Uncut in the UK

I have to disagree with your ‘Liberal’ argument. Both our countries ratings boards have different attitudes towards what’s appropriate in movies. The MPAA censor sex in movies while the BBFC censor only ultra violence in movies. The only reason ‘this film’ and the sequels were cut is because the main aspect of the films is sexual violence, which is a touchy subject in the UK. Most films now have been passed uncut such as ‘ A Clockwork Orange’ or ‘The Evil Dead’, times have changed and the BBFC is now more lenient. If you watch ‘This Film Is Not Yet Rated’, you will see what sort of trivial cuts the MPAA have made to films to get rid of sex in them, while BBFC keeps most of it in, see the movie ‘Districted’ which was passed uncut in the UK.

One major difference is that in America if a movie gets a NC-17 many cinemas wont show it and even places like Blockbuster won’t stock it, but over here in the UK if a film gets an 18 certificate nobody cares, it even makes some films more popular because you can see ‘18’ films in every cinema not a select few. In my local Blockbusters in Leeds you can rent Medium core porn films (films with real sex and nudity but no penetration shots) and I even rented ‘Districted’ from there (Which has plenty on penetration shots).

Television is a whole different story, this where we see what country is most liberal. American Network Television is a lot more prudish than the UK. Fox, ABC, NBC, CBS etc. have very strict guide lines set by the FCC, which means that the stations can’t have strong language, nudity, sex or very violent scenes. Here in the UK our network channels (BBC1, BBC2, ITV1, Channel 4 and five) can get away with pretty much what ever they want. After the 9:00pm watershed strong language (C* U * N * T, F * U * C * K and Mother F * U * C * K * E * R) can be said on TV and before the watershed S * H * I * T (which isn’t that offensive in England), P * I * S * S , B*A*S*T*A*R*D etc. can be said. Full frontal nudity of both men and women can bee seen on Network Television here almost every day and real, non-simulated sex can be shown on TV (Though no penetration shots are shown), the first time I saw Tonya Hardings’ sex tape was on a channel five documentary about sex tapes (Lots of uncut nudity and sex). The first time I saw South Park the Movie and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back were on Network TV, completely uncut as are HBO shows like The Sopranos, Sex and The City, Six Feet Under etc. have all been shown uncut on Channel 4.

So inclusion of this ‘rant’, America may be a bit more liberal towards films but when it comes to Network TV the USA seems to be very prudish and not very Liberal.

Thanks,