Why we need film censors

Censorship can be quite ridiculous. The recent Ren & Stimpy DVDs were cut over here even though they were now being pitched to adults. What was worse, they weren't even offered an adult certificate. The assumption was animation = children. Okay so R&S was on shakey ground as it was initially aimed at children. Still, censorship of it now seems odd.

There was also the video nasty scare of the 80s in the UK. Anyone old enough to remember that? A friend and I were in a video shop for about an hour and forty minutes trying to get the courage up to try to rent a video called 'House of Whipcord' even though we were too young. We chickened out. Just a couple of weeks later we saw it among a bunch of video nasties being pulled.

Man, we wished we had tried to rent it. I must try to track it down now to see if it was any good.

More recently, video games seem to be the new video nasties. But, so far, I haven't seen much that warrants attention. But all through these changes and scares, I see films that should be censored or banned that remain untouched.

Home Alone is one of those films.

Cartoon violence is usually quite funny. Cartoon characters can drop anvils on each other and there's no damage - they're cartoons. They are beings that do not exist in real life. They do not obey real world physics. They do not have the same pain neuron thingies we do and their families won't mourn if they get shot in the face.

But Home Alone did this with real people (okay maybe not shooting them in the face). Bowling balls on the head. You could kill someone doing that. If they survive, they would likely have permanent brain damage. If they're really lucky, they might just have to spend several years learning to walk or speak again while their partners feed them, wipe their asses and so on. Is that funny? Is that something you want in a kid's movie? It's rather hideous.

Films need to show consequences. Especially for children.

Something like Rambo would be better for kids because at least it shows that, if you commit an act of violence, the victim will die in a bloody hell. It's a lesson. Home Alone just revelled in lying to children about the effects their future violence would have. Home Alone is far more dangerous than any horror film, is horribly misleading and should have been banned. That I just don't like the movie is entirely coincidental, honest.

But there is a whole genre of movie that I think should be censored and I'll go into that another time.