Censorship

Censorship is the practice of officially examining books, films, etc., and suppressing unacceptable parts. Censorship was introduced back before the 1920’s when Hay’s code was in place. At the time, things we see in films today were censored for audiences and would be considered completely unacceptable. Some of these things include: showing actual childbirth, white slavery, misusing the American flag, ridicule of the clergy, showing leg above the knee and using words such as Christ, Lord and God in a rude way. However, now a days, the only censorship we have is age limits on films which go from U to 18. Even though we have censorship some of the things show are still not good and some things shown on a rated 12 film I believe are not suitable for a 12 year old to see such as: sexual scenes, violence and back language, (for example in the Twilight saga). Censorship also takes the form of water shed which is the time that certain programs are allowed to be shown on television. A lot of programs shown after9pm will have sex, bad language, violence etc in as television people believe young children will be in bed by this time and won’t see the programs. On channels which show music videos, also have to consider when the videos are allowed to be aired as some songs or aspects of the videos are not suitable to be shown at certain times. For example, most videos include nudity and or swearing. As time has changed, the things we consider acceptable have also changed as young people are always being presented with ideas of sex things that they shouldn’t have to see at such a young age. As a passive audience, we are constantly being injected with messages portrayed by the media such as stereotypes, ideas of gender and what we should consider to be acceptable to witness. To conclude, the purpose of censorship is to help defend the audience from bad ideas and messages.