Censored!!!

"Censorship is hardly, if ever justified."

Do you remember Titanic, yes that movie about the majestic ship on a historic voyage. What made the movie a huge success was not only the connection with the historic disaster and the majesty of the ship but also the breath-taking love story of Jack and Rose. Another thing about the movie which caught newslines was the scene when Rose gets her nude portrait sketched. Though this scene might have given a sect of people a good reason to go watch the movie, it was however edited out by the censor board. The un-censored version sell like hot cakes in the black market, but that's another story. Censorship has always been a debated issue with the media and broadcasting industry. Each country has a separate censorship system and different criteria of certificating movies. Not only movies, the censorship system is also applied to advertisements, books, TV programmes and even newspapers. The need for censorship and its criteria for judging is however a complex issue.

Firstly, it is worth a mention that censorship was created with the sole objective of creation of a healthy society. It was believed that certain broadcasted and distributed content may be harmful to the society or a section of society and hence there should be a body which will monitor the nature of this content and keep a tab on the harmful part. However, it is a matter of concern and thought as what should be considered suitable and what not. Censorship must curb the corrupting influence of such media and at the same time should not step on anybody's freedom of expression.

The criteria of censorship is not fixed and hence susceptible to misjudgement. Also most of the time censorship depends on the point of view of the censor board and not the general public view. Again, the same content might be alright for a section of society and not suitable for other. It may be suitable for adults but not for the young. The way someone perceives things is a very personalized matter and hence two people of the same age and society might draw a completely different conclusion from the same movie. Infact, even the good content can be edited out at times since at the end of the day, the censor board is run by humans. Now the involvement of humans brings in a lot of scope for mistakes and imperfection. Again even if things go uncensored, a viewer who has the prudence to know right from wrong is immune to harmful content and would actually learn from a media which might be disturbing to others. Ofcourse, not all viewers will possess such prudence. The discretion made by censor board makes sense only for such viewers.

The present system of censorship has only been partly successful in curbing the content supposed to be harmful. With the advent of piracy and the internet, uncensored versions of almost every censored item is freely available. This puts a question mark on the utility of censors. Also it can be argued that if a guy is open to a certain class of content at all, he will get it through one source or the other. The pornography industry is a great example of an industry that has flourished despite all the censorship and ban. Not only has it persisted since a long time, but has assumed dimensions beyond any other media industry. Also the kind of censorship when a scene is blurred or a sound beeped is meaningless since you can make out what it could have been most of the time. One might be drawn to think that censor should not exist at all. But what we let the media flow all unchecked. In such a case, the kind of broadcast which has popular appeal with the greater part of the viewers will dominate the media scene and all other genres will die out. Imagine all TV channels showing pornography and no other programme related to art or science showing up. This could bring about a crisis for the genuinely good stuff. Each genre must get the space it deserves.

However, the development of a generation which will have the intellect to discriminate good from bad, is the best what can be done. As they say - It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. If we develop a sense of descretion since childhood between what is better for our progress, we can actually allow all broadcast to go un-monitered. Again we cannot expect a child to possess this ability and hence a certain amount of regulation has to exist. After all, outcome of human thought is what the media content is. It has to be accepted that what seems illicit and harmful actually exists in the society already. That is where it comes from and again broadcasted back to. The media is a mirror of the very society watching it. So call it illicit or deteriorating, it is true. Prudence is the ultimate weapon against corruption of mind, because 'harmful' influences are not bound to movies and media. They exist all around us. Hence, though censorship cannot be cancelled totally, it lags far behind from its purpose.