The
purpose of regulation is to protect children and vulnerable adults from
potentially damaging material that will affect them such as;
graphic violence or sex. By doing so regulators like the BBFC and OFCOM, have
control over what the audience see and do not see. This is a much more conservative
idea of how society should be “kept safe” as they believe that the more
powerful authorities have a duty to protect the public that may be at risk of coming
into contact with harm from certain content in the media. One dominant reason
that has changed how film, TV and games are regulated is the internet. These
things are much easier to access nowadays due to the internet being on such a
wide and global scale. I believe a more liberal view should be taken when
making regulatory decisions for the wider public, this is because people are
able to make their own choices when it comes to what they want to watch and it
is a basic right for people to have the freedom to find entertainment and
enjoyment in what they want. For example, by watching a gory, violent horror
film a person watching could find themselves purging their negative emotions
while watching it (catharsis theory).
For
many people for example Mary Whitehouse, horror films can cause the public to
contract anxiety over some situations that are put across in the films, this is
wide spread moral panic. In order to correctly respond to this, authorities
need to put bans and censorships into place like age ratings to show the public
that they take the protection of the vulnerable seriously. However, it could be
said that regulation has become significantly more relaxed as the last film to
have been banned was 2011 (The Bunny Game due to scenes of rape and sexualized
violence). This suggests that regulators can now see that people are becoming
more and more desensitised to graphic content and therefore they are able to
use age ratings as a better way of distributing films rather than banning them
completely. The main aim of regulation is to protect in order to prevent the
copycat theory from taking place (imitation of what is seen on screen)
therefore, the more conservative government want to uphold moral standards to
stop societies ideas of acceptability spiralling out of control. As Mary
Whitehouse claimed, horror films lead to a more relaxed attitude to homosexuality
or divorce and that in strict, conservative thoughts are not suitable for
society.
The
BBFC in contemporary society have decided that violence is much more damaging
than sex to the public eye. Films like Deadpool which portray graphic violence
to the extent of chopping people up and a decapitated head flying across the
screen have been shown in a better light than others like Blue is The Warmest
Colour that shows two females who decide they are lesbians. The reason for this
is because in Blue is The Warmest colour there is quite graphic sex shown. The
inconsistent ideas between sex and violence are very contradictory, as some
could say that violence is far worse to show to the wider public compared to
sex because sex is a completely natural thing that most people are confronted
with.
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