Violence and classification- Ken Park

In the role of a BBFC examiner, I imagined that I was requested by the distributor of the film Ken Park for a certificate with a lower age rating, Giving examples of three incidents/scenes I would cut/reframe. Ken Park directed and written by the controversial duo Larry Clark and Harmony Korine, creators of Kids, Gummo and Spring Breakers has received an overall rating of 18 with some exceptions including being banned in Malaysia.

My first request as a BBFC examiner would be to cut the scene where a dogmatic father upon finding his daughter having raunchy and unsimulated sex beats the boy almost to death. My reason for requesting this scene to be cut is that I believe it is the most disturbing scene of the film, that it is unnecessarily explicit in showing both sex and violence and that it adds nothing to either the narrative or the artistic aspect of the film.

My second request would be to cut the use of profanity by at least half, the word f**k is used over a hundred times.

My last request would be to reframe or cut shots including nudity by 60% because mostly the nudity appears only as a tool to 'shock' the audience and depicts an unrealistically negative and unhealthy view of sex. Ken Park has an almost impossibly high incidents of nudity and sex throughout in continuously bizarre and disturbing ways with often underage participants including one scene where A boy is seen masturbating to a tennis match, with a cord around his neck, his erect penis is shown & he masturbates to ejaculation, which is shown.

As a distributor, I would not even after these alterations give the film a lower classification however I may lift the banning in Malaysia. 

Media Regulation Certification

In the role of a BBFC examiner, I chose three films that I had recently watched that all had an R rating and the probable reasons why they were given it. 

Being John Malkovich is the first feature film by director Spike Jonze about a puppeteer that discovers a portal that leads into the actor, John Malkovich's head. The reason Being John Malkovich got such a high certificate is for it's high use of a range of profanity and it's potentially distressing scenes of characters held captive in a chimp cage and of general mental decay. There are suggestions of sex and violence in the movie also but nothing explicitly showed which I believe could argue it to have a lower classification.

 The Fisher King, arguably Terry Gillliam's best film is about 'A former radio DJ, suicidally despondent because of a terrible mistake he made, finds redemption in helping a deranged homeless man who was an unwitting victim of that mistake.' The Fisher King achieved it's classification of R, due to it's depiction of sex and violence. The Fisher King does explicitly show violence of a man being shot and another man being beat and cut with a knife, although only briefly. However, the main basis for it's classification i believe is probably the full minute of Robin William's character fully frontal nude shown clearly on camera, although I could understand this as being distressing or confusing to a younger audience his naked body is not sexualised but simply emphasis his character's free personality.

Buffalo '66 starring Christina Ricci who played Wednesday from The Adam's family and The Adam's Family Values, justifiably deserved it's R rating. It received this rating for it's high level of, sexual references and female nudity, graphic shootings, profanity, some alcohol and cigarette consumption and distressing scenes including kidnap and domestic abuse. Although I agree it deserves this certification I would not agree to any of the scenes being cut because some of the scenes that could be represented as harmful to the audience show huge creativity in the way they are shot that often takes away from the shock of the scene and overall the film has a very positive and happy message in which the man choses against violence.

Copies of the IMDB classification for each of these films;

Ten things wrong with the 'effects model'- Gauntlett

Gauntlett's critique of the effect model begins with him labelling it as 'backward', that instead of to 'begin with the people who engage in those actions' researchers begin with blaming the media. Although, I can understand by media may want to start with the cause of a problem first this attitude of blame passing reflects much of politics present finger pointing craze. He claims that a complete censorship of film would remove the opportunity for 'children to challenge this assumption', which could arguably prevent them from developing personal morality. He then goes on to make sinister links to the effects model and conservative ideology, that as presently under a conservative prime minister this could be 'diverting our attention away from ...social questions such as levels of welfare provision'. Gauntlett then uses the unreliability of 'artificial studies' that are often used to support the effects model, he states that 'often put their subjects in artificial and contrived situations (but then are presented as studies of real situations)', that it is rare for these experiments to have been assessed over a substantial period of time, that the conclusions are often 'lacks both rational consistency and empirical support' and censorship focuses entirely on fiction 'rather than news and factual programing' which often depicts violence in a far more real and inhumane way- before nine o'clock. Overall, his main critique of the effects model studies and criticisms is that they are all extremely undefined and open to endless interpretation giving the censors basis to ban or cut anything. Gauntlett brings up the valid point that 'children whose behaviour is antisocial and disruptive' will most likely be drawn to violent media which doesn't mean their behaviour is a consequence of it but more likely biological, developmental and environmental factors.

