Stupid old bat dies aged 91

Charming.

Oh DG. It is never a good thing to celebrate anyones death. Especially not someone who bought so much joy into peoples lives with her stern yet simple tips in dog training. Remember blow up the dogs nose, but show him who is master...

My grandfather was buried today. I wanna cry me a river.

Now if only we could flamethrower the rest of her organisation, that would be great.

I thought this was gonna be about the anal bats of Hanle y Deus!

Nope, we're dealing with something far less pleasant here.

anal bats like d and a on the tube

Wow, she looks just like Aaron Spelling.

Sorry about your grandpa, Helen.

Helen :
i am just now dealing w. the death of my grandmother, months after the fact. I am truly sorry for your loss.

Whilst I disagree with virtually everything she said, I respect her for questioning things she felt were wrong rather than keeping quiet. It's not necessarily a bad thing to have organizations like NVLA to ask questions.

And celebrating the death of anyone (except Bin Laden and his chums) is pretty unpleasant, DG.

I agree with Dr C except I'd go further and say that anybody with an anti-media vendetta is cool with me. Good for the media too, I think.

Balls, Whitehouse and her mob were/are the enemy, I don't understand how anybody can not be livid at the idea of some arse out there setting themself up as some kind of moral adjudicator and subsequently doing their best to 'sanitise' media and generally interfere with me being able to watch/read/liten to what the bloody hell I like as an adult. This goes for the bastard BBFC as well. I don't care if it does seem unpleasant, at least I'm honest.

BBFC different, films are something you have to make some effort to see, and if something's banned in your whole country, that's repressive. TV on the other hand - when people claim they're being 'denied a right to watch something', well who cares? Boo fuckin' hoo. Go rent a porno or read Sade or something. (Not condescending, those are activities I indulge in sometimes myself.) People fighting over the right to watch whatever they want on TV is the worst perversion of democracy I ever heard of.

(current function of bbfc = to grade films so that "adult" material is well signalled and parents can steer kiddiez away from it yet use it themselves eg w/o em DG you'd prolly see LESS not more, as the arbiters wd totally be the idiots at customs or local policemen like anderton)

as regards whitehouse, she lost: how fun can it be being 90 when yr life's work = utter failure?

I mean - TV is SUPPOSED to be crap. Better for everyone if it is, because maybe if it's really bland people will get into cultural things that are not passive by definition. Wanting 'challenging, provocative TV' is bringing the mountain to Mohammed, so to speak.

BBF(C) - Classification, not Censorship. Now, in 2001 - power to recommend director cuts with threat of higher classification, no power to cut outright. No power to ban - the local authority bans. That's why if you wanted to see Crash and you lived in Westminster, all you needed to do was hop across to Soho. Tom Dewe Mathews'book = v.good. Often, directors add token swearword to target markets better, (PG up to 15) to the annoyance of the BBFC. BBFC wanted to make Solenz's 'Welcome to the Dollhouse' a (12).

(french tv = crap => french rock = crap => french movies = by-and-large Cold Feet w.some cute chiXoR's butt muchly visible => french philosophy = aha!!)

The BBFC grant ratings to films after they have decided what should be CUT, they don't pass films in their entirety. I don't think that battling the censors and moralists is a perversion of democracy at all, it's an important and integral part from where I'm sitting.

BBFC = not censors or moralists, DG. This is momus-talk.

you introduced the word "as an adult" eg you too believe that some material shd not be simply available to everyone however tiny: EITHER there is a systematic court of appeal (eg BBFC, where director etc can discuss judgments and GET THEM CHANGED) or they have to do battle w.every local police and council separately: thanks to BBFC grading, film-makers can challenge local prudy lawmakers

Film-makers prefer the BBFC who have (after all) seen every film ever made, as an informed org, to mere arbitrary folk-panic ad hoc stuff.

