Film and Video Censorship in Modern Britain

AUTHOR APPROVED How does film and video censorship operate in Britain? Why does it exist? And is it too strict? Starting in 1979, the birth of the domestic video industry - and the first year of the Thatcher government - this critical study explains how the censorship of films both in cinemas and on video and DVD has developed in Britain. As well as presenting a detailed analysis of the workings of the British Board of Film Classification, Petley casts his gaze well beyond the BBFC to analyse the forces which the Board has to take into account when classifying and censoring. These range from laws such as the Video Recordings Act and Obscene Publications Act, and how these are enforced by the police and Crown Prosecution Service and interpreted by the courts, to government policy on matters such as pornography. In discussing a climate heavily coloured by 30 years of lurid 'video nasty' stories propagated by a press which is at once censorious and sensationalist and which has played a key role in bringing about and legitimising one of the strictest systems of film and video/DVD censorship in Europe, this book is notable for the breadth of its contextual analysis, its critical stance and its suggestions for reform of the present system. Key features include: Detailed case studies of individual instances of censorship, including Last House on the Left, sex videos in the R18 category, and press-inspired campaigns against films such as Child's Play 3 and Crash.Interviews with central figuresThe author's own contemporaneous reports on key moments in teh censorship process. Julian Petley is Professor of Screen Media and Journalism in the School of Arts at Brunel University. He is Chair of the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom, a member of the board of Index on Censorship and co-principal editor of the Journal of British Cinema and Television. [ENDORSEMENTS TO FOLLOW

Julian Petley is Professor of Screen Media and Journalism at the Brunel University.

Introduction; PART I. 'CENSORIOUS RIGMAROLE AND LEGALISTIC OVERKILL'; Introduction; 1. A Nasty Story; 2. Nastier Still; 3. Two or Three Things I Know About 'Video Nasties'; PART II. AFTER THE DELUGE; Introduction; 4. 'The Tenor of the Times': an Interview With James Ferman; 5. 'Reading Society Aright': Five Years After the Video Recordings Act; 6. The Video Image; PART III. NINETIES NIGHTMARES; Introduction; 7. 'Not Suitable for Home Viewing'; 8. Vicious Drivel and Lazy Sluts; 9. Doing Harm; 10. The Anatomy of a Newspaper Campaign: Crash; 11. The Last Battle, or Why Makin' Whoopee Matters; PART IV. NEW MILLENNIUM, NEW BEGINNING?; Introduction; 12. 'The Way Things are Now': an Interview With Robin Duval; 13. The Limits of the Possible; 14. Full Circle; Appendix: The DPP 'Top 60' List of 'Video Nasties'