Why I Love The Censors

"The BBFC have gone PC Potty!" screamed a recent press release, recalling the bad old days when our draconian censors would merrily cut films for reasons which were often unfathomable. Under the sensational headline "BBFC Ban Children's Educational Film", the statement from Parasol Pecadillo, distributors of the Swedish teen-angst movie The Ketchup Effect, alleged that "British teenagers and young adults face the authoritarian disapproval of the rapidly advancing nanny state in being disallowed the choice of seeing this film".

Described as a "runaway success" in its own country, The Ketchup Effect was passed uncut for 11-year-olds by Swedish censors, and had apparently been recommended by schools as an informative look at the perils of adolescence. Yet in Britain, the BBFC had raised alarm bells about one particular scene which they believed may contravene the 1978 Protection of Children Act. According to Parasol's spokesman Christian Martin, the subsequent suggestion of a cut demonstrated that "all the mandarins have become seduced by the transparent sermonizing of Blairite evangelism. If school kids can find the moral fortitude to walk out of their schools to protest against an illegal war then they can rationalize a sex scene in a movie made for them and about them."

It all sounds like a shocking case of heavy-handed censorious intervention. Yet as with so many press stories about the BBFC, the truth is rather more complicated. Yes, the BBFC had been worried by one scene which they believed could infringe on UK law. The scene in question (which alludes to the film's bizarre title) involves a young girl (played by a 17-year-old actress) reaching out and striking, rather than squeezing, what appears to be an erect penis, following misunderstood guidance from the organ's owner about masturbation. The penis involved is in fact a prosthetic, prompting the distributor's claim that the film did not infringe the PCA. Yet within the superseding wording of the 1994 Criminal Justice and Public Order Act, there lurks a phrase referring specifically to "pseudo-photographs" of children in potentially indecent circumstances.

Next page • "The producer and director approached the Home Office and the Metropolitan Police"