Commenting on the critics with Simon Columb…
Kev Geoghegan writes for the BBC, regarding Ken Loach’s use of language in The Angels’ Share:
“Film director Ken Loach has criticised British film censors for asking him to remove swear words from his new film in order to qualify for a 15 certificate … Loach said the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) asked for cuts to some language in The Angels’ Share… The British middle class is “obsessed by what they call bad language”, he said at the Cannes Film Festival.”
Read the full article here.
Again we have a problem with censors. Loach is offered an 18 certificate, but his issue is the archaic attitudes towards language, opposed to the depictions of graphic violence and torture, which the producers argue “we have made films with heavy scenes of torture and waterboarding and fingernails being torn out – they have been 15 certificates”.
Personally I can see a frustration about this – and, in terms of language, I think it might be fair to argue that 15-year-olds and 18-year-olds use bad language as much as each other. Indeed, 15-year-olds probably use it more.
The producers defend the picture saying that the language is used ‘naturally’, which connects this film with the recent controversy surrounding the documentary from the Weinsteins, Bully. In both cases, we have films which argue that the censors are wrong in deciding what is, and isn’t, an acceptable use of swearing. Context, it seems, does not play such a big part. Bully has to censor the true use-of-language which bullies use, whilst Ken Loach’s realist film has to become less-real by cutting out the odd swear-word. It’s hardly the excessive use-of-language Ben Kingsley used in Sexy Beast.
I think we can all agree that a line needs to be drawn, but I think it is when language is used excessively that should deem it an 18-rated film. If a few words being removed suddenly changes the rating, then clearly it is not excessive. Referring back to Sexy Beast or Scarface, if the films were edited down to be 15, the whole characters Kingsley and Pacino portray would change – they are shocking in their use of language. A young, unemployed father throwing around some cuss-words is hardly the same. Or the accurate depiction of bullying in education, inevitably showing foul language, is hardly a comparison either. In the same way that nudity and violence, in context, changes the rating – so does language.
Originally published May 27, 2012. Updated April 10, 2018.
