Daily News

India's film makers are discussing a decision by the Indian government's to abolish the Film Certification Appellate Tribunal (FCAT).

The FCAT was set up in 1983 by India's Ministry of Information and Broadcasting to hear appeals by filmmakers aggrieved by the decision of the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC).

With its headquarters in the capital, New Delhi, the FCAT was headed by a chairperson and had four other members, including a secretary appointed by the Indian government.

In its order earlier this week, the government said the high court and not the FCAT will now hear the appeals by filmmakers who do not agree with the CBFC's suggestions or certificates for their films.

The move has made Indian filmmakers, mainly in Mumbai-based Bollywood, angry and anxious. Alankrita Shrivastava, director of feminist film Lipstick Under My Burkha , told Al Jazeera the abolition of FCAT will make filmmakers like her more vulnerable. The director said:

If there is a disagreement with the decision of the censor board, filmmakers will have to go directly to the high court. This may cause long delays, meaning a greater financial burden on filmmakers. It is a setback for artistic freedom.

China's state propaganda channel CGTN could soon be back on British TV screens, as French authorities have agreed to regulate, so overriding a decision by the UK TV censor Ofcom to ban the channel.

Ofcom decided to pull CGTN off air in February after finding it unacceptable that the channel is editorially controlled by the Chinese Communist party.

France does not have rules that prohibit state-controlled broadcasters from airing in the country.

But now that the channel is officially regulated by another Council of Europe country, then Ofcom is bound by treaty to accept that CGTN can now broadcast to Britain.

The treaty between members of the Council of Europe, a 47-member organisation that is separate from the EU and therefore not affected by Brexit, mandates that an international broadcaster can beam into the territories of signatories as long as it falls under the jurisdiction of one member.

Saying that, it is not yet clear whether Sky will be including the channel in its package. However Sky currently carries the channel on its networks in Italy and Germany.

The Texas Senate has passed a measure that would prohibit large social media companies like Facebook and Twitter from censoring political and religious viewpoints of Texas citizens. The bill now awaits a vote in the Texas House.

Senate Bill 12 was introduced by State Senator Bryan Hughes. Titled Relating to the censorship of users' expressions by an interactive computer service , the bill would not only prohibit censorship, but would require social media companies to disclose their moderation policies, publish reports about any blocked content, and create a legal route for people to appeal any censoring or deplatforming decisions.

Senator Hughes announced the passage on Twitter:

I think we all have to acknowledge that social media companies are the new town square and a small group of people in San Francisco can't dictate free speech for the rest of us.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott is expected to sign the bill if it passes the House. Abbott gave his hearty approval of the bill from the beginning, appearing alongside Senator Hughes at a press conference in March to announce the legislation.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a Muslim advocacy group is calling for the censorship of Highwire Games' Six Days in Fallujah.

CAIR has called on Sony's Playstation, Microsoft's Xbox, and Valve's Steam not to host the upcoming game.The group claims that the game promotes Islamophobia and normalizes violence against Muslims. In a statement, CAIR said:

The gaming industry must stop dehumanising Muslims. Video games like Six Days in Fallujah only serve to glorify violence that took the lives of hundreds of Iraqi civilians, justify the Iraq war, and reinforce anti-Muslim sentiment at a time when anti-Muslim bigotry continues to threaten human life.

We call on Microsoft, Sony and Valve to ban their platforms from hosting Six Days in Fallujah.

The game is based on the 2004 Second Battle of Fallujah during the Iraq War. The battle resulted in an unknown number of civilian deaths, and more than 100 US and UK troops. Six Days in Fallujah was first announced in 2009 but at the time, its publisher, Konami, dropped it due to widespread calls for censorship.

New York Assembly Member Rebecca Seawright has announced bill A6540 which defines consent to sex as a freely given, knowledgeable and informed agreement obtained without the use of malice such as forcible compulsion, duress, coercion, deception, fraud, concealment or artifice.

If passed, this would be the first time lawmakers formally define the meaning of consent in the state's penal law for sexual assault and all crimes.

Seawright menacingly threatened in a statement:

The United States Bureau of Justice Statistics reports that a sex crime is committed every 73 seconds. We must stop this rising trend by clearly defining consent, thereby empowering our police and prosecutors to take action. The proper definition of consent in New York's laws will clarify lawful sexual conduct, guide behavior, and make it possible to hold sexual predators accountable.

Offsite Comment: If lying to get yourself laid is made a crime, no one will ever want to have sex again

10th April 2021. See article from rt.com by Charlie Stone

Being less than truthful to get your leg over could become a criminal offence if New York lawmakers get their way. This crazy intrusion into private lives ignores the fact everyone tells white lies to impress potential partners.

If you want to have sex with someone new these days, you'd better draw yourself up a contract... or you could end up in jail.

...See full article from rt.com

Sex toy maker Maude is attempting to generate a bit of hype by trying to impose politically correct terminology on sex toys. Maude claims that it is tired of seeing an 'outdated and gendered approach', their designers created a line up of vibrators and 'gender-neutral sex essentials'.

Dakota Johnson, who is now an investor and co-creative director, has joined the brand and spouts:

For too long sexual health has been poorly marketed, hyper-aggressive, and highly gendered. Maude is a company based on universal design making modern, body-safe, high-quality essentials for before, during, and after sex, with yourself or with another lovely human. The caliber and aesthetic of these products is excellent and elevated.

Now, Maude is taking things a step further with a new campaign denouncing supposedly outdated language that refers to vibrators as toys. Johnson added:

With our This Is Not A Toy campaign, we aim to activate hearts and minds in an effort to destigmatize sexual and intimate tools. Often the use of language surrounding sexual products is antiquated, gender-specific, and belittling.

