Here in Italy, censorship has been very strong until the late 1980s, now the
"ratings" for movies are "General Audience", "14" and "18", but the ratings
are limited to the admittance in the theatres (even a kid can rent an
18-rated movie at the videostore, as long as it isn't an 18-rated porn).
Also, we have cut versions on television releases of movies (but the
video versions and those broadcasted on non-open TV chains such as satellite
TVs are all uncuts; in fact censorship has lost all power to impose cuts on
movies).
As for porn ratings, here everything that's porn is allowed for sale and
view over 18 years of age as long as it's not illegal porn (illegal porn
here is the one showing real-life sexual abuses, "snuffs" and paedophilia,
There is a fact: censorship won't work against illegal stuff. Only legal
stuff is submitted to censorship; illegal stuff is not. I am not only a
movie enthusiast but also a gun enthusiast and expert (I'm a co-operator of
a website, www.securityarms.com which is the largest free data-bank of
pictures and technical specs of firearms. I'm also an external co-operator
of an Italian gun magazine called DIANA ARMI),
Banning privately-owned guns and censoring movies is the same thing: it
will only filter LEGAL stuff to end in LEGAL ways. Pedophiles will keep on
smuggling their shit in the black market, as well as the criminals will not
surrender their illegal guns.
But let's get back to Italian censorship.
The Italian "Censorship Committee" is a rather obscure entity, even its
"belonging" is misknown (I'm not even sure if it reports to the Ministry of
Culture and Spectacle or directly to the Presidence of the Council of
Ministers, the Italian "Prime Minister's office"). It was founded during the
Fascist Regime, in the late 1920s, or most probably at its peak in the
1930s, in order to "filter" anything from press to movies to radio and music
that circulated in Italy, and prevent "anti-fascist influences" from either
insider/national dissidents or from foreign enemy countries (UK, USA, USSR).
Back then, it belonged to the now defunct MINCULPOP ("Ministero della
Cultura Popolare", or Ministry of Popular Culture, a very strange name to
denominate a Ministry for Propaganda); please note that the very same
achronyme MINCULPOP is very hyronic, in fact "INCUL" sounds like the Italian
vulgar verb "INCULare", that means "to fuck s.o. in the ass". MINCUL sounds
like "M'INCULo", meaning in Italian "I fuck [...] in the ass". MINCULPOL
could be translated like "M'INCULo il POPolo", or "I fuck the People in the
ass"; nothing more, nothing less, than what the MINCULPOP's actual activity
was.
After the end of the Fascist Regime, the Censorship Committee lost its
powers of "anti-regime" control, but most of its powers remained. In fact,
for about 60 years, my country was governed by the Christian-Democratic
Party, with strong liaisons with the Catholic Church. The Censorship
Committees then power to evaluate everything, from music to press, from
movies to TV programs, that the Italian people could access (in fact,
everything had to be SUBMITTED to the Censorship Committee).
While they didn't care that much about, as to say, horror movies (and
that is seen mainly in the 1970s, when the Italian horror erupted, and most
of those movies were released uncut in their gory scenes), they had a very
"vigilant eye" about everything that could "hurt the common sense of
decency". You get what I mean. Movie masterpieces like Last Tango In
Paris, or Salo or the 120 Days of Sodoma, fell victims of
the merciless Censorship Committee. They had basically the power to IMPOSE
cuts on the theatre movie releases, and even to BAN movies; in fact, Last
Tango In Paris was banned from the Italian soil. Please note that, back
at that time, there was no such thing as "Home Video", and there were no
other television chains in Italy but the three Public channels, that
(mainly) didn't broadcasted movies.
