Beware of the Censorship Board. Letting the Government Decide What People Can and Cannot Say is a Dangerous Slippery Slope to Dictatorship & Tyranny; Keep Speech Free!

There are numerous definitions for a censorship board. While its most ancient meaning comes from the Roman word for a census taker, today’s censors are a bit harder to pin down. Our government only wants to know how many people they need to support.

There are media censors who are ready to “bleep” out expletives from major broadcasts. There are censors who screen Internet sites for unauthorized or unallowable material. There are self-appointed censors who judge the conduct or morality of others, or their work.

None of them, however, have the authority of a duly authorized censorship board. Today there are many such groups at work all around the world. One of the most famous of these organizations once existed in the United States.

Changing World
In the early 1900s in New York City the nickelodeons dispensed a private viewing of the new fad known as the silent picture. In only a short period of time there were many self-appointed censors concerned about the content of these short reels.

Soon a censorship board was in place, and it made moderate suggestions to the film makers. It became quickly apparent that there were greater forces at work and soon the censorship board itself was under scrutiny for being too lenient with the movie industry.

By the 1920s the industry would be under the rules of the Hays Code which imposed such severe restrictions that filmmakers became self-regulating artists in order to continue in their field.

The Hays Code was censorship to the fullest degree and while it may have stimulated some creative film making in order to depict scenes that included sexual overtones or violence, it nonetheless disenfranchised the industry of its First Amendment rights.

Enter the MPAA
Forty years after the introduction of the Hays Code the old school censorship board in the movie industry was handed over to a new organization. The Motion Picture Association of America, or the MPAA would not be able to censor content, but would be able to categorize a film before it was released.

Is that still censorship? Here we run into that old debate about the exact meaning of censorship. For instance, does an MPAA rating imply some sort of judgment on the film itself? If so, that means that a board of anonymous individuals (which is how the MPAA operates) is telling viewers if something is suitable or not for their children.

Does that constitute an act of censorship? By some definitions, it does.

Sex V. Violence
In order to prove that the MPAA is the last vestige of a true censorship board we need to only look at its stance on ratings in the context of sexual content. The MPAA applies a label to any film that describes the suitability of the film for specific age groups. This rating is based on violence, language and sexual content.

If a film is in the ‘adult’ film category, or what used to be considered an X-rated film, it now receives an NC-17 rating. Over seventy percent of films receiving an NC-17 rating do so because of sexual content and not violence.

Interestingly, European filmmakers see the situation in reverse and place stricter ratings on films depicting gratuitous violence and gore. Why should that be interesting?

The MPAA is placing restrictive ratings on films containing sex scenes, but it has no problem allowing young adults into films of remarkable violence. Clearly, their method of making a judgment is not based on majority opinion or need.

What is the basis for this opinion? If one examines the film released for any given year, the biggest box office successes are those that are popular with a very specific demographic. The same demographic that would be prevented from entering the theater if a film received an R or NC-17 rating.

Is it Really Censorship
Regardless of their motives or reasons, the members of the MPAA are acting in the same fashion as a censorship board; demanding the filmmakers meet their standards or run the risk of a punitive rating on their film.

Sure, they are wrapping up their determinations in layers of concern and morality, but that too is the essence of censorship. At such a moment it is truly difficult not to ask who, exactly, is monitoring the monitors?