies with extreme graphic violence from movies rated R for violence and raises important questions about the effectiveness of the current movie-rating system.