Restricted vision: Censorship and cinematic resistance in Thailand

Film censorship screens the nation as a ‘way of seeing’ that is both fundamental to the art of governance and vulnerable to the flexibility of contemporary global images. In Thailand, this historically-conditioned regime arose in the geopolitics of the 1930 Film Act, the Motion Pictures and Video Act of 2008, and a coterminous regulation of visuality as a form of cultural governance. I pursue a close reading of two banned films by Apichatpong Weerasethakul and Nontawat Numbenchapol, respectively, to illustrate the aesthetics of film censorship in light of the development of a national cinema, especially to consider the strategies that film-makers use to negotiate the governance of vision.

Deconstructing the Role of Film Censorship, as a Constraint on Free Speech

This paper attempts to illustrate how film censorship as a practice, hampers the ‘free’ usage of the right to free speech and expression under Article 19(1)(a) of the Indian Constitution. To undertake this research objective, reliance has been placed on the judiciary’s track record in handling censorship cases. The findings of this paper show that even while the judiciary has recognised that cinema falls under the ambit of Article 19(1)(a), it has not always been proactive in advocating in favour of the right to free speech and in fact, has often justified censorship by giving certain reasons, which nevertheless seem problematic. When the judiciary takes such steps, it not only cripples the right to free speech and expression but also frightens and raises inhibitions in the minds of the citizens, and thereby giving rise to consequences. Therefore, by using judicial pronouncements from various landmark judgements, this paper highlights that right to free speech in censorship cases has not been a value dear to judiciary as it has more often than not, favoured censorship, thereby showing how censorship acts as a constraint in being able to freely exercise right to free speech. Further, the paper also unveils the ramifications of such actions of the judiciary alongside discussing some of the recent debates on film censorship and the right to free speech.

Film and Video Censorship in New Zealand, 1976-1994

<p>This thesis is an historical analysis of cinema and video censorship in New Zealand focusing on the period from 1976 to 1994. This is bookended by two significant changes in censorship legislation: the introduction of the concept of “injurious to the public good” as the guiding principle for film censorship in 1976, and the consolidation of censorship of film, video and other publications under one censorship authority in 1993 legislation (which came into force in 1994). My theoretical approach can be broadly classified as institutionalist political economy. The emphasis is on what Des Freedman regards as the “deeply political” nature of media policy development and implementation¹, as well as the role of many key actors, including politicians and civil servants, but also lobbyists and pressure groups, and “the importance of informal as well as formal modes of policy behaviour”.² Also, rather than simply looking at censorship decisions as the work of individuals, I have examined the way in which, as B. Guy Peters notes, “structures persist while individual members of those structures come and go”, and that “structures (institutions) create more regularity of human behaviour than would otherwise exist”.³ Rather than attempting to provide an exhaustive narrative of film censorship during this period, the focus is on detailed case studies of individual films which were the subject of censorship controversy in New Zealand, including Last Tango in Paris, Mad Max, Life of Brian, I Spit on Your Grave, Hail Mary and Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer. As these were contentious decisions, with a number of different voices competing for discursive legitimacy, they help to illustrate what Annette Kuhn describes as the idea of censorship as “a matter of relations…a process, not an object”, emphasising “the interactions between the various institutional practices involved….the relations between them, the ensemble of practices condensed in any one instance of film censorship”.⁴ These case studies also provide significant insight into the decision-making process of the film censors, demonstrating that this goes far beyond “objective” judgements about the manifest content of the films, and into more contentious and subjective areas such as the perceived tone of films (how they present certain content, rather than simply the content itself), views on media effects, the imagined audience, and the wider societal context. The decisions made by the censors depend very much on how these various factors are weighed, and which are given the most importance in the decision-making process. I have also examined the operation of formal home video censorship in New Zealand, which was introduced in 1987, taking a broader approach rather than focusing on individual film case studies, as no individual videos resulted in the level of controversy or media coverage as the film case studies. ¹ Des Freedman, The Politics of Media Policy (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2008), 1. ² Ibid., 217. ³ B. Guy Peters, “Institutional theory: problems and prospects.” In Debating institutionalism, edited by Jon Pierre, B. Guy Peters and Gerry Stoker (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2008), 6. ⁴ Annette Kuhn, Cinema, censorship, and sexuality, 1909-1925 (London: Routledge, 1988), 127.</p>

