The sensational and exploitable elements of sex and
violence have created the biggest debates in film censorship. Under the new ‘‘X’’ rating in the United States, a
wave of 1970s ‘‘porno chic’’ or ‘‘middle-class porn’’
appeared on movie screens, exploiting the commercial
possibilities of an adults-only rating. In films such as
Deep Throat (1972) and The Devil in Miss Jones (1973),
explicit, nonsimulated, penetrative sex was presented as
part of a reasonable plot and with respectable production
values. Some state authorities issued injunctions against
such films to protect ‘‘local community standards’’; in
New York the print of Deep Throat was seized mid-run,
and the film’s exhibitors were found guilty of promoting
obscenity. Caligula (1979), financed by Penthouse magazine, was one of the few of these films to make it to the
United Kingdom but only after heavy cuts and initial
seizure by British customs. In New Zealand Deep Throat
was eventually passed in 1986, yet it remains to be
shown; only one cinema tried to organize a screening
but was thwarted by the city council that owned the
building’s lease. Such is the tight regulation of sex in
the cinema that its history has been one of a series of
certificated firsts. In the United Kingdom this has
included the first film to show pubic hair (Antonioni’s
Blowup, 1966), the first film to depict full frontal nudity
(the Swedish production Puss Misterije organizma
[W.R.—Mysteries of the Organism], 1971), and the first
theatrically distributed film to depict the act of fellatio
(Intimacy, 2001). Definitions of sexual explicitness vary
widely across national cinemas, with Belle e ´poque (1992)
and The Piano (1993) banned in the Philippines.
Sex crime has generated particular concern. In 1976
the BBFC claimed that, in that year, it had viewed fiftyeight films depicting ‘‘explicit rape,’’ declaring scenes that
glorified it as ‘‘obscene.’’ As opposed to questions of ‘‘indecency,’’ which have been applied to sexual explicitness, films charged with being obscene have been viewed
as having ‘‘a tendency to deprave and corrupt’’ and been
liable to prosecution. The art-sex film Ultimo tango a
Parigi (Last Tango in Paris, 1972), with its acts of
sodomy and degradation, is one of the most notorious
films to depict sexual violence. The film was banned by
several UK and US local authorities. The film was also
banned in Portugal (from 1972 to 1973) and in Italy
(from 1972 to 1987), with federal authorities there filing
five separate charges against named participants in the
production, including lead actors Marlon Brando and
Maria Schneider.
An explicit rape is part of the extreme horrors of The
Evil Dead, with a woman assaulted by trees in a possessed
forest. This scene was originally left uncut by the British
censor but later removed: the chief censor, James
Ferman, said ‘‘initially we did not think anybody would
identify with a tree.’’ In Germany the film was originally
banned for having violated the ‘‘dignity of humankind.’’
It was not until 1992 that the decision was overturned,
with the German High Court ruling that the zombies
in the film were not human and therefore their dignity
had not been violated. Key guidelines exist within film
censorship regarding screen violence. In the United
Kingdom the censor is most concerned with what is
known as the process shot, the point at which the weapon
makes contact with the victim’s body. The shots prior to
this, showing the wielding of the weapon, are known as
the ‘‘occasion’’; the shots that follow, depicting the effect
of the action, are known as the ‘‘price.’’ The employment
of ‘‘everyday implements’’ in violence is a concern, with
the slasher film The Burning (1981) first receiving cuts
for its explicit process shots and then later banned on
video for its scenes of mutilation and harm using garden
shears. Censors are also concerned by ‘‘overkill,’’ or the
repeated use of a weapon on a victim, and by its being
tugged or twisted. There is also the issue of ‘‘personalized
violence’’: in a film such as Cliffhanger (1993), attacks on
Sylvester Stallone’s character were subject to more cuts
because of the audience’s assumed empathy with the lead
actor.