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Film Regulation in a Cultural Context

Online ISBN:
9781474482400
Print ISBN:
9781474482387
Publisher:
Edinburgh University Press
Book

Film Regulation in a Cultural Context

Daniel Sacco
Daniel Sacco
Yorkville University
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Published online:
23 May 2024
Published in print:
3 July 2023
Online ISBN:
9781474482400
Print ISBN:
9781474482387
Publisher:
Edinburgh University Press

Abstract

This book examines film classification as a practice of regulative social labelling that relies heavily upon culturally constructed boundaries between “types” of films in distinctive national contexts. The analysis draws parallels and distinctions between governmental policies in these contexts, as well as between various social control mechanisms at work within a wide-reaching network of institutions beyond censorial bodies themselves, including news media, film festivals, and advocacy groups. The latter half of the study illustrates the means by (and ends to) which the regulation of film content persists in the “post-censorship” media landscape of Britain, Canada, Australia, and (where this model has most matured) the United States. While the case studies examined each involve distinct problematics, what links them conceptually is attention to how notions of, and related to, film classification, categorization, or labelling manifest in regulatory, artistic, and commercial market contexts: ranging from ratings institutions to journalistic criticism, film distribution, and advertising practices. The study also draws comparison between now obsolete formal censorship practices and machinations of the US “ratings” model of classification that Great Britain, Canada, and Australia moved swiftly toward during the late 1990s and early 2000s.

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