BBFC FILM TV 2020-22 CASES

 I've been having a trawl through some of my larger posts... There's still a lot below, but this makes it easier to find nuggets on specific industry case studies. Still TBC with some bullets...

I started with 

2021 OVERVIEW compilation of examples

last updated Jan 2022....

BBFC PUBLIC PANEL ZERO TOLERANCE OF N-WORD, NOW MIN 12 RATING UNLESS EDUCATIONAL

Guardian reports on BBFC's response to its latest public attitudes research.

DISNEY+ HONG KONG LAUNCH CUTS SIMPSONS CHINA EPISODE

Guardian. 'In the cartoon there is a sign in [Tianamen] square that reads “On this site, in 1989, nothing happened”, a satirical nod to China’s campaign to purge memories of what happened.'

GULF STATES BAN DISNEY'S MCU ETERNAL OVER GAY KISS

See Guardian.

ENGLISH COUNCIL URGES PARENTS TO BAN SQUID GAMES AFTER COPYCAT OUTBREAK

If it was film they'd have power to ban it... Guardian

NETFLIX DAVE CHAPELLE TRANSPHOBIA ROW

It looks likely that Netflix will be overtaken in subscriber numbers by one or more of Disney+ and Amazon - its long-term prospects are a little shaky. This row won't help, with cancellations and boycott over its support for Chappelle's transphobic comments in his new Netflix special. Guardian.

PANDEMIC FUELLED PIRACY BOOM

Lockdown has brought many more into using piracy as a main part of their film/TV (not least sport) viewing. The spread of exclusive content from Netflix, Amazon Prime to a growing number (Disney+, Peacock...) has meant facing multiple subscriptions - too many to pay for for many viewers who've instead switched to piracy, and maybe pay for one music service (Spotify or Apple Music mainly).

The emerging use of simultaneous streaming and cinema release has also made it easier for pirates to access high quality movie files. Guardian.

OFCOM 2021 ATTITUDE SURVEY: SWEARING OK, RACISM/TRANSPHOBIA NOT...UNLESS OLDER

Multiple useful takeaways from this, but the split over banning repeats of film/TV with aspects like blackface splits the younger (ban it!) and older (it simply reflects attitudes at that time).

Useful point too linked to Pogues case study, words like "faggot" 'were highly offensive and required a very strong editorial justification if they were to be included in a programme' Guardian.

SWEARING LOSING SHOCK VALUE - SCHITT'S CREEK etc

Guardian: 'Ultimately, despite a backlash to certain series, it seems that we’re finding “bad words” on television less gasp-inducing in general, according to Ofcom, and the number of people who bother to make official complaints about it appears to be on the decline as well. The regulator says just three viewers complained about the title The End of the F***ing World when it was broadcast, and 12 viewers when the trailer aired pre-watershed. These complaints “were assessed and not pursued”, it says. The last big fine imposed on a broadcaster for swearing was back in 2008 for MTV, which had to cough up £255,000 for “repeatedly airing swearing and offensive language” on its pre-watershed shows, including a trailer for the show Totally Jodie Marsh, in which the words “some fucking wanker from a modelling agency” were uttered.'

BBFC CONFIRM LONG-TERM NETFLIX ARRANGEMENT

They've deemed their self-rating trial a success. BBC

GOVERNMENT TRY TO FIX OFCOM APPOINTMENT PROCESS TO INSTALL PAUL DACRE - BUT STRUGGLE TO FIND PROFESSIONALS WILLING TO RISK DAMAGING THEIR REPUTATION

This is the type of behaviour that made Trump's administration so notorious a questioned for its democratic legitimacy. Dacre was the long-term Mail editor well known for his hostility towards the BBC and C4. OfCom is supposed to be the neutral media regulator - this shows the power of making appointments (see also the multiple Conservatives now running the BBC). Guardian

OFCOM FOLLOW UP CGTN BAN WITH £200K FINE!

Having withdrawn their license because the company with that license wasn't directly controlling the editorial decisions - ultimately the Chinese government was - a sizeable fine has been added! (Aug 2021; license withdrawal Feb 2021)

'The regulator revoked CGTN's licence in February after an Ofcom investigation found the international English-language satellite news channel was controlled by the Chinese Communist Party, which is not permitted under UK broadcasting law' BBC

BBFC JUSTIFY 15 FOR THE SUICIDE SQUAD

Quite a familiar rationale ... it's fantasy style, violence isn't sustained... Indie

BBFC MOCKS IT'S OWN 80s VIDEO NASTIES PAST, SPITTING SURVEY STATS TO JUSTIFY ITSELF AS HORROR FILM "CENSOR" REFLECTS ON THE MARY WHITEHOUSE/MAIL MORAL PANIC

Lots of useful material in this Guardian feature. Austin is BBFC chief executive....

