Censorship
Most people would agree that not all media texts are suitable for all audiences. it is generally agreed that there need to be some limitations placed on the type and content of texts which young children are exposed to, for instance. It is also agreed that the texts which are accessible to a wide and largely involuntary or non-selecting audience (billboards, television commercials, music broadcast on the radio, terrestrial TV before the watershed) should not contain elements which might be offensive. Therefore, rules and regulations and systems have been set up to filter the content of certain media texts in certain situations. This is the practice of censorship.
However, most would also agree (including the writers of the US constitution) that Freedom Of Speech is a basic human right, and that this should not be eroded or compromised through censorship in a nation which likes to call itself free. Film-makers, poets, musicians, graffiti artists, internet site creators and journalists should have the right to say what they think, without fear of censure, from official authorities or elsewhere.
|
|
There is an ongoing debate about those who believe in the need for censorship (parents, governments, politicians) and those who believe in absolute freedom of speech (artists, media corporations, teenage audiences). This debate rages across all forms of the media and looks never to be resolved until the effects theories can be finally and absolutely proven. In court. It boils down to issues of responsibility - as individuals, are we responsible enough to interpret and screen our unique media experience and make sure that we are not unduly influenced by it, or does society need to take that responsibility for us?
You need to familiarise yourself with the different methods of censorship used by different media, and with the particular issues surrounding texts in that form. Also, check out some of the anti-censorship sites, like Melonfarmers - those who censor the censors!
Movies
Film censorship is as old as the films themselves. As with any form of mass entertainment, concern has always been expressed by elite powers about the effect of these texts on an uneducated and unrestrained populace, and measures have been taken to protect the people against themselves. This was not so much of a problem when films deal with trains pulling into stations and men knocking down walls, but, as films acquired more complex narratives and competed for audiences in a more crowded market, censorship and classification systems were developed to control who saw what.
1. No picture shall be produced that will lower the moral standards of those who see it. Hence the sympathy of the audience should never be thrown to the side of crime, wrongdoing, evil or sin.
2. Correct standards of life, subject only to the requirements of drama and entertainment, shall be presented.
3. Law, natural or human, shall not be ridiculed, nor shall sympathy be created for its violation.— General Principles of The Hays Code,
governing motion picture production in the US from 1930 till 1960
Attitudes towards what is acceptable on a large screen varied as much from country to country now as they do then. Europe has always been more accepting of nudity and sexual content than America, which has strict limits on, for instance, the showing of nipples. However, much of what is considered acceptable content in America in terms of violence, is snipped out by European censors, especially in Britain.
US
After concerns voiced by Church and State (oh, the irony) the Association of Motion Picture Producers and The Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America adopted the Hays Code in 1930. it strictly prohibited what could and could not be shown on screen. Based on deeply racist, sexist and elitist principles, it sought to totally sanitise the movies. Ironically, some of the films it most severely affected were adaptations of literary classics, such as Anna Karenina and The Grapes of Wrath. As well as prohibiting the depiction of miscegenation, marital sex, or the profit from crime, it placed curbs on a whole range of bodily functions. Hitchcock's Psycho (1960) is famous for many things, not least because it shows the first ever toilet in the act of flushing to appear on a cinema screen in the US. The Hays Code fell into disuse as more and more studios chose to ignore it by the early 1960s and in 1966 was replaced by the MPAA's rating system.
UK
Hong Kong
Classification system - hk.gov.org
Watch this space on Article 23
Television
TV, no doubt because of its ubiquitous presence in the living rooms and bedrooms of the developed world, has always been a battleground between censorship and free speech. When broadcasting resumed after World War 2, censors on both sides of the Atlantic were anxious to keep the airwaves clean. In the US they adopted the Hays Code, which had been so restrictive for the movie studios, and clung to it until the late 1960s
South Park
Adult
cartoon South
Park has highlighted the problems with television censorship ever since
it first hit screens back in 1998. The colourful world of sleepy Colorado mountain
town, South Park, is created using bold lines, simple two-dimensional shapes
and primary colours. It centres around the exploits of four 8 year old boys
who go to school, hang out at bus stops and on each others' sofas, and indulge
in innocent childhood pastimes like ice-skating. And swearing like total sewer
mouths. Creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone use their four unlikely heroes to
launch a range of attacks against the sacred cows of popular culture - political
correctness, Steven Spielberg, Disney movies, transformer toys, reality TV,
the Sundance Film Festival and of course, censorship, particularly when it applies
to the deletion of expletives.
