And the blame game continues

The Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) has, for long, riled up controversies for its indiscriminate use of scissors. The latest furore being over their reluctance to certify Lipstick Under My Burkha. For once, its regional counterpart, the censor board in Chennai has got a rap on the knuckles.

Not by an angry mob of filmmakers, but a division bench of the Madras High Court that has issued a notice to the board for not censoring films enough. The move came about after a minor girl, who eloped with her boyfriend and later got pregnant, blamed the influence of local cinema for her actions. The bench has now summoned heads of the censor boards seeking an explanation.

Former CBFC member Nandini Sardesai observes a trend here. She says, “This is a very old argument. If someone murders somebody and then blames films for it, who is at fault? Everybody needs a reason to blame films, but the society and films share a symbiotic relationship. Filmmakers do not concoct things out of thin air, but show what is happening in the society.” She argues that films down South have much bolder content as compared to Hindi films, she says. “Their scenes are bold and they don’t shy away from showing flesh; they are liberal that way. Summoning them is fine, but they cannot be held responsible,” she asserts.

Another member of the CBFC, S.Ve. Shekher observes that the onus of being influenced by a movie lies completely on the person, and not the filmmaker.  He continues, “This is a sad state of affairs. You can’t bluntly blame the certification board for this. It’s not right. The duty of the Board is to do film certification, not educate people. Cinema is a medium for entertainment, it doesn’t teach or preach anything. If it does, then it is called a documentary, not a feature film!”  

Interestingly, another such instance had made headlines when an Indian man, charged for stalking a woman in Australia, had offered the influence of Bollywood films as an explanation for his act. The court in Hobart, in the state of Tasmania, said it would not record a conviction against the man, citing his cultural background and hence, understandable influence of films.

Film director Onir finds this rather harebrained. He says, “It’s idiotic that something of this sort is being considered. Honestly, I don’t understand how watching a film can get someone pregnant. I agree that films are a powerful medium and that they should be censored when they propagate regressive trends, hatred, and violence. In this case, the person who should’ve been held responsible is the one who impregnated the girl, and not the members of the certification board. We no longer will continue to be a democracy if people continue to misinterpret films, and we summon the members of the certification board,” he adds.  

By that logic then, all of our literature should be banned, believes Karu Palaniyappan, the director of critically acclaimed Tamil films including Pirivom Sandhipom. The idea seems particularly in-line given how much we’ve delved into the topic of couples eloping. “In our literature, there are documentations about eloping. People have been eloping for ages, even before cinema was invented. So, what was the influence for those people back then? All these atrocities like murder and robbery have been happening all through the history. But cinema has been here only for the past 100 years here,” he reasons.

(Inputs from Merin James and Kirubhakar Purushothaman)