'Ask Austin how he feels about the 80s BBFC and you might think he was talking about a late, disgraced elderly relative. The Video Recordings Act of 1984 gave the BBFC control over the films people watched at home; in the same year, the board dropped the word “censors” from its title. But, to Austin, a more profound change came in 1999. That was when the board switched from airing examiners’ hang-ups to transparent guidelines drawn from public consultation. Twenty-two years later, 10,000 members of the British public are still asked annually to gauge the level of sex and violence that should be viewable by, say, a typical 12-year-old. “I don’t just make up the standards in Soho Square,” Austin says. “Our standards are given to us by the public.”

Yet not everyone is at peace with the BBFC. In 2016, the film-maker Charlie Shackleton pushed back. His objections included its financial model: not profit-making, but reliant on distributors having no choice but to submit their films for certification – and to pay the BBFC to do so, for each minute of screen time. His provocative response was Paint Drying, a 10-hour study of a freshly painted wall. The classification fee was crowdfunded, the issue publicised. (The film got a U.) Shackleton remains a sceptic. “It suits the BBFC to highlight video nasties. They acknowledge the absurdity of their past and tell everyone they’re different now. Then they release another survey to justify their existence.”

(“And 88% of parents found it useful when Netflix started using BBFC classification,” Austin says.) But the relationship is unusual. Rather than submit content to examiners, the company uses an algorithm developed with the board. The bill is substantially cheaper.

Austin wants to work with other big streamers. But the real prize is the internet. If video nasties were an early freakout at rising individualism, online life is the world after the flood. Here, more than movies, is where the questions of the 80s endure. When does “I don’t want to look at this” attract the addendum “and no one else should” or “because they might copy it”? “That was video nasties in a nutshell,” Bailey-Bond says. “It came from people feeling everyone was morally shady, that we’re only ever one film from garotting someone with a shoelace.”

OFCOM COMPLAINTS RISE 4-FOLD, ALL TOP 10 ITV, 3 PIERS MORGAN, 2 BLM

BBC. A 410% increase. I'd have to think that's reflective of the number of people under lockdown plus many watching shows like GMB they normally wouldn't. 

MORE AUTHORITARIANISM: BORIS ALLY TRIED TO BLOCK BBC APPOINTMENT

Guardian. The advisor who came up with the media strategy on the race report (Britain isn't racist, yay! in summary) and worked on the right-wing TV news station GB News, warned the BBC not to appoint someone from the HuffPost. Which Boris was battling with after he okayed a minister using Twitter to bring thtreat to a journalist. He texted: 'the government’s “fragile trust in the BBC will be shattered” if she went ahead'.

Labour subsequently demanded the resignation or sacking of Gibb, former Communications Director for Theresa May as PM (Guardian). Alistair Campbell, Blair's media pitbull, had a colourful phrase to describe the Tory/Johnson attempts to shape and control the media, culling critical voices: "Putinism with posh accents". Gibb sits on the BBC Board; 'According to the corporation’s website, one of Gibb’s responsibilities as a non-executive director on the BBC board involves “upholding and protecting the independence of the BBC”.'

OFCOM SAY GB NEWS OK...BUT BLAST JOHN LENNON PEACE VIDEO

BBC: It seems there's no going back from the radical reinterpretation of broadcast news balance/accuracy requirements. Much like IPSO + the PCC before it, opinion segments are getting extra leeway, while the inclusion of some/any counterviews, regardless of how they're presented or undermined, seems now to mean right-wing Trumpian/Fox-style 'news' shows are okay.

The Lennon case is about the use of 1 of 2 videos for Happy Xmas (War is Over) which features short clips of real war footage.

As with Indie social realist films getting hammered with high BBFC age ratings, it seems that reality/realism is not to be encouraged!!!

FLASH GORDON BBFC'S BIGGEST 2020 CONTROVERSY! KARATE KID RATING CHOPPED

A new DVD edition was uprated for its use of stereotypes, eventually leading to ... 26 complaints. Pinocchio was #2! FilmStories.

SkyNews is one of many other sites who detail the range of upratings like Star Wars and LotR, but also Karate Kid dropping down to 12.