That's all well and good old boy, but they ARE censors because they only give things age ratings AFTER THEY HAVE DECIDED WHAT SHOULD BE CUT TO FIT THE FILM IN QUESTION INTO THEIR CLASSIFICATION SYSTEM. If this is all 'Momus-talk', then perhaps he is right more often than various elements give him credit for.

momus's position was a completely meaningless abstraction and so (apparently) is yours: unless you think having a grading system AT ALL is ridiculous and that kiddies shd be allowed to buy kiddie-porn, you are saying yes to some barter-system abt which movie goes in which section. The cuts are what filmmakers barter w.the BBFC to get their movies into more "appropriate" gradings (and w. 'Anal Warriors Killfest#5", which is after all where the bulk of the BBFC's viewing time is spent, this is anyway abt moneymaking, not artistic outreach). The BBFC make cuts becuz film-makers ask them to: 'What do I need to do to make this a 16 not an XXXX?" "Less penises in reel ten" "Will do"

If everything arrived unrated, Disney would have even MORE power to de-adult the world of movies.

Don't throw in the stupid misleading kiddie porn argument Mark, it's totally irrelevant (and a wee bit disappointing for you to do that) and would be illegal anyway even without the BBFC, it would require children to do things that are totally...ick. I DO think the whole age grading thing is stupid and should be done away with, it's totally meaningless and rubbish. I saw countless 18 rated films before 12/10/1998, and I would like some conclusive proof that I have been harmed by it.

But if the BBFC didn't make kiddie porn illegal who would DG? Another similar organisation no doubt. When Denmark legalized Porn they didn't think to legislate against child pornography with the consequence that shops sold stocked and sold it until the law was changed.

age-rating requested and required by the FILM INDUSTRY and PUBLIC, not imposed arbitrarily by BBFC out of nowhere (I think it's often daft in its outcome also, but BBFC is after all a public body which you can LOBBY and argue with). Kiddieporn point is a bit misleading yes, possibly, tho what I'm getting at is that there you're accepting that some grading is OK when outside yr purview, so it's not that yr agin grading per se, just the specifics of a grading system — again you can lobby on this.

What is unrealistic here (more so in Momus's position as i recall but doubtless he will put me right) is the idea that censorship comes Directed Only from Above: *much* more often it's agitated for by the public (Mary Whitehouse and similar pressure groups), which feeds into amplifier media w.conflicted interests (=tabloids) and then emerges in govt spasms, cf video nasty ban of 198x. Working of BBFC *damps down* effect of these idiotic folk panics (eg Crash was left to cool off for a while, then passed quietly w/o fuss). BBFC *can't* unban the video nasties, even if it wants to or thinks they shd be, as it can't undo primary legislation (this last bit is from memory and actually i may be wrong...)

I'm not saying their decisions aren't sometimes dotty and/or maddening, I'm saying that w/o 'em whitehouse and [insert relevant MP here] and [insert tabloid columnist here] would have MORE control over viewing not less. They're a working compromise in a culture which is over- susceptible to Moral Panics, forgotten tomorrow after the harm is done.

Some of the BBFCers of yore used to write for Sight and Sound (Richard Falcon is the name i can remember). They were smart and funny — well RF is — and INCREDIBLY KNOWLEDGEABLE ABOUT WEIRD AREAS OF FILM. Which he'd had to watch by job requirement, not choice: and had come to like.

The chiefest enemy in film culture in the UK, and what you do and don't get to see, is the total lock on distribution-exhibition that the majors have.

The BBFC can ban/unban films, though not as explicitly as that. After all, they did stop the Exorcist coming out on video for a long while by refusing to grant it a certificate.
My only alternative solution to the current situation is to make compulsory those little boxes you get on the back of videos currently that grade the film for sex/violence/bad language, so you are left with no doubt as to what you are getting. If you don't like it, DON'T FUCKING WATCH IT, no-one forces you to, and to get it out of the reach of someone who would enjoy it is totally reprehensible as far as I'm concerned. But this whole argument is tangential from my core point which was who the fuck is ANYBODY to tell me what I can or can't watch/read/listen to? Eh?

my point one last time: if you overthrew the bbfc hurrah you would find yrself in a world where the ppl who ruled yr choices wd be mary whitehouse and rupert murdoch in unassailable combine, ie you would have LESS choice not more, and NO FORUM TO ARGUE YOUR POINT.

