Malaysian Censors Have Gone Too Far

If you're Malaysian and you're reading this, you know how bad the censorship can be in this country. The Film Censorship Board of Malaysia is a government body that screen movies before being shown in Malaysia. If a film is allowed to be shown here at all, scenes that are deemed inappropriate to be shown to the Malaysian public are cut out. Yet, they have a ludicrous rating system.

Before 2007, movies were either allowed to be seen by all ages or by people over the age of 18. Only two years ago, the PG-13 rating was implemented to join the other ratings- 18SX (seks; sex), 18SG( seram, ganas; horror, violent), 18PA (politik, agama; politics, religion) and 18PL (pelbagai, variety). If a film is restricted to an audience of over the age of 18 then why do scenes that contain violent, sexual, political or religious elements need to be completely ommited from films? If you want to have the age limit at 18, don't censor stuff. If you want to censor stuff, lower the age limit. Or at least classify more films as PG-13.

Check here for a list of films banned from showing here in Malaysia.

Apart from knowing how good the censorship board is at cutting scenes out from films, I also found out how good they are at adding certain aspects to a picture.

Here's a poster I showed you guys at the beginning of the year for the movie The Unborn, which opens here in Malaysia next Thursday (26 March) and which incidentally has an 18PL rating. Sorry kids. You won't be seeing little unborn kids in cinemas anytime soon. In any case, here is the genuine poster released by Rogue Pictures.

Yesterday, as I was flipping through the Malaysian Today newspaper, Jeremy pointed out to me that there was The Unborn poster was in the paper and he asked me to look at it. I obliged, only to find this hilarious atrocity.

I apologize for the picture quality. You know how camera phones are. But more importantly, look at what happened! She's wearing Grandma undies now! I honestly could not stop myself from laughing my butt off. Maybe you can't really tell from this shot but it is so obviously Photoshopped onto there. If you get your hands on this poster in the papers or whatever, take a close look.

I have never ever seen this kind of manipulation outside out the theater before. Thats why I'm astounded by this. Here's my problem. Why choose to use this poster and go through the trouble of Photoshopping it when there are other posters to use.

Like this one. Wait. Maybe this has too much of the horror aspect. Oh no, we can't use this. Its too scary.

How about this one? I don't think so. Too religious I say.

This one? Maybe too sexual. Who knows?

Whatever the reason was for the people who makes the decisions to decide to edit then publish that particular poster, it doesn't change the fact that it was unnecessary and very silly.

In my honest opinion, censorship increases the need and desire of the public to purchase pirated copies of these foreign films deemed inappropriate for cinemas. By taking away the good stuff and showing chopped up films in the cinemas, people are more willing to watch these films at home on their tiny TV sets than in the theater. But I do not condone piracy and thats why I say scrap the plans to increase foreign film ticket prices and get the censoring in this country in order.

Although I very much despise the work done by the Film Censorship Board of Malaysia, I will help them publicize one thing.

If there are any creative, dedicated and experience photo editors out there, who preferably are good at Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator, contact the Censorship Board now. They are hiring. They need more Grannie Undies to be created.

DoctorPopcorn. Out.