In China, the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television (SAPPRFT) must approve any movie before it can be screened. The 37-person committee, as stated in the U.S. government report “Directed by Hollywood, Edited by China”, has mandate to ban all movies that are “anti-China”, that showed depiction of the supernatural, displays of “gratuitous violence,” and any reinterpretations of history or the Chinese version of it. The government has total control of the movies made in China: “SAPPRFT is notorious for providing vague feedback, with foreign filmmakers navigating a largely informal process to gain important approval. In addition, because China does not have a rating system for its movies, all films must be appropriate for audiences of all ages, though in practice this standard is not uniformly
Discuss the role of censorship in the construction of classic Hollywood Cinema. Censorship is something we all do to ourselves. Understanding why and how we choose to self regulate our sensory experiences is crucial in understanding representations in classic Hollywood cinema and how it functioned on an economic and psychoanalytical level. Self-regulating began long before the enforcement of the MPPC (Motion Picture Production Code) in 1934 when the Catholic Legion of Decency threatened to boycott cinema. For well over a century, individuals found that by refusing or rejecting certain images or text from social contexts they could benefit others or themselves.
In the second part of this essay, I will be reflecting on a recent film and how it was inspired by postwar Japanese cinema. The military took charge of the government and in turn dictated the local film policy by producing propogandic films. The Motion Picture Law was formed and when foreign films entered Japan, they suffered badly by going through a lot of cuts. The law also put a curb on these foreign films if they are found to be democratic and of different ideology. Donald Richie’s Japanese Cinema: An Introduction (1990, p.37) stated in his book: “Even in the early 1930s the official censors had begun cutting foreign films: the pacific All Quiet on the Western Front suffered nearly three hundred cuts before being shown in Japan”.
In 1907, Chicago, Illinois created a censorship regulation for films. In 1930s-1940s, Nazi-Germany prohibited any art deemed “un-German”. In 2002, the Department of Justice purchased material to drape over two partially-nude sculptures that have been in the department building since the 1930s. Censorship is not a new topic, but it is definitely becoming a widespread issue. While some people argue that art censorship is for the good of humanity, others contend that is is injustice and it takes away freedom of expression.
Concealing information and censoring the media defeats the purpose of the First Amendment and goes against the foundation of our country. Censorship has been an ongoing issue in the United States for what seems like centuries now. The first account of censorship was in 1798 when President John Adams did not agree with what a critic had to say about him. The Thomas Jefferson
The first limitation is that censorship limits the ability of a society to advance in its understanding of the world and other topics. An example, is the exploration of diseases, “if sex-related topics are completely censored it becomes difficult to teach children and teenagers about the dangers of Sexually Transmitted Diseases and HIV/AIDS.” Censorship is also unconstitutional, “…it intrudes upon the freedom of the press and violates the freedom of speech.” This is imposed on when people cannot submit information to the press because of the laws of censorship. This act also makes it so one cannot say just anything without it having to be censored. The past shows us that the use of censorship has and still continues to be abused. “Dictators use censorship to promote a flattering image of themselves and for removing any information that goes against them.” Lastly, it costs money for the government to continue censoring information, where they do not have extra money to spend considering the United States is about 18.8 trillion dollars in debt.
Children and teens should be able to access literature “free of restrictions” (70). Censors of young adult literature “fail to see” the similarities between their “desires to suppress information” about sexuality, violence, and religion and the “successful attempts by dictators to control their countries’ population” (70). Countries who have tried to implement censorship are practicing control over their citizens, which is why Canada should not suppress the population from any literature. If children are told they are not able to read books they are interested in or curious about they will be deterred from pursuing leisurely reading which limits their intellectual
Events in literature and history support the idea that censorship can often be a good idea. Since the days of ancient Rome, the government has attempted to prevent the outbreak of civil war by censoring radical new ideas. In Shakespeare's Julius Caesar Roman leaders are unable to prevent Mark
But at first, this representation was not very vividly, and if directors wanted to make it 'explicit ', those images were censored and the movies prohibited in certain countries. The film that is believed to be the first one showing some kind of violence (Ruiz Álvarez, 2000) to a big audience was a western: Attack on a Chinese Mission Station (1900), directed by James Williamson. This movie is set on the current event of those times, the boxer rebellion of China between 1898 and 1901. The main plot is the representation of a group of Christian missionaries under the ambush of the boxers. It is normal for the early years of cinema to represent what was happening, because cinema limited itself to that.
Is there any need for censorship of music? Everyone loves music, who wouldn’t? Imagine a world where we are advised what to play, what to sing and even what we may listen to in the security of our homes and children. Music provides a strong form communication between all humans. Censorship of music is the practice of restriction in the lyrics or the scenes of musical works.