You're not an economic free-marketer DG: transfer some of the reasoning behind that to cultural production; it's not an identical situation, but many of the same factors apply. Zones which are totally unregulated are EVEN MORE subject to outrageous spasms of repression (cf when the Ob.Pub squad drove Genesis P.Orridge into exile: if a BBFC equiv existed within music, he'd have been able to put his argument and would fairly easily have won his case — trade-off probably that yes, some of his more er extreme material be snipped a little).

Hmm...I shall retire from this argument until I have researched this a bit more. But still, "if you overthrew the bbfc hurrah you would find yrself in a world where the ppl who ruled yr choices wd be mary whitehouse and rupert murdoch in unassailable combine" is not a point which I can see the reasoning behind, sorry for being thick but I not see how this would automatically follow the dismantling of state- sanctioned censorship/classification bodies. If there is no machine to ban art and the status quo is 'If you don't like it, don't watch it' it doesn't matter how much of a fuss the Mary Whitehouses of this world make.

BBFC (as currently operates) = a "machine" to ensure that the vast majority of "art" (ie movies and videos not illegal for other reasons) is NOT banned. Its existence has a cultural chilling effect on rival routes to effecting bans: eg police raids, court injunctions, local bylaws, pickets of shops. All of which constitute the REAL machinery of enforcement anyway, not some civil servant's rubber-stamp.

DG sorry to pull this stunt but I was a teenager when MW was most active and effective: her power came from embarrassing and intimidating ppl, not from any legal status whatever; she had some newspapers on her side, hence clout. BBFC's legal-govt status has been a bulwark AGAINST recent attempts to rescuscitate such campaigns: a. it defuses them from the offset, b. it sets up a public standard by which eg How Much Nudity = Nudity Sticker can be seen and agreed on (or indeed, argued with and changed). (eg — from memory — after Bulger case, tabloids went for Childs Play 3; BBFC's reviewed case, taking their time, and quietly left its credit unbesmirched — ditto, recently, the ITC in re Chris Morris; they didn't back him to the hilt, they bsacked him in a smarter way, w.meaningless wrist- slap — eg CM wins legally, but his attackers feel taken notice of and vindicated, EVEN THOUGH THEY ACTUALLY LOST; few months later, Brass Eye rebroadcast, no one bats an eyelid).

In 1978 the Sex Pistols were not allowed to play in dozens of cities across the land: not because of a govt ban, but because a moral folk-panic was drummed up in the papers, and local councils put pressure on local venues (won't renew yr license if they play etc etc). That's the real-life machinery of the banning of art: and very stupid and ill- advised it generally is (i haf to say I tend to agree w. dave q on this — resistance is GOOD for an art-form; and laissez faire proves no one cares, inc.the artists; but that's a seperate issue).

This is ultimately an argt of pragmatism vs principle, tho, DG.

This is NOT the way to treat the departed :( Guess what folks? Our day is coming!

Hmmm, perhaps Mark, I shall have to go away and consider this further.
But to address Gale's point, if I hate someone and they die, I'm not going to stop hating them when they're dead.

Yes DG, but you only hate a particular part of that person, and only in the way the media represented her. Perhaps she was also a beloved wife, mother & grandmother. She had retired from her role in the whinging industry and could only ever be seen when she is wheeled out by the media itself (who love to court controversy). If you wished she was dead, why didn't you kill her? If not for some pesky laws which exist for a reason.

It being a weekend I am far to late to join in on the BBFC debate above - but lets just say Sinkers done an awful lot to gain my vote in the Best Poster award.

Ya boo sucks to you, Pete.

Blimey the monkey is the mail Pete — well it will be as soon as it gets to me from the BBFC, those blue-pencil bastards

SHOW ME THE MONKEY.