Allow me now a little excursion about pornography. Here in Italy, ALL
pornography (even soft-core porn like "Playboy") was completely forbidden
and banned until the end of the 1970s; making, importing or exporting,
trading, buying or selling, owning porn material of any kind, meant going to
jail. Still today, an old law that was never repealed forbids the MAKING on
the Italian soil of certain porn material, but this is limited to movies;
everything else is allowed, and generally the Italian porn-makers (which
currently are the hugest in the EU) shoot their porn movies in France (they
even spend LESS money producing in France). Everything else is allowed, from
live porn shows to... well, anything else; and the only illegal porn here in
Italy is today the one I told you (child porn and movies that we might call
"Snuff" that depict real-life rapes and/or murders; strong jail sentences,
from 5 up to 30 years of prison, are mandatory in Italy for the making,
importing or exporting, trading, buying, selling or owning of such porn; and
that's EXACTLY how it should be).
The availability of porn material on the market is restricted to people
of 18 years of age, or up. But porn journals, and often video-cassettes, are
available for sale in any news-stand just around the corner. There are some
exceptions, like porn comics (as, to say, Japanese "Hentai" magazines) and
soft-core journals (like "Playboy") which availability is to people over 14
years of age. But, hey, here in Italy the minimum age for drinking alcohol
is 13, 16 for working in places were alcohol is sold, and also 16 for buying
tobacco for themselves, so... Anyway, here in Italy, there's not much
problems for porn, mainly because most of the porn movies are distributed
via the Home Video circuit, "general-purpose" movie theatres don't screen
porn movies any longer, there are specialized theatres in the biggest
cities, but who needs to go to a porn theatre when you can rent one at the
automatic distributor of your home video rent shop just down the street?
Let's get back to the Censorship Committee. Now, after the middle 1970s, the
powers of the Committee have slowly decreased; and the power of the Catholic
Church and other moralists over it has fallen. Now, the Censorship Committee
has no longer the power to ban movies from the Italian territory.
Yes, a movie can still be banned, but two are the possibilities: #1: If it's
PROVED by the Police authorities that somebody has been really killed during
the making (and NOT for an accident; in short, if it's proved that the movie
has "Snuff" content); #2: If private citizens file a lawsuit against the
film-makers asking the ban of the movie. But this is a very restricted
option; basically, you can NOT ask the ban of the movie because it is
"offensive for the public", but only if the movie damages you, your family
or your interest in any direct way. As in the example: there is this movie,
THE GOD'S BANKERS, that talks about the activities and the death of a
banker, Roberto Calvi. The movie was banned from the movie theatres because
Calvi's relatives sued the authors stating that the movie "besmirched the
figure and the memory" of Mr. Calvi. But the movie was distributed in Home
Video, because if you sue movie-makers and obtain the withdrawal of a movie
from the movie theatres circuit (not from the Home Video, that's not
provided for by the Law), you have to REFUND the movie-makers for the missed
incomes of the movie distribution.
The Censorship Committee can only issue the ratings, which are:
- FILM PER TUTTI (General Audience)
- VIETATO AI MINORI DI 14 ANNI, or simply V.M.14 (Not allowed to
Audience under 14 Years of age)
- VIETATO AI MINORI DI 18 ANNI, or simply V.M.18 (Not allowed to
Audience under 18 Years of age)
Once, there was also the "VIETATO AI MINORI DI 16 ANNI", or simply V.M.
16 (Not allowed to Audience under 16 Years of age), but, though still
provided for by the law, it has been years since the rating was last issued.
The reasons of issue of a rating are the same worldwide, I think: sexual
contents, graphic violence or strong language, use of substances, etc.
The Censorship Committee is composed by "movie experts" (critics, I
think), sociologists, psychologists and psychiatrists, university professors
experts in "morality" and "ethical" issues, members of parent and teacher
associations, and delegates of the Catholic Church and of other religious
confessions.
The Censorship Committee, in the past, had the power to impose strong cuts
to movies. Now, the cuts can only be "suggested", not imposed, to avoid a
severe rating; but this happens seldom, now, since most of the movies that
hit our movie theatres are foreign-made (mainly US productions, but isn't
this the situation worldwide?), in which cuts are already imposed "from the
source".
