Censorship is ever a sensitive issue and one that generally promotes very different reactions from different people.
I do actually object to an
over use of any of the normal censorship targets in any entertainment or art media. Partly this is down to the way I was brought up - if
I swear then you know things are going out the window pretty quickly
!
However, the other part of my objection is that too much dependance on sex, violence and swearing rather than using any actual creativity is corrosive to the art form. This is particularly evident when the censorship razor begins to be wielded. If a film ceases to be entertaining with all the 'naughty' bits taken out then that's a good case for a low estimation of the films quality in the first place.
One of the major roles of art, beyond simple entertainment, is to analyse ourselves and our behaviour and it forms a feedback loop which can either be positive or negative. These days we get very little that is positive in films or music and a great deal that is negative - I doubt that Shane would be made these days.
The boundaries of what is 'decent' get pushed further and further away at an ever faster rate. People, especially the young (who do get to see this stuff whatever the law says) are affected by what they see and hear and I firmly believe that the degraded media of the present has a part to play in the plummeting standards of behaviour that we witness.
Given that art is a reflection of the human condition, for it to ignore the fact that violence, sex and profanity are part of it would also be a degradation of the form and it's purpose. It has to be said too, that sterile, anodyne and saccarine 'art' serves noone well. The art lies in being able to render such subjects in a fashion that speaks the 'message' to the widest audience.
For example, I found the constant barrage of swearing and brutality in 'Reservoir Dogs' to be so offensive that I've never been able to tolerate watching the film the whole way through. Did the film portray the characters as intended? Probably. Was it the film makers intention to so offend a viewer that they wont watch his creation? I would guess not (tho' you can never be sure).
Yet I found Apocolypse Now, hardly a tranquil film, to be a brilliant vehicle in telling it's messages of the nature of people in extreme situations and the futility of war as a means of settling national disputes.
If I were to be a Censor, then I suspect that I would be a bad one, except perhaps for the fact that I would push for the non-censorship of some art because to censor it would be to destroy it. In those cases I would be advising control of where and when it is shown.
If something has to be censored to be 'family friendly' then quite obviously it is not for family viewing and trying to adjust it to suit can make things quite humerous. The example that comes to my mind when I think of this is the 'for TV' word overdubbing talked about above - '"Forget you, melon farmer!" and "Yippeekiyay, Kimusabi" (sp) are golden classics from an early evening broadcast of Die Hard
. Removing the punchy expletives in that fashion just shattered the suspension-of-disbelief illusion necessary to enjoy a film properly.
Anyhow, rambling on and my rumbling tum tells me it's time for dinner so I'll zip up.
