Watching movies at the local cinemas can be a very frustrating experience: you just never know when the censor's scissors will snip something away. A bit too much gore: no can do. Cut. A passionate kiss: no can do. Cut. A little too much skin in a parallel horizontal position: no can do. Cut. Sometimes, whole sentences are butchered because the script calls for a liberal dose of expletives.
And worse yet, sometimes, award-winning movies of great socio-cultural impact don't even reach our shores due to the liberal use of the powers granted to our Censorship Board. The massively significant Schindler's List (1993) is a case in point. The remarkably entertaining and educational Prince of Egypt (1998) is another.
Ok, the Censorship Board is just doing its job. It has to work under the regulations of the Home Ministry:
bq. Under Home Ministry regulations, the board 'protects the interests of the country and people from bad influences and negative elements shown in films.' This means many movies are plagued with jarring edits of love scenes, swear words and other objectionable material. - New Straits Time
If we, the rakyat, don't like it, then we shouldn't have voted for the current government, since it is them who legislate "morality-laws" - laws that define our morals for us. So we shouldn't condemn them for censoring our favourite show - if anyone is to blame, we should blame ourselves because that's how a democracy works: we vote for leaders who carry out the wishes of the majority. Even then. the authorities are at fault for two things: they are guilty of being inconsistent, and they are guilty of incorrect moral priorities.
Inconsistency is easy to prove - the authorities let pass shows like Final Destination 2 (2003) - violence and gore there in abundance (even after the best efforts of the censors) but ban shows such as Daredevil (2003) for supposedly being too violent and improper because the movie "hero-worships someone with a devil-sounding name". Consistency will be very welcome. If you're going to let one show through, let the other through as well. Or ban both.
The second, incorrect moral priorities, isn't too difficult to prove either though it probably isn't within the particular responsibility of the Censorship Board but the Home Ministry in general. The first 15-20 minutes of any movie shown in local theatres are normally composed of ads for beer and alcohol companies. Nasty stuff. Ads that show how glamourous it is to drink. Ads that show how cool it is to drink. Ads with twirling women, all scantily clad, dancing in circles around men. I'm sure the authorities know better than most how dangerous alcohol consumption is, and its massive negative effect on our society. While they've rightly ensured that such ads don't appear on terrestrial TV, i don't understand why the authorities allow it to be shown in the cinemas. What i don't understand even more is why play the role of moral guardian for the content of movies, but allow morally-questionable ads that appear before the movie to pass. Perhaps the Chairman of the Film Censorship Board can shed some light on this question: halim@kdn.gov.my
Further reading on the dangers of alcohol consumption:
* The negative effects of alcohol
* Alcohol - The Legal Drug of Abuse
* US Statistics on Alcohol-related usage and effects
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