Of course something skated around in the argument re-BBFC is that the arbitrary distinctions made between films did not (and still to a greater extent do not) explain why the rating has been given. As hinted on in other threads, if you go see a horror movie you kinda expect it to be an 18. If it isn't you wonder why - though oddly films like Bride Of Chucky are rated 18 more for language and sexual content (between rubber dolls natch) that visceral gore or violence. It is a whole other argument though to try and decide what can and cannot be seen by 14 and 16 year old kids.

Sorry DG - I call it like I see it. That said - I've seen Ya Boo, and it does indeed suck.

I'll get you yet, Peter Baran.

Whilst I don't share DG's jubilation, I can certainly understand it. The problem I had with Ms Whitehouse is how just one individual held so much power and influence over the freedom of choice and expression of so many people in this country. This was especially reprehensible given that the opinions of her ilk were only representative of a tiny minority of the population. To me she will always remain a symbol of totalitarianism, and although I feel no sense of satisfaction at her death, I am glad that her absolutist reign is over.

Wouldn't you take the side of the confused, concerned underdog anytime over coke-addled media assholes with utter contempt for their audience and resort to the 'freedom of speech' whine to peddle their lobotomized product? Every time some fuckface in broadcasting fails to make the payments on their yacht because their show gets cancelled I laugh uproariously.

Hah! Mark S mentions yet another person I was taught by! R. Falcon was indeed a diamond geezer - he LOVED horror films and New German Cinema - and was naturally quite conflicted abt working for the BBFC. I think RF was the examiner who most strongly objected to James Ferman's bizarre, autocratic reign, setting things in motion for Ferman's welcome retirement. So, hurrah for him! (dunno if he is still w/ the BBFC tho')

The BBFC ARE now granting certificates to films on the nasties list - Cannibal Holocaust, Cannibal Ferox, Blood Feast, The New York Ripper have all been passed recently - although in many cases they are still insisting on LOADS of cuts. They are also reinstating cuts made to certain films, such as Enter The Dragon and The Evil Dead; see the excellent anti-censorship site 'Melon Farmers' for more details.

Surely the best way to support 'confused concerned underdogs' is to give them some cold hard FACTS abt the complexities of 'media influence', and to point out that many of the dire warnings of the Whitehouse/Alton brigade are manipulative, reactionary LIES - eg Michael Ryan was not 'obsessed' with Rambo, the Bulger killers never even saw 'Child's Play 3'. Mary Whitehouse was an utter scumbag and I don't mourn her passing one bit (tho' I never wished her dead) - her objections to something like 'Romans In Britain' were motivated by Christian homophobia rather than any misplaced concern for 'vulnerable' theatergoers. All the rest is bullshit posturing, Dave Q.

Er, no.

That wasn't a "no" to Andrew, by the way.

theatregoers deserve anything those onstage can throw at them: unless of course they are watching The Lion King which has puppets and is thus Ace.

giggoers deserve anything those onstage can throw at them: unless of course they are watching The Flaming Lips which has puppets and is thus Ace.

Sorry to be lazy, but I'm going to paste in a para from a piece I once wrote: "The BBFC isn’t a government body: it is a (theoretically) independent organisation funded from by fees charged to distributors each time a film is classified. However, the BBFC does have legal powers when it comes to videos, under the 1984 Video Recordings Act, brought in after the “video nasties” furore which lead to the banning of The Evil Dead, The Driller Killer and others. It’s a very British muddled situation. Not that films are meant to be “banned” as such, unless they breach the notoriously vague 1959 Obscene Publications Act. The BBFC just suggest cuts: often, though, these cuts are so severe would make the film meaningless. Now censorship in Britain seems to be coming closer to the rest of Europe. “We still have the some of the the strictest censorship rules in the world, but now we effectively accept that adults should be allowed to watch what they want to watch,” the BBFC’s Sue Clark has admitted."

As Andrew says, the situation has changed enormously in the last couple of years: the erect penis - once presumed obscene in this country - is now permissable in both R18 (porn, basically) and 18 films (ie: The Idiots, Romance, Intimacy). The BBFC is still tough on sexual violence, which means that Straw Dogs is likely to remain unscreenable in the UK for the foresseable future. As for Mary Whitehouse, you shouldn't wish anyone dead. She was an old trout and a religious fanatic, but her power lay in the fact that broadcasters chose - for a while - to take her seriously. And frankly you only need to watch a couple of minutes of Queer As Folk to know that she lost completely.

