Video Nasties: Essay

Draft 1:

"Censorship is motivated by fears surrounding new technologies."

Discuss this statement referring to Video Nasties and the impact of technological, social, political contents of the early to mid 80s.

New technologies is not the reason surrounding the fears and motivation of censorship. Video nasties were banned or cut for their content not for the new technology that developed within the time period.

The government didn't agree with the content that video nasties showed and used this as a justification for everything that happens. Mary Whitehouse reinforced what the conservative government had to say and their views on video nasties as a whole; she also believed that video nasties influenced others and teenagers. Mary Whitehouse was part of a pressure group - National Viewers and Listeners Association (NVLA) which followed christian views and raised campaigns against video nasties. Although, Mary Whitehouse never watched a video nasty she continued to prejudge them and give her views. The NVLA and the government views were seen to be discussed with police which abused their power and also encouraged the media to create a moral panic and decline.

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Draft 2:

"Censorship is motivated by fears surrounding new technologies."

Discuss this statement referring to Video Nasties and the impact of technological, social, political contents of the early to mid 80s.

In the 1980s film censorship was put in place to protect audiences and the power of illegal distribution and technology of unregulated films such as video nasties and low budgeted horror films. However, film technologies and the illegal distribution of films was not the full reason as to why film censorship was put into action. A huge influence on film censorship was down to Margaret Thatcher and Mary Whitehouse both members of a pressure group - National Viewers and Listeners Association (NVLA) who had strong views and were fully against video nasties and believed they had the influence of others mostly teenagers. Also, the rise of home video (VHS), the piracy surrounding illegal distribution of films and also cinemas loosing money and witnessing a decline in cinema attendance - all of these factors all influenced the introduction of film censorship.

During the 1980s we saw the rise of home video (VHS); VHS became a craze and fashionable due to it being new and everyone wanting to follow the trend. This was great for the majority of people as it allowed people to watch videos in the comfort of their own home, at a cheaper cost and it also gives them the ability to watch unlimited amounts of unregulated/censored films that cinemas didn't have the budget or license to show. However, although this was great for many people including mostly teenagers this was not a success for cinemas, the rise of home videos, VHS and video nasties lead to cinemas loosing money and cinema attendance becoming the lowest it has ever been. Film censorship was unable to rule out these unregulated films meaning they were left out there for many to watch and enjoy despite what it may be doing to cinemas.

The early 1980s resulted in many video nasties being made therefore this lead to them being banned by the BBFC. The majority of video nasties were horrors which contained a lot graphic content; initially the majority of these video nasty films were banned from cinemas to restrict people from watching this type of content, however this them opened up the door to people having access to watch these video nasties at home on VHS - regardless to whatever age the audience was despite whether they should be watching it or not, to some nobody could stop them due to it being in their own home. Video nasties caused a moral panic to occur which was lead by a conservative party - NVLA which at the time was lead by Margaret Thatcher and Mary Whitehouse. The NVLA conservative party used video nasties as a scapegoat for all problems going on within britain at the time and believed that video nasties were a threat and that they were the cause and influence for many, mostly teenagers. 

The BBFC enforced the 1984 Video Recordings Act, this therefore banned many video nasties. Although, video nasties were already mostly banned within cinemas it never stopped people from getting hold of copies through illegal distribution and watching them at home. The Video Recordings Act meant that all films including video nasties had to be sent through the BBFC for classification and its them who have the authority to ban any video that does not fit into their criteria. At the time in which the Video Recordings Act got introduced in 1984 it was new to the BBFC and they were more lenient with films and took a lot of influence from the NVLA conservative party who used video nasties as a scapegoat to give a reason for everything wrong and bad within Britain.    

Film censorship is motivated by fears surrounding new technology to some extent as technology was a huge factor of video nasties due to it being the only way of viewing these films for a while. A fear was built up about it as the conservative party strongly believed that these videos would react to the audience in copying what they see and using these video nasties as a reason for the violence and things that go wrong in Britain. Video Nasties was a way of giving what has happened a reason whether this was the right reason or not this still got reinforced.