The
TV show has been running on cable for several years now, and shows no sign of
decreasing in popularity. Its themes are invariably adult, invariably funnier
than any of the live action sitcoms, and invariably anti-hegemonic. It's possibly
the cleverest thing on American TV and regularly confronts the hypocrisy of
a nation that sanctions violent murder as entertainment but shies away from
naked nipples or the word "shit". However, because its central characters
are cartoon 4th graders, they have become very popular with...uh... 4th graders.
And parents, much like Kyle's Mom, are perpetually enraged by the content of
the show. Comedy Central have not helped matters by producing a whole range
of merchandising (lunch boxes, soft toys, keyrings, t-shirts etc) which wasn't
exactly aimed at adults.
Stone & Parker deal with the issues head on in the movie (Bigger. Longer. Uncut.) and in many episodes which see the boys left at home with the TV as babysitter while their parents are off campaigning to block any media influence which might "warp their fragile little minds".
Music
Hi kids/do you like violence?/Wanna see me put Nine Inch Nails through my eyelids?
- My Name Is: Eminem
Music has always been a channel for expressing ideas that oppose and inflame hegemonic powers. Poor? Underprivileged? Disenfranchised? No access to institutional forms of communication? Sing a protest song. It doesn't matter if you're Woody Guthrie or Eminem, it's the only way to get your ideas heard, and heard, and heard, and heard again. All over the world.
Like movies and TV, music is also seen as influencing the behaviour of its audiences, particularly children and teenagers. This is clearly true, given that music audiences divide themselves into tribes, and dress, talk, and do their hair accordingly. Music, alongside other media texts, has been accused by politicians and parents of encouraging teenagers to use violent language and commit violent crimes. There are frequent calls for censorship, both of song lyrics and of the appearance/behaviour of the performers. Commentators on the current furore over rap music should bear in mind that we've already been there done that, back in the 1950s, when the likes of Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis were horrifying politicians and parents.
After Elvis, little was the same. His defiantly sexual, racially charged, very loud music struck at the heart of oppressive notions of permissible expression for the young; it was an electrifying signal that life existed beyond the narrow confines of individual experience.
This new force proved too pervasive to be contained, though the powers-that-were surely tried. The New York Times likened early rock dances to the "bite of the Tarantula," to devil fevers of medieval times. The country's deeply entrenched guardians were stunned by this Elvis mania, attacking it in much the same way the body rushes to reject a dangerous foreign substance injected suddenly into the bloodstream. Girls were sent home from school if they wore their skirts (no pants allowed) too short; boys were ordered to cut off their ducktails and leave their blue jeans at home. Records were seized and destroyed. Towns banned rock tours and dances. Parents, radio stations, and commercial TV banned the most defiant music, and ordered the volume turned down. Then as now, academics and pundits worried that civilization was beginning to unravel.
Popular music has always been subject to internal censorship, as the gatekeepers inside the big record companies decided what could and could not be heard by the outside world. Back in 1939, Billie Holiday's record company, Columbia, refused to release her recording of Strange Fruit (an anti lynching song) as they did not want to alienate their deeply racist audiences. However, a group of Washington politicians' wives, with little else to do during the 1980s other than be shocked by their teenage children's record collections, lobbied effectively (well, when you consider who they were sleeping with...) and gave us our current Parental Advisory system.
The
Washington Wives formed the Parents Music Resource Centre in 1985, as a direct
reaction to the "filth" filling the eardrums of their sons and daughters.
The two artists who started the conflagration were Prince and Madonna, the former
for the lyrics of "Darling Nikki" ("knew a girl called Nikki/Guess
you could say she was a sex fiend/Met her in a hotel lobby/Masturbating with
a magazine" - see, I can still remember it exactly, 17 years on!!!) on
the best selling Purple Rain, the latter for "Like A Virgin"
and the fact that she was appealing to 7 year old girls. They managed to get
a Senate Hearing (No 99-259) about obscenity in popular music, at which artists
as diverse as Dee Snider, John Denver and Frank Zappa testified. The upshot
was that the
Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) conceded that a "Parental
Advisory: Explicit Lyrics" label would warn of songs regarding drugs, sex,
violence and other potentially objectionable material. This had the immediate
effect that some large record stores refused to carry labelled material, fearing
obscenity charges. This meant drastic downturns in sales for rap and metal artists,
who were denied distribution through outlets like Wal-mart. The PMRC are still
campaigning, determined that their Christian values shall carry the day.
Music remains a hotly contested battleground, largely because of its associations with youth culture, which, as we all know, is dangerous and needs controlling.
Rap and Hip Hop have been singled out in recent months for violent lyrical content. UK Minister for Culture, Kim Howells, has blamed gangsta rap for accelerating the use of guns. Read more about the debate here.
![[Blue Ribbon Campaign icon]](http://br.eff.org/br.gif)