What still one can generally complain about when talking about the
Censorship Committee (especially when an Italian movie is evaluated) is
that, for every movie, the Committee writes a "report" to justify the rating
they give, this report is not released to the general audience but
circulates between Governmental entities, authorities and "authorized
personnel", this meaning the (VERY SMALL) world of the movie producers; you
will understand that, if the report spots a bad light over the content of
the movie, this will reflect over the movie-makers; and this results in
damage to the distribution of the movie (a 18-rated movie will necessarily
have less public than a 14-rated movie), plus a bad Censorship report can
have a bad influence on the future possibilities for that particular
director to find fundings for his movies in the private sector (who finances
a film-maker when he makes 18-rated movies that will not sell well?), and
makes almost impossible for him to receive Public fundings (Italy has a
system that issues public fundings to the "National Interest" works of art).
Should also be noted that the "18" rating applies automatically to ALL the
porn movies.
More notes about the Italian censorship. The Censorship Committee has NO
power to overview the movies, etc., that are distributed only on the
Home-Video market. These movies are thus marked like "Censorship Visa not
necessary - Not destinated to Theatrical release", but the makers have to
"self-rate" their movie with a General Audience, 14 or 18 stamp on the back
of the DVD or VHS box. Also, the Home-Video release movies are all UNCUT,
even in the rare cases when the movie has been cut for the theatrical
release (please note that, in the nowadays' Italy, cuts on theatrical
release movies are often done "from the source" for marketing reasons,
rather than under "suggestion" from either the Italian or a foreign
Censorship entity).
The Censorship Committee can not ban movies, but it can still put severe
difficulties to its release; that's why many "extreme" movies are released
only on the Home-Video market. Recently a distribution company called
DYNAMIC ITALIA (specialized on Japanese stuff, mainly Manga Anime) has made
a huge mistake trying to distribute on theatres the well-known movie BATTLE
ROYALE; they have submitted it to the Censorship Committee, that is putting
such an enormous number of problems to its release that it will unlikely see
distribution soon. DYNAMIC ITALIA could still withdraw the movie from the
Censorship's approval and distribute it only on video; I wonder why they
didn't done this from the very first time.
In the year 2001, a right-wing political coalition won the election and
raised to the Government. Under their government, the conservative mind-sets
took new force and so did the bigot ideas. The religious delegates (the
Catholic Church-men, mainly) gained new power over it, and the 18-ratings on
"controversial" movies have started again to be distributed like candies.
But I seriously doubt that the Censorship
Committee will ever re-gain its original life-and-death powers.
A special note about censorship in television: here in Italy, there is an
"Authority for the Communications" that, between the other things, has
imposed a "Self-Control Code" over the television chains. These rules
include the prohibition of transmitting any material that can be "shocking"
(either sexually explicit or horrific, or anything like) in the "Protected
Time Lapse", this being the hours from 2 p.m. to 10 p.m., when more probably
minors will be watching. Even out of that time lapse, anyway, the TV chains
usually don't broadcast "strong content" movies, or if they do it, them have
warnings at the beginning (if them are blockbusters like, to say "Full Metal
Jacket", them are broadcasted but with heavy cuts).
This lasts since about 15 years; so much for hypocrisy of a TV regulation
that, on one side, forbids violent movies and leaves "extreme" programs to
be broadcasted only after midnight (there are a lot of TVs that do so), but
on the other hand leaves alone the TV News when they broadcast crude images
of the soldiers dead in Iraq, or Variety shows featuring half-naked dancers
and so (trash-variety, get used to it if you watch Italian TV).
I hate the "Self-Regulation" system. It's hypocritical system that
leaves alone quiet those irresponsible parents that think the TV to be a
electronic baby-sitter to park their children. Well, it is NOT. And I don't
see why we shouldn't be able to see GOOD stuff on TV just because a handful
of arseholes have not the will to care about their kids. Send them out to
play down the street, instead (here in Italy, it is still safe, even in the
biggest cities).
An interesting note is that these rules DON'T apply to the TV chains that
don't broadcast "Open". As in the example: Satellite TVs, which you pay for
and are NOT readily accessible (plus which decoders can be programmed to
obscure "adult" contents if a code is not inserted) are not submitted to
these rules. I have a satellite Tv and I can see gory horror and hardcore
pornography at lunchtime.
