Censorship

When one thinks of movie censorship, one is wont to consider stodgy old men enforcing their horribly outdated beliefs upon the unsuspecting populace. By some quirk, they found themselves in a position to impose their ideologies, often to the chagrin to movie-goers like myself. In fact, I find it quite unethical to make me pay good money for a film, only to have a part of it cut out by the censorship board. Shouldn't I be reimbursed for the parts they didn't want me to see? Yeah...when I watch a movie without paying for it, it's theft. When they cut my movie while asking me to pay full price for it...hey that's the law.

Then again, most censors can only clip off some minutes from what would have been a say 1 1/2hr show. Arguably, those could be key parts and may even be highly amusing situations. All this pales in comparison to what directors do to get the film out to the silver screen. I'll bet they had to distill many many hours of footage to get to roughly the parts that they want the audience to see. (I'd be bored if I had to go through all that, so I'm actually grateful for it) And then they clip the few remaining hours yet further to satisfy the relative short attention spans of modern viewers. What we have as a result is a really trimmed piece of work.

Yes, the directors do indeed hack off far more than a film censor ever could. Of course, the censor could simply ban a particularly disturbing film. Me...I say keep a film intact (up the rating if necessary), or ban it. Clipping is just...blah.