Gauntlett concludes his essay by supporting his argument with examples of a study showing a lack of the population may see a possibility of the influence of other's by the media but 'almost nobody says they have been affected themselves.' He also links back to his early point of the effects model being a conservative leaning tool, by stating that the invocation of the 'Other', was usually the 'heavy viewer, the uneducated, the working class'. He finishes by arguing that the effect model is not worthy of being called a theory as it is grounded on unconvincing evidence.

Kermode's view of censorship

Kemode is arguing against censorship. Kermode begins by supporting Forna's argument that word's can have a strong emotive effect by insulting the reader and praising himself. However he then reveals that this is merely the opinion of 'Britan's film censors', portraying them as patronising and arrogant, with an overly negative faith in the viewer's integrity. He then goes to explain why censorship is damaging to creativity and thus our experience as a viewer, using examples such as Bad Lieutenant. Kemode argues that although a viewer may be applaled by a film 'it didn't corrupt them'. He argues that unless the law is broken in the process of making a film it should not be banned. Later he broaches the topic of censorship for the saftey of children who may accidently watch it, he conters this by telling the readers to be better parents, I find this a very weak and lazy argument with a severe lack of empathy for parents who are unable to supervise their children 24/7 or children who do have bad parents. Kermode concludes his essay by referencing 1984, George Orwell an unoriginal choice but a very relevant novel that seemingly  foreshadowed this era. Kermode states that 'the idea of policing the effect of movies at some kind of national level is impossible', I disagree that it would be impossible however it would undeniably be very difficult.

Forna's view of censorship

Forna is for media regulation and wants and believes that a large amount of harmful films that have or are being screened should have had a higher censorship. Although she believes in freedom of expresion's importance to creativity and society, she believes if that right threatens the freedom of other's 'then it can't be an absolute right'. She believes words and images have a huge capacity for harm. She uses examples of racism and glorifying rape culture from the films Romper Stomper and Straw, she argues that scenes like this repeated often enough start to destroy those barriers' (moral/society-influenced barriers) that stops man from acting on 'his own personal inhibitions'. She backs up her argument of censorship on media representation of extreme racism by stating that the Race Relations Act extends to film, yet the BBFC has passed uncut racist themed work. Forna concludes her essay explaining why she believes pro-censorship opinions are often unpopular, she links it with a human denial 'in recognising the beast within us all' that we should be 'setting a framework for human decency', I think this is a valid point there is a certain optimism surrounding how easily humans are influenced by the media but it is fair to assume that although watching Natural Born Killers repetitively may not make you want to shoot someone,  but are you sure about everyone else?

Digipak blueprints

We researched various Digipak designs to decide which we thought would be best for our product and shared ideas. 

I like this design because it is quite simplistic and I find the overall shape very satisfying. However, because we want to have an insert and a large focus on artwork in our product a design with more panels is needed. 

This is a cross pack design produced by a graphics company. I like this design because it's innovative and also brings the cd into the main focus. The problems we would have with the design, is that there isn't much contingency between the four artwork panels, this would mean that we wouldn't be able to do any flowing designs. A design flaw in this product is also that I feel like it would be a lot flimsier then the average digipak and therefore more liable to breakage.

Here's another example with two cd sections and the panels in the centre.

 We decided to go with the classic six panelled Digipak design. We chose this blueprint because the six panels will allow us to have space for artwork and the overall design would make a more durable product.

Above are examples of student work who also used a six-pannel design. The '2manDeep' design is very consistent and well thought out, there is a good overall theme to the work and it is a good example of what we shall aspire to. The only criticism I have other than personal preferences, is that there is no design work on the strips of the Cd which all Cds usually have. The bottom design is clearly a lot less developed, however it is an example of what we shall be doing next in photoshop where we shall mock up possible designs from our collected research.

We intend to put an insert into our Digipak containing lyrics and illustrations, one of our panels will be dedicated to holding our insert. Above is an example of a Design with an insert in it.