Film and Video Censorship in New Zealand, 1976-1994

<p>This thesis is an historical analysis of cinema and video censorship in New Zealand focusing on the period from 1976 to 1994. This is bookended by two significant changes in censorship legislation: the introduction of the concept of “injurious to the public good” as the guiding principle for film censorship in 1976, and the consolidation of censorship of film, video and other publications under one censorship authority in 1993 legislation (which came into force in 1994). My theoretical approach can be broadly classified as institutionalist political economy. The emphasis is on what Des Freedman regards as the “deeply political” nature of media policy development and implementation¹, as well as the role of many key actors, including politicians and civil servants, but also lobbyists and pressure groups, and “the importance of informal as well as formal modes of policy behaviour”.² Also, rather than simply looking at censorship decisions as the work of individuals, I have examined the way in which, as B. Guy Peters notes, “structures persist while individual members of those structures come and go”, and that “structures (institutions) create more regularity of human behaviour than would otherwise exist”.³ Rather than attempting to provide an exhaustive narrative of film censorship during this period, the focus is on detailed case studies of individual films which were the subject of censorship controversy in New Zealand, including Last Tango in Paris, Mad Max, Life of Brian, I Spit on Your Grave, Hail Mary and Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer. As these were contentious decisions, with a number of different voices competing for discursive legitimacy, they help to illustrate what Annette Kuhn describes as the idea of censorship as “a matter of relations…a process, not an object”, emphasising “the interactions between the various institutional practices involved….the relations between them, the ensemble of practices condensed in any one instance of film censorship”.⁴ These case studies also provide significant insight into the decision-making process of the film censors, demonstrating that this goes far beyond “objective” judgements about the manifest content of the films, and into more contentious and subjective areas such as the perceived tone of films (how they present certain content, rather than simply the content itself), views on media effects, the imagined audience, and the wider societal context. The decisions made by the censors depend very much on how these various factors are weighed, and which are given the most importance in the decision-making process. I have also examined the operation of formal home video censorship in New Zealand, which was introduced in 1987, taking a broader approach rather than focusing on individual film case studies, as no individual videos resulted in the level of controversy or media coverage as the film case studies. ¹ Des Freedman, The Politics of Media Policy (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2008), 1. ² Ibid., 217. ³ B. Guy Peters, “Institutional theory: problems and prospects.” In Debating institutionalism, edited by Jon Pierre, B. Guy Peters and Gerry Stoker (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2008), 6. ⁴ Annette Kuhn, Cinema, censorship, and sexuality, 1909-1925 (London: Routledge, 1988), 127.</p>

PRODUKSI KONTEN VISUAL DAN AUDIOVISUAL MEDIA SOSIAL LEMBAGA SENSOR FILM

Indonesian Film Censorship Institution (Lembaga Sensor Film/LSF) uses the existence of social media to increase public knowledge about the LSF's role in the world of Indonesian cinema. As a government agency, LSF uses social media to share, increase public participation, collaboration, and assume the risk of fake news. Through social media, LSF intends to build an image, and educate the public to protect against the negative effects of film and promote the Indonesian film industry. This research reveals the content production on social media platforms used by the Film Censorship Institution (LSF) to convey information to the public. This study uses a qualitative method with a case study approach. Interviews, observation used to collect data, while literature review, and documents relevant to the research used as secondary data. Data analyzed using interactive data analysis techniques from Miles & Huberman. The results showed LSF uses Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter to convey visual and audiovisual information to the public. The visual content produces in four stages, ideas, visualization, revision, and final artwork (publication). The audiovisual content organizes in three stages, pre-production, production, and post-production. Changes in social media content increased LSF's Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook followers in six months. Keywords: content, social media, visual, audiovisual, film industry.