EU TO IMPOSE QUOTA ON BRITISH FILM/TV?

And so the great Brexit triumph continues... The UK music industry faces crisis as touring in the EU is made impossible (British drivers are only allowed to take tour vans to 3 venues then must return to the UK, with carnets, tax forms, required now too for all equipment).

The booming UK film/TV industry now faces a huge hit too. The EU are likely to impose a quota on UK productions to protect domestic European production and culture, echoing the quotas in place to protect against American dominance, or cultural imperialism. In France, for example, this applies across radio, film and TV.

One of several Guardian reports notes:

Good example of the clash of left/right-wing thinking, plus this government's determined attack on anything 'woke' (obviously argued one way through the Guardian lens): 

Under the EU’s audiovisual media services directive, a majority of airtime must be given to such European content on terrestrial television and it must make up at least 30% of the number of titles on video on demand (VOD) platforms such as Netflix and Amazon.

UK GOV TO PRIVATISE C4?

Good example of the clash of left/right-wing thinking, plus this government's determined attack on anything 'woke' (obviously argued one way through the Guardian lens): Guardian

GB NEWS LAUNCHES EVEN AS MURDOCH HESITATES - IS BRITAIN GETTING ITS OWN FOX NEWS?

In short - yes ... and no. Murdoch's US Fox News is a commercial juggernaut, attracting huge advertising revenues for its comically, demonically far-right proselytizing; this venture, even with a Trump-like UK Prime Minister, is unlikely to gain either the commercial of cultural importance. But it seems a large degree of newspaper style bias will be okayed by OfCom. See Guardian analysis:

Contrary to popular belief, there is no legal requirement for British broadcasters to give equal time to both sides of a political debate. Instead, GB News will simply have to ensure its broadcasts meet Ofcom’s standards of due impartiality. This would enable a host to express a strong opinion on a culture war topic as long as viewers are later exposed to alternative viewpoints.

Stop Funding Hate, the Twitter-centric campaign group that puts pressure on rightwing news outlets by targeting their advertisers, has already launched a campaign against the channel. “GB News may now be trying to shake off the Fox News label – but if to be ‘woke’ is to be anti-racist, then by branding themselves an ‘anti-woke’ TV channel, they seem to be making their intentions quite clear,” it said.

BBFC 2021 SWEARING FINDINGS: NO MORE AT 12 SAY PARENTS - WHILE THEY SWEAR MORE THEMSELVES!

Guardian. 'The report coincides with the BBFC’s first guide to what terms parents can expect to hear in differently classified TV shows and films. It says that for a U-rated film such as Monsters Inc, “look at the big jerk” will be as strong as it gets.

In Back to the Future, a PG film, Marty McFly exclaims “holy shit!” when armed terrorists approach in a van, but the word is not used again.

Bohemian Rhapsody is one of the 12/12A-rated examples: “Freddie fucking Mercury,” says Mercury in a scene in which he reveals to his bandmates that he has Aids. “You’re a legend,” says the drummer Roger Taylor. “You’re bloody right I am,” Mercury replies. The BBFC says viewers would have been expecting “sex, drugs and strong language”.

The report also touches on acronyms and concludes that the meaning of an example such as WTF is rarely lost on viewers, whatever age. “Therefore, the BBFC will classify acronyms as if they are a use of strong language in full.”'

CHINA: JOHN CENA APOLOGIZES TO PREVENT MOVIE FLOPPING; CENSORING TIANAMEN SQUARE SEARCH RESULTS OUTSIDE CHINA TOO

Google bowed to pressure from its staff and risk to its image (though does anyone still think their corporate motto 'don't be evil" is anything but a sick joke by now?) by pulling out of China in 2010 rather than agreeing to censor it's results. Murdoch pulped (last British Governor of Hong Kong) Chris Patten's autobiography and wrote off the £1m advance, and dumped the BBC from his Asian satellite TV network Star to protect his access to China. NBCUniversal made wrestler/actor John Cena apologize for correctly referring to Taiwan as a country - like Tibet and Hong Kong, China insists it isn't, it's simply part of China (and is increasingly open about threatening military invasion to enforce this). Do a 'china' word search in this post to read more.

Into this picture of craven Western media bowing to China's notorious censorship demands stumbles Microsoft. Their search engine is compliant with the great firewall of China, the extraordinary operation to block critical (what Gramsci calls counter-hegemonic) content - like any reference to Tianamen Square. They've been caught out applying this censorship in the West now too (they blamed this on "human error"). But this isn't an entirely new development...

