The BBFC: It Still Bugs Me

How can it be that adults are not allowed to choose whether or not to see a film? It really felt like Britain was behaving like China. This kind of censorship is ridiculous.”

–Tom Six

In the last exciting episode, I made mention of the BBFC’s de facto ban of The Human Centipede II. Turns out that the cunts refused it a certificate on the grounds that it poses “a real, as opposed to fanciful risk that harm is likely to be caused to potential viewers.”

They haven’t given me such a laugh since 1996, when they banned the first part of hentai anime Urotsukidōji IV, fearing it could be used by nonces to snare kids—might as well’ve bannned sweeties and puppies!

In true media Mengele fashion, the British Board of Film Classification has been branding, mutilating, and, in some cases, sectioning off British video media since their inception in 1912. Many a moral panic has seen the board step up as its willing and unquestioning foot soldier: from the furore over Rebel Without A Cause potentially triggering Fifties “teen rebellion”; to the “video nasties” spazz-out in the Eighties; to the  manhunt over…Manhunt, four years back.

Where there’s a Whitehouse, there’s a way—namely, them.

In the Case of the Second Centipede, the two are one—in more than a singular sense. It seems the sequel proved too much for the tender ‘testines chez censorship. As BBFC chief David Cooke stated:

It is the Board’s carefully considered view that to issue a certificate to this work, even if confined to adults, would be inconsistent with the Board’s Guidelines, would risk potential harm within the terms of the VRA, and would be unacceptable to the public.

The Board also seeks to avoid classifying material that may be in breach of the Obscene Publications Acts 1959 and 1964 (OPA) or any other relevant legislation. The OPA prohibits the publication of works that have a tendency to deprave or corrupt a significant proportion of those likely to see them.

And the contentious content in question? According to The Guardian…

In the sequel, a man becomes erotically obsessed with a DVD copy of the original film – in which the victims are surgically stitched together mouth to anus – and decides to recreate the idea.

The film then focuses on his fantasies and the torture he inflicts. One scene involves him wrapping barbed wire around his penis and raping the woman at the end of the centipede, having become aroused by the sight of his victims being forced to defecate into each others’ mouths.

Sounds like something you’d find on Martin Ssempa’s hard drive!

I watched the supposedly disturbing first installment last week and found it, above all, fucking hilarious. I blame it on the villain protagonist at the heart of the nefarious goings-on: a cross between Josef “Angel of Death” Mengele, a hammy Eighties cartoon villain (take your pick), and said villain’s bumbling henchmen.

Much like the BBFC, he slices up things that worked perfectly fine unhampered, stitching them up into a compromised, grotesque mess for his own satisfaction—all whilst expecting his unlucky recipients to chow down and think of England.

Lately, I grow more and more wary of folk who talk about “depravity”, “corruption” and “obscenity”, especially when they fail to qualify what the fuck they mean by those words. Then again, I suspect that such value-laden vagueness is intentional; these hazy Obscenity Acts allow authoritards who “know it when [they] see it” to Trojan in their tastes as public policy. Such is the consequence of giving trigger-laden, “feel my pain” neurotics posts of power.

Speaking of trigger-laden, just what did the Board base the “tendency to deprave or corrupt” on? Did the sight of birds being boned by barbed wire bring up something other than their lunch? I mean, as entertaining as it was, I hardly wanted to stitch folk together, arse-to-mouth, after watching the first film. Similarly, watching A Serbian Film—another BBFC butcher job—uncut aroused no urge in me to fuck newborn babies, animatronic or otherwise.

(Also, how many blokes really wanna fuck anything wearing a barbed wire condom? Granted, there was that one masochist who nailed his knob to a table, but…)

So, if I can sit through these flicks without “harm”, without being “deprave[d] or corrupt[ed]”, what’s going on with that lot?

Then again, judging by some of the reader responses on various sites, the Board have friends in lame places; if it’s not femiternalists who fancy themselves as the next Mary Whitehouse, it’s moral paternalists worried about keeping society censored for the “human dignity”of “decent healthy human beings”. Synapses spooked by sanctimony.

Anyone who’s seriously freaked out by the mere existence and availability of fiction, particularly stuff they can opt to avoid, might benefit from addressing their projected personal issues. I often hear the  phrase “get over it” used on those who take umbrage to being insulted, but I can, at least, understand the umbrage there; I think that phrase much more appropriate for infantilized moral-guardian wannabes who go out of their way to get their feelings hurt.

As for those who endorse bans on account of the “mentally unhealthy”, the overly-impressionable, the “low IQ and impulsive” and, of course, “the children”, well, what do that lot aspire to but a de facto idiocracy?

Still, even if most Britons really, really wanna just be slaves, there are  ways and means to circumvent the tide; to quote YouTuber ryanbinrichard,

The BBFC ain’t got shit on what I watch cause I get all my movies from torrents. I can’t wait until the Americans come out with torrents for the Human Centipede 2. Getting the first torrent I find.

Flags at full mast, me hearties!

~MRDA~