Dave Q - Yes, I would.

Liv Tyler - Yes I would.

Have to respect Mark S for his subtle stand on BBFC.

V-chip inspired LSV ratings here in the US did similar thing -- TV is now more explicit, not less.

The real problem being the theatres, networks which refuse to show over certain ratings. ratings not problem but rating-insipred-kiss-of-death is.

Andrew - so it's bullshit posturing if you cast any doubt on the honesty, talent, integrity and social conscience of media bosses then? Didn't know you were on the payroll, sorry. If people didn't watch so much fucking TV in the first place they'd know the difference between actual repression and the pain of having to wait for the watershed to hear jokes about analingus on 'Have I Got News For You', the cast of which are utter paragons of humility and the true scale of the worth of their own contribution to civilisation.

Has anyone here had any REAL difficulty tracking down something they absolutely positively couldn't live without because it's BANNED!? Thought not. And if your area is run by Xtians and you don't like it, move the fuck out of the sticks.

Sorry, sentence of paragraph 1 above should read "AWARE of the scale of contribution..." etc.

Also -- speaking of momusisms the show I saw had him do a song about Ashcroft, clearly not written about ashcroft originally, railing against him for censoring smut. Which is sorta, uh, reductionist, as of all the gripes to have against the guy at this moment....

Well, I think it of this way regarding Momus' Ashcroft song -- slipping him into the censor song works nicely enough, suggesting his other manias without having to specifically talk about them.

Richard Ashcroft? Censoring smut?

I just can't get enough of David Q's adorable polemix.

Dave - objecting to the lies, prejudices and simplifications of Whitehouse and her kind isn't the same thing as being "on the payroll" of yr coked-up tv execs. Like Mary M, you seem to be suggesting that viewers are passive victims who need to be 'protected' FOR THEIR OWN GOOD.

If the crucible of their 'freedom of choice and expression' is their TV viewing, then they've made THEMSELVES passive. And in a perfect WHitehouse-free world, does this 'freedom of choice and expression' extend to outside-the-media-loop 'cranks' at variance with modern secular values of 'tolerance'/hip capitalism? Thought not.

Not only that, but as I understand it the BBC is payed for by viewer licence fees, and I don't imagine the large majority of paying viewers share the hip urban morals of the people bleating about the freedom of choice a public company has to reflect THEIR idiosyncratic tastes.

I have no idea if the tastes and views of the 'metropolitan media elite' are at odds w/ 'the majority' of the viewing public - and I bet you have no idea either Dave, you're just assuming that they are. Surely yr 'coked-up tv execs' wld be out of a job if they failed to totally match/express the tastes of 'the viewing public'? It can't all be brainwashing, surely?

At least one too many 'surelys' there...

This is a totally bizarre argument.

My feeling is thus - the 'values' of medialand sometimes differ from the values of those poor stupid plebs that media folk abandoned (otherwise they wouldn't be in the media, they'd be doing a real job). Fair enough, but to scream about being repressed when the poor stupid plebs strike back and threaten their expense accounts (while their 'industry' is being paid for by public money) seems a bit disingenuous. They want to create 'controversy' (to what end? If it's ratings, whatever, if it's to inculcate whatever soft-left bias they feel will elevate those poor subhumans who work for a living) without having any actual job-threatening controversy result.

Also re 'it isn't all brainwashing' - then why would anyone mind if TV was wall-to-wall Xtian programming? Or is there a pressing, uncontrollable need (and ideological obligation) to have more sex'n'violence and fun stuff? Also, if 'artists' claim they 'can't make points or show the real world' (I doubt that's what their real ambition is, but never mind) without coincidentally resorting to taboo-breaking then they can't be very skilled, can they? Not as skilled as somebody who (having DECIDED to work in an ultra-mass medium like TV) is able to achieve the same objectives in a more proscribed framework, anyway.