2. What is the BBFC?
The British Board of Film Classification is an
independent, non-governmental body, which has
placed and managed responsibilities over cinema for
more than ninety years, and over video since 1985. It
was then founded in 1912 by the film industry when
local authorities started to apply their own, widely
varying, censorship standards on films.
3. Video recordings act
In 1984 the Parliament authorised the Video
Recordings Act. This act meant that subject to certain
exemptions, video recordings which were going to be
sold/hired in the UK first had to be classified by an high
recognised authority. At this point the Board’s title was
changed to the British Board of Film Classification to
reflect the fact that classification plays a far larger part
in the Board’s work than censorship.
4. History of the BBFC
1912-1949
In the past, the BBFC didn’t have any written rules or
code of practice. Standard slowly evolved to cater to
views of the public. These Guidelines are flexible and
stress the importance of taking into consideration the
context of each individual work. They are reviewed on a
regular basis, which entails a period of extensive public
consultation, the most recent of which took place in
2004.
5. T.P. O’CONNOR
When T. P. O’Connor was appointed President of the
BBFC, one of his first tasks was to give evidence to the
Cinema Commission of Inquiry, set up by the National
Council of Public Morals in 1916. He summarised the
Board’s Policy by listing forty-three grounds for deletion
laid down for the guidance of examiners. This list was
drawn from the Board’s annual reports for 1913-1915.
6. This list displays the strictness felt necessary if the
Board was to earn the trust of the public and relevant
bodies. Here are ten of the 43:
7. 1. Indecorous, ambiguous and irreverent titles and subtitle
2. Cruelty to animals
3. The irreverent treatment of sacred subjects
4. Drunken scenes carried to excess
5. Vulgar accessories in the staging
6. The modus operandi of criminals
7. Cruelty to young infants and excessive cruelty and torture
to adults, especially women
8. Unnecessary exhibition of under-clothing
9. The exhibition of profuse bleeding
10. Nude figures
8. 1948 - ARTHUR WATKINS
Arthur Watkins was chosen to be Secretary to the Board in 1948, under the Presidency of Sir
Sidney Harris. Watkins was also known to be a playwright. Before films entered the
production stage, film makers would go to the Board for advice on the work. Watkins and
Harris came up with new terms of reference for the Board which was based on three
principles:
was the story, incident or dialogue likely to impair the moral standards of the public by
extenuating vice or crime or depreciating moral standards?
Was it likely to give offence to reasonably minded cinema audiences? What effect would it
have on children?
The issue of effecting children was very important, apart from the advisory ‘H’ category, from
which some councils already chose to bar children, there was no category that excluded
children. An ‘adults only’ category was increasingly seen as desirable, not only to protect
children, but as an extension of the freedom of film-makers to treat adult subjects in an adult
manner.
9. The 1950s
One development that stemmed from this apparent affluence was the emergence
of ‘youth’ as a group with a defined identity and as a target for consumer goods, as
young people with disposable income became an attractive proposition for those
selling records, clothes and all the trappings of the teenager. The X category was
introduced in 1951 also. As more and more people owned televisions, this eroded
the adult/family cinema audience, and films such as Rock Around The Clock drew
in teenagers.
Some films fuelled rebellion and rioting as it was thought to have a bad effect on
teenagers, such as Rebel Without A Cause, considered to be antisocial behaviour
and teen violence. 1955 also saw the rejection of a very different film, The Garden
Of Eden, about a mother and daughter who decide to become nudists. The film
only showed bare breasts and buttocks, but the film was regarded as
unacceptable, the BBFC having had a long-standing policy against screen nudity,
partly on the grounds that if they encouraged more nudity on screen, they would be
inviting sexual exploitation. However, a large number of local authorities saw fit to
overturn the BBFC decision, to the extent that in 1958, the Board was obliged to
classify the film at ‘A’. Devil’s Weed was rejected in 1951, because the Board felt
that the moral lessons about the evils of drugs use were not made sufficiently clear.
The year 1956 also saw the resignation of Arthur Watkins, who was replaced for
the next two years as Secretary by John Nichols. In 1958 John Trevelyan became
Board Secretary.
10. The 1960s
The decade began with a challenge in the form of
Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom, which had been seen
by the Board at the script stage and provoked a remark
from Trevelyan about its ‘morbid concentration on fear’.
Various cuts had been suggested at script stage, and
the film was passed ‘X’ in 1960 with cuts. Critics
greeted the film with a torrent of abuse and it failed to
please the public, damaging Powell’s reputation.