'In 2014, the Guardian reported that Bing was censoring results for Chinese-language users in the US for many of the same terms that Bing censors inside China, such as Dalai Lama, Tiananmen Square and Falun Gong.

In 2009, the New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof wrote a column about receiving seemingly censored results on Bing when he searched for topics such as the Dalai Lama, Tiananmen Square, and Falun Gong using simplified Chinese language characters.' (Guardian)

It's worth emphasizing that the basic Western democracy v Chinese dictatorship binary isn't so clearcut. Trump made clear he admired several dictators and attempted to trample on US democracy. Boris Johnson is doing the same in the UK, while Poland and Hungary barely qualify as democracies any more. Many western governments were caught out secretly spying on their citizens with the Wikileaks publication of Chelsea Manning's leaks and the Guardian/New York Times publication of Alex Snowdon's leaks. The British government sent in police to literally destroy the computers Guardian journalists were working on. Democracy?!?! (read more)

Western 'democracies' secretly have their own operations - Andrew Keen covers this in his books reflecting on web 3.0, describing how Google/Facebook have brought about surveillance capitalism.

SKY NEWS AUSTRALIA: RACIST HATE SPEECH IS FINE - ITS NOT OUR JOB TO POLICE YOUTUBE COMMENTS; COMPARE TO ANTI-BBC FLAK 

There is a serious point/principle at play here, not unlike the hypocrisy-soaked shrieks of outrage that greet any attempt to raise meaningful press regulation: it is a potential threat to democracy to have statutory press regulation ... but of course the (right-wing) press love to pile on calls for tougher regulation of all other media.

Australia has been working through political attempts to make new media giants Google and Facebook legally liable to compensate news media for content they use, exploit, distribute, share, publish - the exact term you'd use has big legal consequences. Is Google a publisher? If so, it must pay for content and be legally responsible for libel and meeting regulatory standards. This includes user comments....

SkyNews Australia has been accused of a Fox News-style ultra right-wing agenda. Note: it's UK equivalent isn't seen in this way, as an OfCom-compliant news channel. The Guardian reports on the mass of racist comments under a short news clip, posted on YouTube, on the shooting of a BLM activist in London. The clip is fine - but News Corp Australasia ) Murdoch's local subsidiary) insist they are not the publisher of the comments - Google is; it's their responsibility to police racist hate speech!!!

They do have a point - but to performativize this to the extent of refusing to delete (or simply block all) comments is unconscionable. 

'After this story was published on Thursday, YouTube advised Guardian Australia they were now “actively” removing comments that violated community guidelines.' Prompted by the paper's claim that much of the hate speech remained, I checked for myself on 27.5.21 - and sure enough, there remains a dominant thread of repugnant racism in the comments underneath. Check for yourself here.

So, who is responsible for policing user comments online??? Is it Google/Alphabet in the case of YouTube? Or the account-holder uploading and publishing the video, and not only permitting comments but not either vetting (selecting the moderate all comments before publication option) or moderating comments? 'spokesperson said. “Sky News Australia is not the author of user comments on the YouTube platform. We suggest you direct your inquiries to Google.”'

There IS a HUGE principle at stake here, so I can understand the rationalisation behind this stance. But I have a channel with many 100s of videos, I'm rather busy ... but I vet all comments before publication. Same for Blogger, on which I've had over a million post reads across multiple blogs. I'm not prepared to risk hateful comments. I'm certainly not going to rely on Google's ability/will to enforce 'community guidelines'.

Both SkyNews and Google are monetising that BLM shooting video. Advertisers pay more when there's evidence of user engagement, so the racist hate speech is driving up revenue. How can BOTH these conglomerate giants get away with refusing or failing to police hate speech on their own channel/platform?

Another angle on this centres on OnlyFans, a UGC site that has been hailed for its explosive growth as an exemplar of the future of new media. The BBC article itself warns that some readers might find some of its report disturbing, as it covers exploitation of teens posting explicit content, and I'll reiterate that. If you want to read more, it is a lengthy, detailed report covering reports from schools, police, parents and teen uploaders plus analysis of UK proposals (now 2 years old and still with no definite timeframe for enacting) to fine companies up to 10% of global revenue for posting illegal content featuring under-18s. The BBC investigation suggests that the site's vetting procedures to prevent under-18s from registering are failing; the company repeatedly points to an updated registration process.

