BBFC: A Polemic
During the recent films studies trip to Warwick University, we heard a representative from the BBFC explaining the process of film classification. Here’s what Mr Ward thought.
Once again, a representative from the BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) has not properly justified the Board’s existence. The BBFC is not government-appointed or –controlled. It is instead run by the film industry (a problematic term by which I largely intend Hollywood film companies) to certificate its film and DVD products, thus legitimising its output. The BBFC operates in line with certain acts of parliament and codes of practice, descriptions of what is and is not acceptable at various levels of certification.
Some of the wording is unclear and inconsistent. The BBFC official talked of violence in films whereas with other ‘sensitive’ areas the guidelines talk in terms of representations. There is no ‘real’ violence in feature films. That is why the figures you see are played by what we call ‘actors’. It was also heavily-implied that film should avoid anything that can be construed as glorifying or glamorising. Besides this reflecting an ignorance of Audience Theory, clearly there is no artistic or other cultural criteria in operation here; it is simply dealing with problematic image creation. Now if image creation is the problem, there should be very wide-ranging censorship both within the film industry and also elsewhere. There is no proper, reflective philosophical underpinning informing the BBFC’s work that would show awareness of issues around film viewing and film’s artistic and cultural status. The BBFC is really part of film as a commercial consumer product, helping to maximise the industry’s profits, making no contribution to critical issues concerned directly or indirectly with film appreciation.
The BBFC’s work then is effectively peripheral to Film Studies in that it has nothing useful to add to film debates. Film classification serves to highlight aspects of film that thus creates false emphases and hence values that may well not be central to proper critical study. This then perpetuates the notion that film is something the general public needs to be protected from in ways that are not applied to art (see Caravaggio’s “Judith Beheading Holofernes†with its famous blood-spurt or Rodin’s erotic sculptures; in literature, taboo language and violence in Shakespeare). One could add from other high profile areas the fashion industry’s preference for anorexic/bulimic models and its flirtation with heroin chic or the coverage of violence in news broadcasting. Film classification also perpetuates the fallacious idea that events in feature films are somehow real, whatever that means, and are thereby liable to disturb. The BBFC has nothing to say on the central issue of public film literacy; if anything it thrives on continuing levels of public unawareness that there are rich levels of film discourse beyond seeing film primarily as entertainment. This masks the problem of public film illiteracy. If anything, the BBFC is part of mainstream media’s service to capitalism in avoiding raising questions about film as consumerism (for example, movies that are clearly not much more than star vehicles using heavily-recycled plots of a generic nature that reinforce masculine ideologies). To cap it all, as the man from the BBFC admitted, his organisation has no binding legal force, nor can even this limited status be guaranteed in the future. In the context of the difficulties involved in controlling the internet, the BBFC’s role may well be reduced to an advisory one.