The Film Censor Board on June 3 barred the screening of Delhi Belly, an Indian movie produced by popular artiste Aamir Khan and issued an adult certification, after the distributor of the movie didn’t adhere by its direction to cut out five dialogues. The news produced uproar in Twitter generating an interesting debate on film censorship.
While other mass communication medium, such as newspaper, radio and television, enjoys greater level of freedom, films have always been ‘censored’. The meaning of ‘censored’ here implies to the certification and/or cutting out of a few scenes and dialogues of the film before public screening.
Although there are many thoughts around if the Censor Board is needed or not, most of the countries do have the ‘Censor Boards’ under various names for certification and the board can deny certificate to a film which effectively means banning the film for public screening.
One of the most recent examples of the ban is that of England. The British Board of Film Classification refused certification to the horror movie sequel: Human Centipede II. Many countries have banned movies (here is a list of some countries and movies they have banned).
India too have banned Nepali movies from screening. India have also recently banned a documentary on Nepali Maoist (Flames of the snow) from public screening.
Why films are censored?
Films are considered more effective means of mass communication – and it’s fiction. So what a movie tells should not be fact or information – as newspapers, radio and television are expected to tell. Being a fiction means that film can tell anything – may that be a truth or just something that the author/director think could happen.
Film are normally censored for violence and sex. In USA, the certification is done to determine if children can watch a movie without any negative effect or not.
Is censorship needed?
Need of Censor Board is a tricky question. All have agreed that film needed to be certified before public screening. Certification means determining the age of people who can watch the movie. It also means a warning to the audience before they watch the movie.
Many will agree that light censorship is needed – not only for the sex and violence but also to ensure that the content of the movie is good enough to the society where it’s screened. We all will agree that film promoting violence, or incest, or unrest, could be made (if not inside the country, then outside the country) and in such scenario, permitting everything to be screened publicly is certainly not a good idea.
What if some film argue that Nepal should be annexed to India or China? Or some film argue that if there is no religious places, the religion will disappear along with religious tension, so all temples, churches and Masjids should be destroyed? I don’t think those types of movies should be permitted to be screened on the name of art or different opinion.
There are reasonable restriction on every mass communication medium everywhere. Of course we can debate what’s reasonable or not, but we can’t debate, everything should be absolutely free.
Censorship or lawlessness?
In case of Delhi Belly, under the situation that there is the law that has a provision for the Censor Board, is screening of the movie without adhering to the Board’s directives justifiable? No. If there is a law, either we have to change it or obey it. There is no in-between.
The distributor decided not to adhere by the directives – which is lawlessness. When a distributor accepts a certification under condition of cutting down something in a film, they should adhere by the condition, otherwise it’s a crime.