A cut above: the end (and ends) of film censorship

By the beginning of the twenty-first century in the West, the notion of government-appointed bodies mandated for censoring cinematic content had fallen considerably out of fashion as institutional censorship was largely curtailed. Barring widely shared concerns regarding the exposure of underage children to material deemed inappropriate, newly rebranded “classification” boards have acted to limit the extent to which they themselves can prohibit images from entering the public market, shifting their emphasis away from censorship and toward consumer edification and greater consideration of artistic merit and authorial intent. Such reform brought the policies of censorship boards in Britain, Canada, and Australia into closer alignment with the goals and processes of the Motion Picture Association of America’s ratings system. Can we then assume that cinematic censorship is effectively a thing of the past? Does the impetus to regulate and police film content continue silently to exist? Analysis of controversies surrounding particular films throughout and in the wake of this shift suggests that, while no longer practiced explicitly by governmental institutions, film censorship continues to operate through less immediately recognizable forms of cultural marginalization and restraint. Classification status drastically affects the number of platforms through which a film can be accessed and thus works, as censorship does, to restrict films from audiences. When market demands place external restraints upon film content, familiar processes of cinematic censorship can be reframed as operating within (as opposed to upon) the institutional structures and practices of cultural production. This two-part study will examine, first, the process by which certain postmillennial cinematic artworks, such as Catherine Breillat’s Fat Girl (2001) and Gaspar Noé’s Irreversible (2002), spurred reform in the policies of classification boards by highlighting the rigidity of classification criteria and, secondly, cases in which, following the shift from moral to covert censorship, artistically serious films such as Vincent Gallo’s The Brown Bunny (2003) and Abel Ferrara’s Welcome to New York (2014) have been suppressed or constrained for their challenging subject matter, most notably for their aggressive presentation of sexuality. The main objective will be determining: 1) how the shift from censorship to classification corresponded to the aesthetic strategies of a handful of boundary-pushing films; and 2) how cinematic censorship, in the absence of traditional institutional enforcement, continues to operate in the interactions between alternative networks of disciplinary power and discursive practice.

A cut above: the end (and ends) of film censorship

By the beginning of the twenty-first century in the West, the notion of government-appointed bodies mandated for censoring cinematic content had fallen considerably out of fashion as institutional censorship was largely curtailed. Barring widely shared concerns regarding the exposure of underage children to material deemed inappropriate, newly rebranded “classification” boards have acted to limit the extent to which they themselves can prohibit images from entering the public market, shifting their emphasis away from censorship and toward consumer edification and greater consideration of artistic merit and authorial intent. Such reform brought the policies of censorship boards in Britain, Canada, and Australia into closer alignment with the goals and processes of the Motion Picture Association of America’s ratings system. Can we then assume that cinematic censorship is effectively a thing of the past? Does the impetus to regulate and police film content continue silently to exist? Analysis of controversies surrounding particular films throughout and in the wake of this shift suggests that, while no longer practiced explicitly by governmental institutions, film censorship continues to operate through less immediately recognizable forms of cultural marginalization and restraint. Classification status drastically affects the number of platforms through which a film can be accessed and thus works, as censorship does, to restrict films from audiences. When market demands place external restraints upon film content, familiar processes of cinematic censorship can be reframed as operating within (as opposed to upon) the institutional structures and practices of cultural production. This two-part study will examine, first, the process by which certain postmillennial cinematic artworks, such as Catherine Breillat’s Fat Girl (2001) and Gaspar Noé’s Irreversible (2002), spurred reform in the policies of classification boards by highlighting the rigidity of classification criteria and, secondly, cases in which, following the shift from moral to covert censorship, artistically serious films such as Vincent Gallo’s The Brown Bunny (2003) and Abel Ferrara’s Welcome to New York (2014) have been suppressed or constrained for their challenging subject matter, most notably for their aggressive presentation of sexuality. The main objective will be determining: 1) how the shift from censorship to classification corresponded to the aesthetic strategies of a handful of boundary-pushing films; and 2) how cinematic censorship, in the absence of traditional institutional enforcement, continues to operate in the interactions between alternative networks of disciplinary power and discursive practice.