Here we go again. The BBFC – The British Board of Film Classification – has just released its updated classification guidelines based on its largest-ever public consultation. In 2023, the Board consulted 12000 people across the UK to “explore what matters most to audiences when it comes to classification.” Were you one of them? I rather doubt it. The consultation was carried out by a group called We Are Family, which is “the world’s biggest full-service agency group specialising in kids, teens, and families”. Usually, the full reports of these BBFC consultations are published so that we can pick them apart and examine leading questions, peer pressure to answer questions ‘correctly’ and assorted levels of pig-ignorance from the panel members. In 2014, we were able to see that the guidelines were being set by people who said things like “Sex – I worry about it being the wrong idea. Films where sex isn’t about a relationship. One night stands, abusive” and “If you have got a household where the dad is in control then there may be less rules. Dads don’t care as much as mums do.” (Both quotes attributed to ‘Female, with children 15 – 18’). In 2024, the BBFC has not published the actual consultation, so we have to rely upon their press release.
So what are we told? Well, once we’ve been reassured that the public generally believes that the BBFC have got everything right as usual, we get into the changes. Violence is the big concern – namely “how distressing or disturbing some forms of violence can be.” More specifically, the consultees were especially worried about images of suicide and self-harm. These are things that have been the subject of much tabloid hysteria in recent years and have been a major focus of the Online Harms Bill, so it is no surprise that the public is concerned. Whether that is a valid concern – specifically within the realms of fiction and documentary films that the BBFC would be likely to deal with – is rather open to question. Nevertheless, the BBFC will now be giving higher ratings to violent content and anything related to self-harm will be treated even more harshly.
You might think ‘fair enough’ – but we should point out that the BBFC have a record of cutting such content even from 18-rated films because they believe that easily-led viewers will copy what they see. Axelle Carolyn’s Soulmate had to remove just such a scene in 2014 or else face her film being refused a certificate, even though in no way could it be described as glamorising suicide.
Sex scenes in the 12A/12 category also raised concerns, though God knows what these were – finding a sex scene in any movie these days is rare, and at that level, I can only assume it is heavy snogging. Nudity, which theoretically can be passed at U if non-sexual, was also frowned on. From now on, these scenes are more likely to raise a film rating to 15. Also causing consternation was ‘bad’ language – namely ‘son of a bitch’, ‘bitch’, ‘dick’. These too will now cause higher ratings. It’s not all moral tutting though. Cannabis and solvent abuse will now be treated less restrictively as long as it is infrequent and unglamorous. So that’s something I suppose.
Now, in the grand scheme of things, none of this is especially important. As long as the BBFC guidelines for 18-rated violent content don’t become more severe, what does it matter? However, I’m struck by the way the BBFC – which has consistently boasted about its trusted expertise – will change guidelines based on opinion polls. Aren’t the BBFC supposed to be above all this? Public opinion on sex, violence and whatever else changes with the wind, depending on what has been happening socially and what the press has been blaming it on. This is not an expert or informed opinion by any stretch of the imagination – quite the opposite. We have decades of evidence to show how the public can be whipped up into a frenzy over films passed by the BBFC. If we have to have film censorship, we should at least expect it to be carried out by a body that isn’t swayed by public opinion. We should hope that they know what they are doing. But it does seem that the BBFC will now change on the whim of the sort of people who make such coherent and well-reasoned arguments as “If you don’t want them to think that this is okay, to be treated this way in life. It’s not okay. There’s no such thing as normal in life but you’d hope that they’d have, you know, a good life, and a stable life. It doesn’t really show, you know, I don’t know, just to make it known that it’s not okay for this to happen” (Female, with children 10 – 15, again from 2014). God help us.
DAVID FLINT
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Will this mean existing films need to be resubmitted for an updated classification? If so, that’s a clever little earner for the BBFC.
I took part in the online questionnaire. It was designed to give the answers they wanted. For example ‘ Do you think there is too much violence depicted at the higher category? ‘
I would have said ‘No’ but I didn’t have that option. I could choose 1. There is far too much violence. 2. There is a little too much violence. 3 I don’t know/not sure.
Basically you agreed that there was too much violence or you were not sure.
I tried to contact them about this rubbish leading questionnaire but no one replied to my queries.
It is not worth getting involved. It just makes you incredibly frustrated.
for what it’s worth there was a sex scene in the marvel film eternals, admittedly it’s tender and it’s shown as a man lying on top of a woman and you see the expression on the woman’s face, not exploitative but was still shocked to see that in a 12A film.