Giving the British What They Want

More sex for adults, less violence for children.

That is what British cinema buffs might expect to see in their films and videos under new guidelines issued Thursday by the British Board of Film Classification, the independent body charged with rating--and in many cases cutting--films here.

The country’s film censors say they will take more of a hands-off approach to movies and videos for viewers age 18 and older, but will be even stricter about violence and drugs in films for minors.

They say the new guidelines stem from a survey of more than 3,000 people from all demographic groups, which showed that British adults believe they should be allowed to watch what they want.

“Adults want to choose what they watch without excessive intervention by the board,” the board’s director, Robin Duval, said in announcing the new guidelines.

“But while the majority of the public felt we should interfere less in the adult category, they also thought we could be more restrictive in the U, PG and 12 [children’s] categories on violence, drugs and bad language,” he said.

Britain has five main categories of film certification--universal, parental guidance, age 12, 15 and 18--which require mandatory compliance. That means even a parent may not take his or her 11-year-old child to see a film rated for 12 and older.

For the first time, the guidelines spell out that films in the universal category should have no references to drug use, and restrictions have been placed on PG, 12 and 15 films on this issue. Regarding sex, the new guidelines allow for “progressively more graphic portrayals” to be included in the 15 and 18 categories.

“When it came to the 15 category, they felt we could be more relaxed about the portrayal of sex, but with the emphasis on responsible, loving and developing relationships,” Duval said.

When it comes to films for ages 18 and older, the board said it would intervene only on rare occasions in which a film is deemed to promote excessive violence, give instructive detail on illegal drug use, or portray explicit sexual activity that “goes up to the wire in terms of the law in this country,” according to board spokeswoman Sue Clark.

Historically, Britain has had the strongest film censorship laws in Europe and critics of those laws praised the new guidelines as “the beginning of the end” of censorship in Britain.

“This is the board’s attempt to do what [Prime Minister Tony] Blair did with the Labor Party--to modernize it before it becomes obsolete,” said Philip Dodd, director of the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London.

“It is a liberalization, and I don’t think the walls of Jericho are going to come tumbling down. This is recognition of the new technologies, of the rights of adults to make their own judgments and of the Europeanization of Britain,” Dodd said.

“It means it is impossible to continue the old mother-father role of the censor. Children are going to be the ones under increased protection, but even that is naive given the access they have to a whole range of technology.”

Britons generally have been more concerned about exposing their children to excessive violence in films than they have been about the issue of film censorship, according to Adrian Wootton, director of the British Film Institute’s exhibition department.

He called the new guidelines “sensible” and a “remarkable compromise” between the right of adults to see uncensored films and the need to protect children from excessive violence.

“In the context of the way the public feels, I think the censors have gone about as far [toward liberalization] as I would imagine it is possible to go,” Wootton said.

Clark, the board spokeswoman, said distributors routinely push for lower age ratings to expand their potential market. The “Mission: Impossible” sequel, for example, came to Britain with a recommendation of a 12 rating, but the board gave it a 15 because of the high level of violence.

“This is the sort of thing we will be doing more of, taking violence out of reach of younger, vulnerable children,” Clark said. “We are not prepared to bow to commercial pressure, particularly from American distributors who want lower classifications to boost profits.”

Britons held film violence partly to blame for the 1993 murder of 2-year-old James Bulger by two 10-year-old boys who abducted him from a shopping mall. They believe the killers were influenced by the 1991 horror film “Child’s Play 3,” and the case led to a tightening of classification for violent films, particularly those on video.

Though they are immediately applicable, Clark said the board is likely to give some leeway to films currently under review. She said the new guidelines have been given to distributors.

Asked for examples of how the changes might be applied, board President Andreas Whittam Smith said his organization was not taking an anything-goes approach to adult films, especially when it comes to drug use.

“I think if ‘Pulp Fiction’ were to come to us for the first time now, we would look at that scene where we see John Travolta in a car high on heroin with a little more concern than we expressed two or three years ago,” Whittam Smith said.

“I can’t answer the question directly whether we would cut it, but I think that is the kind of thing we would be focusing our attention on,” he said.

On the other hand, the relaxation on violence means that scenes previously cut might remain. The 1999 film “Fight Club,” which was given an 18 classification, was cut here for violence.

“I guess we wouldn’t now,” said Whittam Smith.

Some films still would be deemed unsuitable for a certificate, such as “The Last House on the Left,” the only film the board has refused this year because the filmmaker would not accept cuts.

“There was a pretty incendiary mix of sex and violence,” said Duval. “Whether we feel more relaxed about that now as a cinema film, frankly I rather doubt it.”