THE DICTATORSHIP OF CENSOR BOARD
It was just another Sunday afternoon when I was watching a rerun of one of the episodes of my favourite sitcom, Games of thrones when I heard the beeping of the word ‘fuck’ & ‘bastard’ throughout the entireepisode. In the 21st century, it is hard to believe that the ‘ombudsmen’s of our Indian society would believe the audience to be this easily excitable when exposed to this word. Not only is it inconvenient for theviewers to watch the same, but it also downrightly rejects their level of intelligence. Recently, the English subtitles for British and American TV content broadcast on Indian channels have been subjected to ridiculous self-censorship for fear of a government confrontation and crackdown.
If viewers are offended by the content, they can make a complaint, and the result of these complaints can be quite disastrous for channels.
Words like ‘Fucker’, ‘Sex’, ‘Bastard’, etc. that are all deemed offensive by one channel or the other are either entirely muted, or changed in subtitles during an episode airing nowadays. For instance, unless and until the content show is seen under the light of ‘education’, IBF guidelines are against the showing of nudity, and even the depiction of movements of sexual activity. This made watching the early seasons of Game of Thrones on Indian television next to impossible, which prompted viewers to turn to the Internet and find out what exactly followed up whilst the scene, was censored. While watching suits on comedy central, these people beeped out the word "dick" while the character was talking about book "Moby dick”. GENIUS ain't it?
In one of the shows, they beep words like "bra” and "panties”. Now apparently a girl talking to her mom about lingerie is also offensive to audience.
Why are there ridiculous amounts of cuts and censoring on Indian English movie channels like Star Movies that makes even PG movies almost impossible to watch?
Also, with regards to censoring, which would be the best English movie channel in India?
The entire practice is done in the name of protecting the kids from stumbling across any ‘objectionable’ content on television. More than the television’s responsibility to do so, it is parents who should be looking into what their children should be exposed to. As a free adult, if I want to see two adults talking about sex as openly as they do in the West, I don’t think I should be deprived of that. Moreover, this kind of censorship is only resulting in producing a generation of people who would have skewed notions about important issues, and will look down upon such problems. India will become a country where nobody will talk about sex and diseases, sex-related health issues and drug problems will conveniently be swept under the carpet, hidden from all eyes instead of being understood and addressed. Such activities will only produce couch potatoes who will still consider sex a dirty word, and believe skin show in public is still something good girls do not engage in, and despite legal cognizance, homosexuals are by and large still not acceptable and normal. After receiving numerous complaints from viewers as well as the National Commission for Women and social activists who accused the channels of showing explicit content, shows like Bigg Boss and RakhikaInsaaf were allowed to only air between 11 PM and 5 AM.
As India is trying to sell itself as a global power today, Indian censorship in television, practised through arbitrary laws and rules, will serve to turn the clock back on the country’s social and economic progress. India has around 125 million people who speak English, out of which many in urban India follow American shows and watch Hollywood movies.
Those who have been ardent followers of such series and Hollywood movies have witnessed a major turmoil in this scenario.
There must be uniformity in the exercise of deciding what needs to be aired or bleeped on television. By resorting to inconsistent and clumsy self-censorship, snipping scenes that are central to a show’s plot, raising serious questions about the audience’s mentality, is this the first step in the Government’s growing sense of insecurity?
Quotes:
Dear Censor Board,
Did you, accidentally, eat fevikwik thinking of it as your homeopathic medicine (that you seldom take) to cure your diseases called "extreme narrow-mindedness", "hypocrisy", "fascism", when you cleared films like Kya Kool Hain Hum, KKHH 2, 3, Hate Story, and all those films that made the audiences think that they could have better slept at home instead of watching them ? Now all you educated and wise people give your logic of banning "Udta Punjab" that it has "excessive swearing”!! And the government trying hard to protect the "image" of the state by banning the word "punjab" and all the references to its politics and elections, you should know that by banning the film or even these words, you CAN NOT change the reality of the state!
And this is about a decade back. Lord knows what's happening now! Udta Punjab is a film which has good content, shows the reality and gives a strong message and I think some good acting too. But it is not "allowed" to know the reality in our country, you know. That's too sensible!!-Anonymous
Censoring violent scenes is understandable to a certain extent. But come on, you simply cannot remove the most iconic/entertaining scenes of a movie, just on the pretext that it is too "violent". Seriously, it’s a frickin R rated movie (Total recall), and they even censor out words like "shit", "butt". You can imagine how the rest of the movie must have been. –Roopjeet Singh Bhullar.
Such is the nation, the heart is rotten, and the youth is dying, mothers wailing for the unresponsive sons and daughters, Fathers wondering if the up-bringing was astray but, we still need to see the popular jubilant Punjab: swings in the green fields, the bright colors of saffron, yellow and green.
Such is the nation, Human in real are valued way lesser than the image the running govt. wants to project those .Ah! The once upon a time ‘Free country, but did we were become free! - Swati Baweja
Tweets:
Rename Udhta Punjab to Udta India or World:RGV :Filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma (RGV) has said that a more suitable title for the upcomi8ng film ‘UDTA PUNJAB’ would be ‘UDTA INDIA’ or ‘UDTA WORLD’. For what it actually represents Udta Punjab is diminutive,”tweeted the Filmmaker.
AnuragKashyap tweeted, “any person or party opposing it is…Guilty of promoting drugs”.
Karan Johartweeted, “Censoring reality amounts of delusion, the fraternity has to stand by what’s right!
Box :
The Jungle Book: Disney’s film, directed by Jon Favreau, was released this year by the CBFC with a ‘U/A’ certificate, which meant that children under 12 would need to be accompanied by an adult. While the Board’s stated reason for this was that the 3D effects would be scary for young children, the decision was ridiculed across the world.
