I would be obliged if you could forward this to CONCERNED PARENT, the author of “Movie fan complains on the lack of censorship” which appeared in your letters section in the 24/8/2010 of your main paper. If you wish to run this reply in your paper, feel free to do so too.
Jason Kay
Melaka
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24/8/2010
Dear Concerned Parent,
You are wrong. I disagree with your letter titled “Movie fan complains on the lack of censorship”. Being a parent (I assume you are a parent from your pseudonym) in Kuala Lumpur in 2010 and being ‘shocked’ at foul language is funny, to me. Have you lived such a cloistered life being uptight that you do not know the world has changed? The Censorship Board must be in a bind trying to balance the numerous criticisms over the years that they are ‘too strict’ with views such as yours, i.e. not strict enough.
Insulting the Board, I quote verbatim, “It is clear that some members of the Board obviously have a very poor command of the English language” is simply in bad taste. Here’s a tip: You attract bees with honey, not vinegar.
Before you think I’m all against you, know that I am not. I do have my reservations with graphic scenes of violence – and I have passed my teenage years long ago – but I have a simple censorship device that is 100% effective: I avert my eyes. I don’t like excessive violence, but I give allowance to the possibility that my threshold is probably lower than others, and instead of raving and ranting, I practice self-censorship. I don’t like horror movies, so I practice self-censorship by not watching them (even if they are shown on terrestrial TV – which means they have been properly ‘sanitized’/censored for a wider audience than movies shown in the cinema).
Look, no one forced you to watch “The Expendables”. You had to pay good money for the experience. So don’t whine about how bad it was for you by blaming the Board and exhorting the Home Minister to “view this movie in a cinema hall” – He has better things to do with his time lah. Chalk it up to experience and don’t watch action movies in the future.
Jason Kay
Insulting the Board, I quote verbatim, “It is clear that some members of the Board obviously have a very poor command of the English language” is simply in bad taste. Here’s a tip: You attract bees with honey, not vinegar.
Before you think I’m all against you, know that I am not. I do have my reservations with graphic scenes of violence – and I have passed my teenage years long ago – but I have a simple censorship device that is 100% effective: I avert my eyes. I don’t like excessive violence, but I give allowance to the possibility that my threshold is probably lower than others, and instead of raving and ranting, I practice self-censorship. I don’t like horror movies, so I practice self-censorship by not watching them (even if they are shown on terrestrial TV – which means they have been properly ‘sanitized’/censored for a wider audience than movies shown in the cinema).
Look, no one forced you to watch “The Expendables”. You had to pay good money for the experience. So don’t whine about how bad it was for you by blaming the Board and exhorting the Home Minister to “view this movie in a cinema hall” – He has better things to do with his time lah. Chalk it up to experience and don’t watch action movies in the future.
1 comment:
I agree with you 100%. If you don't like it, don't watch it. You know the title and genre says it all. So why waste the Star's column by writing this trivial complaint when there are more pressing social and environmental issues that require immediate attention?
At the same time it was also the cinema's management's fault that their staffs allowed under aged children to view. Well, that's another issue that the management should look into. But to blame movies like these that linked to children and teenagers violence in the case of the 16 yr old Indian kid killing another 13 year old is just a issuing statement without facts and being emotionally decisive . There could be other known reasons that caused him to behave like that and we don not know for sure how this boy lead a lifestyle before the murder. So why blame the movies entirely? First the service, then the hygiene and now the censorship :) Ironically, Msia is one of those countries with a high level of censorship.
If I could not stand excessive violence or gore on the screen, then , I would just close my eyes, turn my head away with my tongue sticking out or fast forward it if it's on BluRay. What a bunch of hypocrites rather than calling themselves a movie fan or a concerned parent...
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