Tonight:
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The censors can't agree on Brüno, Sacha Baron Cohen's latest atrocity, in which he impersonates a gay Austrian fashion pundit.
In the permissive Netherlands, it's been released uncut with a 12 certificate.
Even in Ireland, they've given it a 16. But the British Board of Film Censors has given Brüno a full 18 certificate, since the producers have declined to cut the rudest scenes.
The distributor, Universal, has described the decision as absurd, no doubt peeved because it means the movie will take much less at the box office.
Its predecessor, Borat, despite the naked wrestling, was rated only a 15, a big help on its way to more than £20 million at the box office.
It's true that you get a bit more in your face with Brüno.
There's a brilliant montage of absurd gay sex between Brüno and his tame pygmy, who at one point spins around like a propellor while supposedly impaled.
There's an unflinching view of a penis doing a waggy solo dance, before rearing up and suddenly spitting out “Brüno!”
There's a swingers' party where Brüno doesn't quite fit in, some of it possibly vérité footage.
Best of all, there's a totally obscene mime in which Brüno performs complicated oral sex on the invisible spirit of a dead member of Milli Vanilli, conjured up for him by an obliging psychic, which involves an awful lot of assiduous attention around the back.
It's a bravura demonstration of just how filthy you can be while remaining fully clothed.
Unacceptable for teens? The BBFC's Annual Report for 2008 attempts to specify what's suitable for each age.
For a 15, for example, “sexual activity may be portrayed but without strong detail” — however that may be interpreted. Feeble detail, anyone?
For an 18, the censors allow real sex to be shown but only if it is “exceptionally justified” and that's an argument available “only if the primary purpose of the work is not sexual arousal”.
Beyond that, there's a further category, R18, “restricted 18”, meaning the film can be seen only in specially licensed cinemas.
Here it's more of a free-for-all, with only the Obscene Publication Act dictating what still sticks in the craw — the censors mention “extremely large dildos” reprovingly.
Some of these decisions seem arcane. But it's obviously right that there should be age restrictions on what can be seen.
In my view, there are no good arguments for letting under-18s see whatever they like.
In fact, any sensible grown-up would like to see much more extensive curtailments on this lot's indulgences: certainly no extension of the vote; if possible, not allowed out after dark either. No fizzy drinks, while we're about it.
The decision to keep Brüno from them is fine by me.
On the whole, then, as age-classifier rather than censor, the BBFC does a useful job.
What remains silly is its stated attitude to explicit sex for the vile purpose of “sexual arousal” for adults.
This prudishness, not shared by most of our European friends, just strings viewers along for endless rubbishy titillation, that great British speciality.
The situation can't last much longer, thank heavens. The internet exists.
Leading the way, Sweden is about to disband its film censorship board, 100 years after it was set up.
Meanwhile, the BBFC has bravely passed uncut, as an 18 for release later this year, Lars von Trier's enormity Antichrist in which Charlotte Gainsbourg is seen, in close-up, to cut off her own clitoris with a pair of rusty scissors.
The BBFC director David Cooke has explained, in the refined lingo the censors employ to hide their blushes, that “the sexual imagery, while strong, is relatively brief ...” I'll bet. Probably not very arousing either.
Brüno is released on 10 July.
Reader views (3)
SUSH MANNY...they where only jokes...and stop telling me what "the public" find funny...your just one person
- Daveb, LONDON, 26/06/2009 10:59
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"Whatever the censors think, the public do not find rape, incest and the death of a child very funny, and most certainly not in the wake of the Baby P case!"
I imagine you thought the Brass Eye Paedophile Special was making light of child abuse too.
- Michael, London, 26/06/2009 09:37
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Look at the Bruno "A-Z of fashion" article in the magazine Marie Claire. Under the "A is for Austria" he makes a joke about Elizabeth Fritzl, who was kept in a dungeon for years, raped by her father and forced to bear his children.
Whatever the censors think, the public do not find rape, incest and the death of a child very funny, and most certainly not in the wake of the Baby P case!
- Manny Goldstein, London, UK, 25/06/2009 16:19
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