The BBFC Millie and Ella

History The Evolution of Board Standards The British Board of Film Censors is an independent, non-governmental body, which has exercised responsibilities over cinema for more than eighty years. It was established in 1912 by the film industry when local authorities started to impose their own censorship standards on films. The BBFC was set up in order to bring a degree of uniformity to those standards. The body was formed to make judgements that were acceptable nationally. The Evolution of Board Standards The Board has never written rules or codes of practise like the Motion Picture Production Code, introduced in Hollywood, 1930. The Board now operates under a series of published Guidelines. These Guidelines are flexible and stress the importance of taking into consideration the context of each work as an individual.

James Bulger Case Study In February 1993 two year old James Bulger was abducted and murdered by two ten year old boys Robert Thompson and Jon Venables. James Bulger went missing while out shopping with his mother in Bootle’s Strand Shopping Centre on 12th February 1993. His body was found two days later on a near by railway track. The murder was linked by the trial judge to the viewing of violent videos, and in particular Child’s Play 3 (1991). Parliament supported an amendment to the Video Recordings Act which required the BBFC to look more into specific issues and the potential harm when deciding on video age ratings. Videos had to be consider for their suitability for home viewing. The BBFC had previously been stricter on videos and DVDs due to the fact that younger people are more likely to gain access to them despite the restrictive ratings. This was revaluated after the death of James Bulger.

Copy Cat Killers One of the three reasons why psychologists believed the two 10 years olds murdered the young boy was that exposure to violent videos had led to imitation in the choice of specific violent acts. This wasn’t the first or last time that psychologists believed imitation of violent acts after exposure to violent content occurred. The film Natural Born Killers, 1994, caused controversy after several copycat killings in France and America. The BBFC investigated these links and police didn’t confirm a connection before giving the film an 18 certificate. However, the link has remained in the public imagination.

Video Nasties As video recorders developed and grew in popularity, people were concerned about the leisure viewing of feature films as initially, films weren’t regulated at all. People were particularly concerned about children having access to content that was inappropriate for their age bracket. This then led to the Video Recordings Act 1984 which subsequently labelled these unregulated films as ‘Video Nasties’. The majority of the films that caused controversy were Horrors however there was increasing anxieties about mainstream content finding its way into younger viewer’s hands.