In the age of streaming and parental locks, the BBFC with its Twitter advent calendar, press releases and reclassifications is desperate to prove its relevance
Did you rush to the advent calendar as soon as you woke up today? The British Board of Film Classification advent calendar, that is, which has been running on Twitter throughout this month. We’ve already learned so much. There was the revelation that past examiners considered Ron Howard’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas to be “educational” (always a big deal for the BBFC, which values few things more highly than a teachable moment) and believed the star of Rumble Fish and Angel Heart to be one “M O’Rourke”. It was no surprise to discover that a scene of Santa Claus wielding candy-striped chain-sticks was originally snipped from the 1996 comedy Jingle All the Way. The martial arts weapon, also known as nunchaku, was the special bugbear of James Ferman, the board’s director at the time, who seemed convinced that it posed a threat to the country’s wellbeing. How quaint.
The scene was restored when the film was submitted again four years later. Times and tastes change, after all. That happens to be the BBFC’s justification for recent adjustments made to the ratings of a crop of blockbusters. A certificate is fixed at the time of a movie’s release, and is only amended when that title is resubmitted. One festive example: the 1988 Bill Murray comedy Scrooged earned a 12-certificate (for “moderate language and soft drug use”) when it was last submitted for home entertainment purposes in 2012, whereas its cinema rating remains PG, since it hasn’t been reassessed since its original release.
