CENSORSHIP By Megan & Ellen

HUMAN CENTIPEDE 2  In June 2011, the British Board of Film Classification refused to classify the Human Centipede 2 for a direct to video release, effectively meaning that the film could not legally be supplied in any format in the UK. The BBFC had given the proceeding First Sequence title an 18 Certificate.

THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE 2  The Board stated that they had considered First Sequence to be undoubtedly tasteless and disgusting but deemed it acceptable for release because the centipede was the product of a revolting medical experiment. They had also taken legal advice that First sequence was not in breach of the Obscene Publications Act. The BBFC makes U-turn and awards Tom Six’s controversial horror sequel an 18 classification but only after 32 cuts.

CLOCKWORK ORANGE  Stanley Kubrick made Anthony Burgess controversial sci-fi novel “A Clockwork Orange” into film and created a film that is nowadays critically acclaimed and said to be the ‘Movie of the 20 th Century’. Unfortunately when the movie was released in 1971, the masterpiece was only seen as a nightmare full of sex, violence and Beethoven. In many countries the movie was forbidden in the United States the movie got an X-Rating and usually only porn film receive and X-rating. In many countries even the film poster was censored.

A CLOCKWORK ORANGE  In the United Kingdom A Clockwork Orange was seen to be very controversial and was withdrawn from release by Kubrick himself. Copy Cat murders were said to be inspired by Clockwork Orange a fourteen-year-old-boy defendant of the manslaughter of a classmate, referred to A Clockwork Orange, telling the judge that the case had a macabre relevance to the film. The attacker a Bletchley boy of sixteen pleaded guilty after telling police that friends had told him of the film and the beating up of an old boy like this one, defense counsel told the trial ‘the link between this crime and sensational literature, particularly A Clockwork Orange is established beyond reasonable doubt’.

THE BIRTH OF A NATION  The Birth of a Nation recounts the history of the Civil War and Reconstruction through the eyes and experiences of Southern whites who vehemently opposed the political and social progress made by newly freed African Americans after the Civil War.

THE BIRTH OF A NATION  The National Association for the Advancement of Colored people NAACP founded in 1909 protested premieres of the film in numerous cities. It also confected a public education campaign publishing articles protesting the films fabrications and inaccuracies organising petitions against it and conducting education on the facts of the war and reconstruction. When the film was shown riots broke out in Boston, Philadelphia and other major cities, the cities of Chicago, Denver, Kansas city, Missouri, Minneapolis, Pittsburg and ST Louis refused to allow the film to open. Intertitle: ‘The white men were roused by a mere instinct of self-preservation... until at last there had sprung into existence a great Ku Klux Klan, a veritable empire of the South, to protect the Southern country. WOODROW WILSON’

THE BIRTH OF A NATION  Its release set up a major censorship battle over its vicious, extremist depiction of African Americans, although Griffith naively claimed that he wasn't racist at the time. Unbelievably, the film is still used today as a recruitment piece for Klan membership - and in fact, the organisation experienced a revival and membership peak in the decade immediately following its initial release. And the film stirred new controversy when it was voted into the National Film Registry in 1993 when it was voted one of the Top 100 American Films by the American Film institute in 1998.