Anti porn campaigners have been cataloguing porn titles on Pornhub, XVideos and xHamster and claim that one in eight have titles describing sexually violent acts. Their use of the term 'sexually violent' is a little bizarre though, and inevitably has been redefined to include non-violent material that the authors deem to be violent totally at odds with normal people's use of the English language.

The campaigners analysed 131,738 titles of videos that appeared on the front page of the tube websites (without specifically searching for anything nor allowing the site to build up a profile of preferences).

The campaigners claimed that

• 8,421 (6.4%) titles included terms for family relationships and 5,785 (4.4%) titles described sexual activity between family members - the most common category of 'sexually violent' material identified in the survey
• 5,389 (4.1%) titles referred to physical aggression or the depiction of forced sexual activity (acknowledging that performers had likely consented
• 2,966 (2.2%) titles described image-based sexual abuse, including hidden cams and upskirting
• 2,698 (1.7%) titles described as coercion and exploitation

The campaigners excluded BDSM material as they seemed to have gotten confused about whether the term 'violence' applies to the genre that seems to be higher more PC than other genres.

Pornhub's owner Mindgeek recently removed millions of videos that had been uploaded by users who had not been verified after claims of hosting illegal content. But it commented on the clips it has allowed to remain online:

Consenting adults are entitled to their own sexual preferences, as long as they are legal and consensual, and all kinks that meet these criteria are welcome on Pornhub.

Academic Clare McGlynn who co-authored the survey, said:

It's shocking that this is the material that the porn companies themselves are choosing to showcase to first-time users.

Collegue Fiona Vera-Gray and co-author of the survey, said:

Sexually violent material eroticised non-consent and distorted the boundary between sexual pleasure and sexual violence.

The survey, titled Sexual violence as a sexual script in mainstream online pornography, is published in the latest issue of The British Journal of Criminology. with its abstract reading:

This article examines the ways in which mainstream pornography positions sexual violence as a normative sexual script by analysing the video titles found on the landing pages of the three most popular pornography websites in the United Kingdom. The study draws on the largest research sample of online pornographic content to date and is unique in its focus on the content immediately advertised to a new user. We found that one in eight titles shown to first-time users on the first page of mainstream porn sites describe sexual activity that constitutes sexual violence. Our findings raise serious questions about the extent of criminal material easily and freely available on mainstream pornography websites and the efficacy of current regulatory mechanisms.

Offsite Comment: Academic Click Bate: The War On Porn Continues

7th April 2021. See article from reprobatepress.com by David Flint

The study makes big claims that were inevitably picked up and repeated uncritically by media outlets like the BBC. But even a cursory glance at the evidence and the conclusions might make a more open-minded person raise their eyebrows. If ever there was a study that set out in search of evidence to back up a belief already held, this is it.

See article from reprobatepress.com

Offsite Comment: British Journal of Criminology Study on Violence in Porn

10th April 2021. See article from avn.com

If you only read headlines about a new study from the British Journal of Criminology you might think that large quantities of criminal videos of sexual violence on tube sites are warping most children's minds, turning them into sexual violators.

But this isn't even close to true. The coverage of the study is misleading and exaggerated. But the study itself is extremely flawed.

First, the researchers included everything from stepmom to ploughed in the category of sexual violence. Defined that broadly, it's shocking the study found only one in eight videos depicted sexual violence.

See full article from avn.com

Snake In The Eagle's Shadow is a 1978 Hong Kong action comedy by Woo-Ping Yuen
Starring Jackie Chan, Siu-Tin Yuen and Jang-Lee Hwang

Cut by the BBFC for 18 rated cinema release, VHS, and DVD. BBFC 12 rated for 2021 Blu-ray.

No cuts shown for the 2021 entry in the BBFC database but it is not confirmed that the animal cruelty footage has been restored.

UK: Passed 12 for moderate violence, language:

• 2021 88 Films (RB) Blu-ray at UK Amazon #ad released on 3rd May 2021

Promotional Material

An orphan who has been raised at a kung fu school, where he is treated as little more than a dogsbody and practice target for the students, has a life-changing experience after helping an old peripatetic beggar.

Humanoids from the Deep is a 1980 USA Sci-Fi horror by Barbara Peeters,Jimmy T. Murakami (uncredited)
Starring Doug McClure,Ann Turkel,Vic Morrow

Some releases are missing a shot of a man having his head ripped off.

UK: UK: Passed 18 uncut for sexual violence, strong gore:

• 2021 88 Films (RB) Blu-ray at UK Amazon #ad released on 29th March 2021

Promotional Material

Noyo's a sleepy little place, where nothing much happens. So why are people being attacked and killed by THINGS that come out of the water? The answer involves pollution and mutated sea life that's developed a taste for death. As the 'orrible humanoids lay siege to Noyo, it's up to the great Doug McClure (The Land That Time Forgot; Warlords of Atlantis), to put a stop to their murderous rampages.

Notorious for all the sex 'n' violence that producer Roger Corman insisted on adding against the director's wishes, Humanoids of the Deep is a monster movie for the Video Nasty age. A cheesy, sleazy classic, lovingly presented by your pals at 88 Films.

Extras:

Features Include
New 4K Master from the Original 35 mm Camera Negative
Original DTS-HD MA 2.0 Soundtrack
Optional English SDH Subtitles
Audio Commentary by Film Critic Kim Newman and Film-maker Sean Hogan
Audio Commentary by Critic and Author Samm Deighan
The Making Of Humanoids From the Deep
Leonard Maltin Interviews Roger Corman
Deleted Scenes
Theatrical Trailers
TV Spot
Radio Spot
Stills Gallery
Reversible Sleeve featuring brand new artwork and classic original poster art.