Don’t Blame the Censors, Blame the Greedy Filmmaker!
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The Indian Censor Board has come a long way, a far cry from the group of butchers that it was in the 90s. While an idealist argument can be made that censorship has no place in a true democracy, a regulatory body is necessary in all cinema to make the audience aware of the nature of a film’s content, especially in India where movies are often a family experience.
The Censor Board in its current form in India can be viewed similarly to the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) in the United States: a body that rates a film based on the nature of its content, so adults can make an educated decision on whether or not to view the film with their families, especially children. In fact, far more accountability is demanded from the Censor Board of India than the MPAA simply because of the inability of Indian exhibitors to restrict audiences based on film ratings.
The idea to ignite this discussion was fueled by an article on BollywoodHungama.com regarding Mr. Madhur Bhandarkar’s alleged “war” with the Censor Board over his upcoming film “Jail”. The more experienced viewer need not look beyond Mr. Bhandarkar’s penchant for excessively enunciated content justified under the cloak of “boldness” and “brevity” to predict the nature of his upcoming film’s content, a supposedly realistic portrayal of incarceration. But for those wandering with their children into cinema halls on the weekend, it wouldn’t hurt to know that the film they are walking into may contain visuals their children need not see.
One wonders how sympathy for the filmmaker in this case can possibly be justified when the Censor Board had agreed to retain the film intact, as exhibited to them with an “A” (Adults) rating [comparable to the "R" (Restricted) rating of the MPAA]. The relatively liberal MPAA itself wouldn’t be any more generous to a film containing nudity, profanity, masturbation, and homosexual or heterosexual sex.
A filmmaker fighting an “A” rating with such content, and expecting to take it to family audiences, especially in a conservative film culture like India’s is quite perplexing. The deletion of expletives and “controversial” scenes may technically award “Jail” a more lenient rating, but does it really change the audience such a film should be talking to? Whether Mr. Bhandarkar would allow his children to consume such content is his own dilemma. At the very least, he knows what his film contains and finds himself in a position to make an educated choice. However, by masking the nature of the film using a technicality, and averring that it would reach out to a family audience, Mr. Bhandarkar and the makers of “Jail” are denying the parents in their audience an opportunity to make an educated choice.
With the law ensuring that exhibitors prominently display copies of Censor Certificates in their premises for all films being screened, a consumer has the opportunity to decide whether or not it would be fit for family viewing. In lieu of Mr. Bhandarkar’s case, it would serve the public well if the Censor Board of India included the reasons for which a film has been rated more restrictive beyond a “U” rating.
Filmmakers claim they do not need their creativity curtailed and have the ability to be responsible themselves. For producers and distributors, restrictive ratings and cuts are a bane that hamper business prospects. For exhibitors, rigid enforcement of age limits translates into less tickets, popcorn and soda sales. In such a scenario, the onus, as it ultimately should be, is on the parent to decide what is right for their kids till they attain a basic level of emotional maturity.
Censorship or any regulation should not be necessary in an ideal situation. Unfortunately we do not live in an ideal world. If all citizens were honest and responsible, we would not need the police or the courts. Regulatory bodies such as the Censor Board are a necessity until the day filmmakers themselves can honestly equip the parent with the necessary information to make these decisions. Instead we see the Censor Board constantly antagonized for allegedly hampering a filmmaker’s creativity, even when they do approve a film intact.
But who ever associated ethics with cinema? Sab ganda hai par dhandha hai yeh!
Tags: censor, Censor Board, Censorship, hindi cinema, indian movies, jail, Madhur Bhandarkar, Movies, mpaa
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
I honestly feel that this is all a publicity stunt, part of the whole promotion of the movie. How else do you justify that everytime a film gets an A certificate there are various articles about how a film-maker fought to get a U/A rating or a U rating. Sometimes, I question the whole method of rating a motion picture. I mean how could anyone give Ghajini a U/A rating. The violence in the movie is definitely not suitable for a Universal Audience. I bet if it was categorised as fit for only Adult viewing it would have changed the fortunes of the producers (which should have happened, cos it wasn’t the best movie ever made). The relevance of a censor board is unquestionable. People still don’t know what kind of movie they are going to watch before they step into a movie theatre. Like you said the filmmaker should stay true to himself while projecting his film to the audience but commercial compulsions, i guess get the better off most people.
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UA is not Universal Audience, it is Unrestricted Public Exhibition but with parental guidance for children below 12 years. So what it means is parent can decide weather their children can watch it or not. I agree Gajini should have been awarded ‘A’ certificate because of violence, but I am fine with UA for such movies too.
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Similar to MPAA’s PG-13 rating.
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As it is technology would hinder all restrictions meaningless. If kids are refused by parents, they would anyways download it or watch the DVD at a friend’s house, when parents arent present
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That holds true in any culture. But does that mean parents shouldn’t bother doing their bit and kids should just be left openly exposed to material that they are not mature enough to process correctly?
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Personally, I blame the censor board for one thing: holding films back. Movies like Kashyap’s Paanch, the second Indiana Jones movie, and many others were never allowed to make it to Indian theatres, even with an ‘A’ rating.
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Like I said, that was when the Censor Board was a group of butchers, especially under the leadership of Asha Parekh who wanted profanity edited out of “Saving Private Ryan” and concentration camp scenes deleted from “Schindlers List” because the nudity was gratuitous.
The Censors have come a long way, the board has really evolved since the days of “Paanch”.
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I’ll be happy to agree the day ‘Antichrist’ or something similar gets release here. (And not just in MAMI)
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This article is bang on my feelings when I read the original piece at Bollywood Hungama. This whole thing seems so ridiculous. Yes, you have to be practical and show some uncomfortable scenes when you’re dealing with such a topic (although how realistic Mr Bhandarkar’s movie is, that’s a joke for another day). But then why are appealing for the movie to be rated U, when it is obviously a movie for adults? The article makes it seem like the A rating is a death sentence. But its not like the censor board is halting the release of your movie. More than anything the tone and bias of the article disturbs me. They make Madhur seem like an innocent lamb and the censors evil butchers. Why don’t you say why is the A rating such a bad thing? Obviously they can’t say, ‘its bad for business’. That this movie should be seen by children is a dubious concept. More than Madhur I think the folks at B Hungama are morons for ‘reporting’ on a bullshit issue in such manner.
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We should all learn from Japanese film industry where no such censorship exists except censoring genitals. That’s how the world should be. I wouldn’t mind a kid watching any film just cuz it’s rated A or R or whatever. I mean all of them to watch porn in any case don’t they?
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A Japanese parent may say the same thing to learn from Hollywood to censor the movies. It is needed in a diverse country like India.
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OP’s article was not about censoring as in editing out a movie by board. It was about rating system. Japanese too have a rating system, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_picture_rating_system#Japan
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they censored the word “condom” from the movie hello.
hello? aren’t we in an AIDS crisis?
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One of the problems is that even in an A movie the censors will sometimes ask to cut stuff out! So they’re trying to shelter even adults from things. And the threshold for violence in a U or U/A film is much higher than sex or sexuality.
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