WHITHER DEMOCRACY - ATTEMPT TO BREACH UK GOV SECRECY OVER PSB PLANS

Words fail me on this. Appalling.

BBC CENSORS RU PAUL PRINCE ANDREW JOKE

Curious 'logic' of protecting the public from offence given how widely loathed the subject of the joke is since his disastrous BBC interview on sex offences. Even more so as they left in another joke about his tastes. 

The Guardian speculates this reflects the Tory government imposing a Tory Director General on the BBC.

'The edits to Drag Race came at a time when the BBC’s director general, Tim Davie, is battling with a government trying to stamp its authority on the national broadcaster, with Conservative MPs accusing the BBC of being unpatriotic and failing to promote the union flag in its publications. Davie was also accused of curbing leftwing comedy programmes that have been unpopular with leading Tories.'

DISNEY'S CANCEL CULTURE ISSUE GOES MUCH DEEPER THAN PRINCE CHARMING'S NO CONSENT KISS: EXTENSIVE RACISM

People tend to overlook that Walt Disney himself was a rabid racist. Good Guardian article that runs through some examples of the racism in Disney classics. 

"streaming services such as Disney+ and the UK’s Now TV have recently added disclaimers to films such as Peter Pan and The Aristocats, making clear that the much-loved animations feature outdated and potentially offensive stereotypes.

It’s a clumsy approach, but the alternative would be to go through each movie frame by frame and excise everything that upsets modern-day sensibilities. The result would be the eventual destruction of these films, a sort of death by a thousand final cuts. Or Disney could just remake everything, which seems to be happening behind the scenes in any case."

FOX NEWS MADE ME DO IT - LEGAL DEFENSE?!

Not necessarily a hypodermic syringe application, it's as much two-step flow (being influenced by people or organs with status). One of the Trump supporters who invaded the American Congress has used the persistent Fox News coverage pushing the line that Biden had stolen the election from Trump as his legal defense. 

It's also notable that the US has fairly weak media regulation after years of deregulation through the FCC, advertisers having at least as much influence over TV and radio content. Subscription TV like HBO carries much more explicit drama series like The Sopranos that the ad-funded national networks wouldn't run. Guardian.

ITALY FINALLY SCRAPS 1914 RELIGIOUS FILM CENSORSHIP

The last major application of the laws was 1998, but it's still quite shocking that a major Western democracy would still have such regressive laws on the books in 2021. The removal will no doubt annoy religious conservatives though. Guardian.

ITALY BANS TIKTOK OVER COPYCAT KID DEATH

The era of unregulated new media looks to be fading fast. Italy has given TikTok a month to prove all its users have authentically proven their age (13+) after a young girl died from 'playing the choking game'. Choking yourself to get a high has been a recent TikTok trend, not exactly the first dangerous concept to spread through the app (+ wider social media to be fair) with so many people desparate for their 15 shares of fame. 

Copycat behaviour is of course a primary concern for and factor in BBFC age rating - generally with a thin basis of evidence behind it, but perhaps social media is backing their analysis? See Guardian.The era of unregulated new media looks to be fading fast. Italy has given TikTok a month to prove all its users have authentically proven their age (13+) after a young girl died from 'playing the choking game'. Choking yourself to get a high has been a recent TikTok trend, not exactly the first dangerous concept to spread through the app (+ wider social media to be fair) with so many people desparate for their 15 shares of fame. 

Copycat behaviour is of course a primary concern for and factor in BBFC age rating - generally with a thin basis of evidence behind it, but perhaps social media is backing their analysis? See Guardian.

TORY DONOR TO BECOME BBC CHAIRMAN

No comment needed?! Guardian. 

YOUTUBE BANS RADIO CHANNEL OFCOM SAYS IS OK!

TalkRadio has had its channel removed for including anti-lockdown views. OfCom has noted that this is YouTube's decision and that TalkRadio's content remains fine within its UK license conditions. Guardian. 

UPDATE...Within 24 hours YouTube reversed its decision! Murdoch (who owns the station) will be pleased - hurrah!

OFCOM FINE INDIAN NEWS CHANNEL £20K

Guardian.

OFCOM CENSURE RADIO STATION OVER COVID CONSPIRACY + FORCE BROADCAST OF RULING

A fine is being discussed too (Guardian). The contrast with IPSO (have given themselves the power to fine the papers that signed up... but have never used it) is striking. If the likes of the Mail were forced to feature rulings on its front page/lead story on the app/web page would they really continue to break the Editors Code? That would be very damaging.