Prudish Indian censors cut James Bond Spectre snogging scenes Indian James Bond fans have been making merry with the Central Board Of Film Certification's decision to cut a couple of Spectre snogging scenes by 50 per cent. According to the Hindustan Times, an insider said: "The Censor Board had nothing against James Bond kissing, but the length of the kisses were found to be excessive …
Ironically the Indian prudishness was originally installed by the British Empire. Prior to that India had a comparatively open society.
I lost interest in Bond when he completed the transformation from "English Gentleman Spy" to "Generic American-style Guns and Martial Arts Commando Type Guy".
Strange definition of "open society"... do you call open a society which traditionally denies all rights to women ?
To the point of condoning sati - which is the burning of a man's widow on his funeral pyre...
Or where the most stringent punishment for a man raping a girl was to pay a steep fine to her father for the shame he (not her) was exposed to,
Besides practices like Purdah (a woman must never show herself uncovered in any way outside of the home) were already well entrenched well before the english came to make things even worse :-)
It's a bit like American censorship - you can see people getting killed left right and centre but a naked breast or a mild swear word like shit? DEAR GAAAAAAAAAD NO!!!
Mind you ITV did a funny one a while back in Last Action Hero.
Arnie says "How are you going to click your fingers when I rip off both your thumbs and stick them up your nose?"
ITV cut off the stick them up your nose bit - as if ripping thumbs off was perfectly fine but sticking them up noses afterwards was just sheer evil.
"It's a bit like American censorship - you can see people getting killed left right and centre but a naked breast or a mild swear word like shit? DEAR GAAAAAAAAAD NO!!!"
No specificity in original demonstrably specious claim.
Point stands, especially as most people these days watch more cable and on-demand programming than broadcast TV, at least in the Metro NY area.
The cultural difference between the UK and America are a fact of life. Gun violence is acceptable. Go to Japan and images that would be considered kiddy-porn in the US, but don't raise an eyebrow there are plastered on billboards. And in the UK they now say "shit" on TV a lot more than they do in the US. So what?
For the record, I've not noticed that the post 90's relaxation on the use of "shit" in UK TV dialog has improved the quality of whatever it is. In fact, it has seemed to make the scriptwriters much lazier in my opinion.
For comedy, I think it's actually MUCH funnier to bleep out cusswords. After all, what could Buster Bluth have possibly said about his mother that was so shocking that the entire family would be struck speechless? Bleep it out and it's funny. Script in a string of the usual suspects and, well, meh, only what you get in any workday when the printer jams.
Indeed, The Young Ones was only as funny as it was because the scriptwriters, hamstrung by 80s BBC censor restrictions went to the other extreme, using childish language (along with the lost art of the side-splitting innuendo that seemed to be second nature in them days) to create the unforgettable Rik and Vivian exchanges that basically made that show happen.
Just this year one of the aussie channels cut out the running gag in "Follow that Camel" - "that's a funny way to check my ... ooh .. " and the final bit where they show the face of the baby (Commandant Burger played by Kenneth Williams) after Bo & Lady Jane are married.
You see what happens Larry? This is what happens when you find a stranger in the alps. This is what happens when you feed a stoner scrambled eggs.
Always a classic; tvtropes has whole page of them.
Those scenes should have been left on the cutting room floor. I realise that they were "Merely corroborative detail, intended to give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative" but sadly the artistic verisimilitude was unconvincing.
I am surprised the fright bats & white ribbon brigade haven't come out in protest at the Monica Bellucci scene (not that I want this, just expressing my surprise given the high profile domestic violence has in Oz atm)
The producers could have cut that whole Monica Bellucci bit without losing anything from the film. Don't get me wrong, she is beautiful but what did that romp offer the plot of the film? And it was very realistic: a grieving widow who knows her life is in peril has a quick romp with 007. What else would she do?
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
