“Film censorship is motivated by fears about audiences and technologies.” Discuss this statement in reference to the concerns expressed about uncensored and unregulated video content in Britain in the early 1980s
I believe this statement to be true as as with the development in new technologies (the development of VCR) it meant people where able to get a hold of many uncensored which where way to graphic and violent for younger audiences, sometimes they where deemed to bad for anyone to view which led to these films becoming banned in the UK, it also allowed people to watch pirated films at home for free. Censorship really came into effect when the conservatives came in to power and they played of it using it as scape goats for mistakes made. They also wanted to control what we watched turning England into a 'Nanny State'.
With the development of home video and VCR people didn't want to go out and pay a lot to watch a film when they could get a cheaper pirated film and watch it in the comfort of the own home, it became fashionable to stay at home and do this as everyone else did and you didn't want to feel left out it was also way more sociable. This then lead to something called Format Wars which was basically VHS vs Betamax, which VHS won due to the fact that it was easy to copy and you could have longer recordings even though Betamax was better quality. With the rise of censorship piracy counteracted it by still making banned films available through pirated copies.
Video nasties where films that didn't go to cinema's and where just shipped out on video cassettes this made them available to anyone and they where uncensored. Video Nasties where basically very gory graphic horror films (for example 'Evil Dead') the government did not like these as there was no way for them to get a hold of these to censor and stop people for watching. Although these films weren't necessarily every body's favourite and many people didn't like them, they watched as there's a certain degree of interest to them as although they had excessive gore people were drawn to it as it was something new that they hadn't seen something they could talk about to friends about which made them spread and become so popular.
There was a degree of moral panic that came around from these 'Video Nasties' mainly form parents and the government, this was because parents did not want there children watching such gruesome and potentially terrifying films that could mentally affect them, you then had the government worrying about the affect on society it could have whether people could take things from the films seriously and try to re-create this and as I have already mentioned at the start the fact that the Conservative party used it as scape goats.
In my opinion I believe that the main reason for film censorship has got little to do about the audience themselves but more about the industry and the fear of them being outdated. If 'Video Nasties' had not been banned back in the 1980's I believe everything would have still ended up as it is today as people become more desensitised to them, although some people do not like them its there decision whether to watch them or not. I believe that all this action was taken then for the same reason it is now to try and prevent piracy. Piracy affects the industry a lot and eventually us as film prices must go up. The film industry must understand that we are in times where technology is developing fast and they must adapt to fit the needs of a new age consumer who wouldn't think twice about piracy and we will see another rise of cinema attendance.
