Friday, October 27, 2006

Film censorship

The reviews of This Film Is Not Yet Rated contains a lot of interesting information and commentary.
I've long been concerned about censorship. I used to think it was always done by small minorities in power, but now I'm of the belief that powerful censorship forces (like other forms of oppression) come from sizeable parts of a population, even if they are seemingly wielded by small groups. Which changes the whole picture. It means large numbers of people have to develop their awareness. But it also means that when they do, nothing can stop the positive change.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've long been concerned about censorship. I used to think it was always done by small minorities in power, but now I'm of the belief that powerful censorship forces (like other forms of oppression) come from sizeable parts of a population, even if they are seemingly wielded by small groups. Which changes the whole picture.
I totally agree with you eolake. Censorship in my view has destroyed many things I once thought of as excellent, but after the cutting edge has been applied sometimes all you have left is the greasy fat. Sigh.

Anonymous said...

When the movie "Prêt-à-porter" was eventually allowed in Lebanese theaters, the Domai-like final scene had been cut. Probably making it pointless.

You know, the one where the models do a fashion show wearing only their beauty. Except for the one who's pregnant, she was wearing a bridal crown and veil plus bouquet. So poetic...

I happened to see this scene by pure chance, upon stumbling on the last minutes of the film... on Turkish TV!
That was before their "moderate islamist" government, of course.

Anonymous said...

Malaysia tries to censor almost to calm down their hot-tempered and narrow-minded soceity, public media are all controlled by the government. In JLos music video, 'Get it right' her navel was censored together with other dancers. Even the cleavage regions are nowadays getting censored. However, Malaysian girls are allowed to show their navels ( I got it a few days ago)but hardly, any Malaysian dares to do so. You can see them only doing so in nightclubs and beach. Recently, one Islamist leader of a state of this country allowed to nightclubs but oly if the women cover up their whole body except for their faces and hands and have to dance among themselves this is also applied for guys. Its even worse when the national ads of women in large signboards in that state are animated a full dress from hea to toe which is not done in other parts of Malaysia, fortunately. Even PCD were fined for the so-called 'flouting with indecency.' The reasons the media gives for censoring certain body parts ( which is not a practise in other parts of the modern world) to prevent the perverts from watching such parts since it would increase their motivations to rape girls.