The BBFC (British Board Of Film Classification) has completed the report they do every four years and come out with guidelines that reflect athe public’s softening attitude to sex, but a hardening on the treatment of solvent abuse on screen. While the BBFC didn’t use to ask anyone what they thought, for the last decade the board has completed a massive survey every four years, this time talking to over 9,000 people about their attittudes to different things and whether they believe the BBFC’s ratings properly reflect public attitudes.
This time around they’ve concluded they’ve got things pretty much right, with respondents saying they agreed with the BBFC’s ratings about 99% of the time. However on Tuesday they published their latest set of guidelines, which the board will use to decide what ratings to give different things.
BBFC director David Cooke said that “The BBFC is committed to consulting the public every four years to ensure that the guidelines we use to classify all works which are submitted to us not only take account of relevant UK legislation, but accurately reflect public attitudes and concerns.” While you might not think it, this is a profound change that the BBFC has undergone, as it’s not that long ago that it had no official guidelines at all as to how they should rate thing, and rather than geuninely reflecting the attitudes of society, it just reflected its own opinions. While movies are still ocassionally banned, you have to really make an effort to be refused a certificate, and the board has become much more a classification body rather a film censor. It’s a massive shift from the days where movies were getting cut left, right and centre, and one that’s gone relatively unheralded.
The board noted their their research showed a slight softening to attitudes to sex on screen, suggesting support for the BBFC’s policy of allowing real sex to be shown in 18 rated movies when ‘exceptionally justified by context’. However it did highlight more worry about solvent abuse, and so they’ve tightened the guidelines for how this can be shown in a movie rated 15.
If you want to take a look at the guidelines, CLICK HERE to read the PDF at the BBFC website. We’d recommend taking a look through, as it’s surprisingly interesting.