Thursday 30 May 2013

BBFC Is The Warmest Colour

If your head hasn't been in the sand for the last week or so, then you might have heard that lesbian epic "Blue Is The Warmest Colour" has won the Grand Prix in Cannes; a victory notable because the film is an epic lesbian love story that just so happened to coincide with the passing of gay marriage (hooray!) in France. Clearly, then, one can speculate that the film won not because of the quality, but because of the political circumstances in the country at that time. Spielberg, head of the jury, has denied this, but who knows. 

Anyway, that's a different debate for a different post, that I'm not too bothered with.

What I want to talk about is what the film will be rated. In the UK where I live, for those who don't know, we have a fairly standard ratings system- U (for universal), then PG (for parental guidance), 12, 15, 18, then R-18 for porn. Those ratings roughly correspond to what you'd expect, with 18's containing the strongest violence, sex, swearing and drugs, and U and PG being for kids; 15 and 12 are pretty interchangeable. 

The ratings are assigned by the BBFC, "British Board of Film Classification", and no film can legally be distributed without a rating from them over here. This leads to a curious loophole where no film is actually banned in the UK- it can only ever be refused a certificate (where the film is considered to have the potential for harm, which I find silly but what the hell). This renders the film unreleasable and has the same effect as banning, but the newly liberal BBFC would never actually prohibit art, a sign of their progress in the last decade or so.

The reports for Blue Is The Warmest Colour all mention, at some point, the graphic and unsimulated 12 minute lesbian sex scene. I'm not a prude idiot so I have no problem with seeing such things between consenting adults on screen; in fact I think that sex as a tool in movies is vastly underused, and the films that have used it have been variable- 9 Songs was a turgid and bland mess, whereas Shortbus, which is one of the better films of the last decade, is absolutely incredible (it also contains far more sex than 9 Songs, yet seems curiously neglected in this debate. It has gay sex, blow jobs, s+m, just about everything, and yet it kind of slipped by quietly. Tangent).

Both of those films, despite containing numerous scenes of graphic and unsimulated sex, were released uncut to some considerable furore, with the left (where I align myself) praising this brave new liberalism from the censors, and the right claiming that this will mark the end of civilisation and even that this will herald a time where no woman will be able to get a part without baring all for the camera. (no, seriously. The fact that the nudity and sex in that particular film was pretty equal clearly wasn't noteworthy to that critic. But again, that's another very long post for another day- I loathe Tookey). 

Anyway, this post has been full of tangents, but I'd like to get to the point; 15 years ago, Blue Is The Warmest Colour would not have been released as an 18 by the BBFC. It would have got an R-18, legally only allowed in sex shops, and this would have frankly taken a huge dump on the chances of the film making any money in the UK. But ever since Lars Von Trier's Idioterne was released, containing a couple of seconds of a willy going into a fanny, the BBFC has been pretty lax in letting sex go by. Their criteria for this seems to be that if the sex is grounded contextually and isn't there with the primary purpose of arousing, then it's all good.

Blue Is The Warmest Colour seems to fulfil this. I'm not even slightly worried about it getting an 18 rating. It just will, very easily. I'm not sure what the point of this post is, other than to get to this eventual point. Call it my musings (I am very interested in film censorship, this won't be my last tangent). 

As a final point, this extends kinda to Trier's own Nymphomaniac, to be released at some point between the end of this year and the start of next. That film is his reported "porno", and it's almost a guarantee that unsimulated sex is on the cards. In fact, scratch that, it is a guarantee. But, I have no doubt, knowing Trier's talents, that it will also be a film heavily grounded in context. He'll almost certainly deliver a point, about female sexuality, and it will be debated for many years, but that's not here yet. For now, I can say with about 80% certainty that that film will be released uncut as well. More sex on camera. Hooray. Hooray!


(I like this picture. It works in a number of contexts)



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