Assignment 7: BFFC & Understanding of Film Rating

Kelly LeticiaKatia

Lesson points

What is the BBFC?

• British Board of Film Classification.

• It is a non-governmental organisation, funded by the film industry and responsible for the national classification and censorship of films within the United Kingdom.

What do they classify?

• Films • Trailers• Advertising• Videos online• Texts over mobile networks• Educational videos (used in classrooms)• Music videos• Video games

What are the 7 rating symbols?Universal-suitable for everyone

Parental guidance

Cinema rating- 12 years and over

Video release- 12 and over

Suitable for viewers- 15 and over

Suitable for adults

Restricted to licensed shops contains pornographic footage

How do they classify films?• General Classification Considerations • Context • Theme• Tone & impact• Specific Classification Considerations• Discrimination• Drugs• Imitable Behaviour• Language• Nudity• Sex• Threat• Violence• Other Matters • Photo or pattern sensitivity • Motion sickness• Reaction to low frequency sound• Release format• titles

Are the 7 symbols classified the same or differently?

• Every 4-5 years BBFC carries out a public consultation to find out how the public feel about the way the classify films.

• The guidelines say what's acceptable in each category from U-R18. there are two key points in these guidelines.

• To protect children and vulnerable adults from harmful or unsuitable context.

• To empower consumers especially parents and those responsible for children's.

• These guidelines are set in place for all categories so that classification is fair for all films awaiting release.

Case Study task

• Fish Tank (2009)• The rating for this movie was 15 • Rating:• The filmmakers did not request a specific category when submitting it but

examiners who viewed it felt there was a strong argument for allowing the work to be seen by 15 – 18 year olds.

• That said it had several classification issues which took it to the borderline between the 15 and 18 categories, and required further discussion and consideration.

• The key classification issues are very strong language, sex, sex references, recreational drug use, discriminatory terms, possible animal cruelty, and moderate violence.

• Though it is used by a young child, much of the potential offence in the last use is lessened as the exchange is comic, and the child, who swears a lot, is playing with offensive words rather than using them in a truly aggressive or sexual way.

Film rating task The smurfs

U universal- suitable for allDiscrimination- discriminatory language or behaviour is unlikely to be acceptable unless clearly disapproved of.Drugs- References to illegal drugs or drugs misuse must be infrequent and innocuous or have a clear educational purpose or anti-drug message.Behaviour that is dangerous or anti-social is disproved. Only infrequent of very mild language.Nudity is allowed however there shouldn’t be any sexual context.Only very mild sexual behaviour (eg, kissing) Threat and violence are should be mild and should unlikely cause undue anxiety to young children.

U- The Smurfs• Violence & scariness

• Sexual Context

• Language

Lots of pratfalls and cartoonish violence, mostly involving Gargamel, who's always trying to capture the Smurfs.Azrael also coughs up Smurfette's hair in a rather graphic way that might gross out some viewers.

A married couple is affectionate -- holds hands, embraces, and eventually kisses -- in a short-and-sweet manner.

The word "smurf" is used as a substitute for many other words, including curse words -- for example, "smurf off," "you smurfin' crossed the wrong smurf," "smurf me,"

10 main points that we learnt from the

text

1. There was not a requested rating when they sent the film in.

2. It had several classification issues.3. These were strong language, sex, sex

references, drug use, discrimination, animal cruelty and violence.

4. Due to these issues it was border line 15 and 18.

5. It had to be shown to people in child development.

6. She was legally classed as a child during filming (which caused some problems).7. There were 5 uses of strong language in the first 10 minutes, which they had to take into account.8. At 15 the BBFC say that the strongest terms may be acceptable but any further use it is unlikely to be acceptable.9. They had to explore whether the scenes were lewd or contained real or explicit detail.10. There is a positive resolution in the scene were she kidnaps his daughter and the moderate threat is permissible at 12A and containable at 15.