"Public decency campaigner" Mary Whitehouse had run-ins with them. Stanley Kubrick liked them. Video game manufacturers have recently fallen foul of them. The British Board of Film Classification is 95 years old. What do they do and how do they do it?
The BBFC has been in existence since 1912, as an independent, non-governmental, self-financing company. They get their money from film-makers who need certification in order to sell their wares. The remit of the BBFC is to classify cinema films, videos, DVDs and some video and computer games.
They were initially set up as a regulator by the film industry itself, who wanted to keep any censorship " in house " , thereby avoiding political pressure from the government of the day. The BBFC ' s mission statement has always been to empower viewers to make their own decisions on the suitability of what they watch, not to be told what they can and can't.
The body started life as the British Board of Film Censors. Their potential importance was realised before World War II by successive governments ' awareness of the power of mass media as a propaganda tool. This, of course, had been the case in the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. The Home Office unofficially requested the BBFC not to pass any film that expressed strong or biased political opinions.
This led to home-grown scripts being vetted by the board before filming had even started. Different rules applied to American imports as they were considered to be " representing a foreign culture " and therefore wouldn ' t influence a British audience ' s political views. James Cagney and " the mob " were passed uncut, but any UK film-maker wanting to deal with similar post-Depression subjects were, to say the least, discouraged.
The post-war period saw a change of priorities. Political propaganda was old-hat, but sex and violence were rearing their ugly heads in a new liberal climate. The BBFC now had to ponder subjects previously considered taboo, such as capital punishment in Yield to the Night (1956) and homosexuality in Victim (1961).
But it was during the reign of the colourful Lord Harlech as president of the BBFC that several of the biggest controversies arose. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) was refused a classification despite an unproblematic opening in other countries, but A Clockwork Orange (1971) was happily released before the furore that would see it banned by its own director.
The BBFC had introduced the X certificate in 1951 for films " which while not being suitable for children, are good adult entertainment which appeal to an intelligent public " , and that ' s how they perceived A Clockwork Orange twenty years later.
Director Stanley Kubrick seemed to be genuinely shocked by the reaction of politicians, the church, the police, and the media, especially in the form of Mary Whitehouse, the founder of the National Viewers ' and Listeners ' Association. The campaigner for " morality and decency " apparently walked out of the cinema after twenty minutes. She had often disagreed with the BBFC ' s classifications, but, as current ITV supremo Michael Grade said of her, " she was a great debater, she had a very sincere view, but it was out of touch entirely with the real world " . The recently departed comedian Bernard Manning observed " She ' ll be sadly missed, I imagine, but not by me " . You can make up your own jokes about him.
Mary Whitehouse's " Ban Video Nasties " campaign was instrumental in the fate of the horror film The Exorcist . In 1974, the year of its UK release, the BBFC said " showings of this film have resulted in severe emotional problems among a small but worrying number of adults who believe in a reality of demonic possession and satanic practices. A video or TV showing would inevitably attract many teenagers who would be more susceptible to this sort of material " . As a result, an X certificate was slapped on it in cinemas, and its video release was prohibited in the UK for nearly 25 years.
In 1999, with more relaxed guidelines, the board decided that " adults should be free to choose their own entertainment " . As a reflection of changing times and attitudes, the BBFC announced that The Exorcist couldn ' t really harm anyone and released it uncut with an 18 certificate. The then president, Andreas Whittam Smith, admitted " it no longer has the same impact as it did 25 years ago. Film technique and special effects have moved on a long way since then, and audiences are less likely to be affected by it " .
This is the key to the BBFC ' s survival. Keeping abreast, or ahead, of social attitudes. The basic guidelines for film classification are the same as they always have been. Anyone who watches television will know the announcer ' s warnings: strong language, scenes of a sexual nature, violence, drug use, and anything else that " some viewers may find distressing " .
