Censorship is considered bowdlerizing and suppressing. The film industry is the field of creativity where all the talented individuals work together and produce varieties of films that influences society and how the world changes with time. Sexuality content is a usual sight to be seen in movies nowadays, but the Film Censorship Board of Malaysia had banned sexuality content in the movies which are being screened in Malaysia. Imagine if a film is projected on the big screen of cinemas in the whole world, how would the audience feel when they had eagerly anticipated the movie to be satisfying, but only to find out that parts of the movie were being cut and censored halfway through the movie? Would they feel good? No. The media censorship in Malaysia is one of the strictest censorship in the whole world, with Malaysia being ranked 146th out of 180 in the Worldwide Press Freedom Index by Reporters Without Borders. The film censorship in Malaysia is tightened in 2003 and some movies are even banned because of sexuality content. With the film being censored, it had a great impact on the film itself and on the film industry in Malaysia. So the issue here is, why sexual content in movies should not be censored in Malaysia?
From a young kid to an adult, people are constantly being taught to be open minded in every aspect of life. However, the strict censorship in Malaysia had caused the citizens to be close minded. It is a fact that a country will definitely not develop if it only consists of citizens who trap themselves inside their own boxes, not wanting to open their minds. Malaysia has banned the movie ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ which was released in 2015 due to explicit sexual contents throughout the movie. The head of the Malaysian Film Censorship Board, Abdul Halim Abdul Hamid said that the film is more to pornography than a movie. It does have many sexual contents, but what they can actually do to benefit both sides is to put a PG-18 certificate on the movie so that the mature individuals of suitable ages can still watch the movie. It is not very logic to ban the movie from the entire nation as the adults have rights to have freedom in watching movies of whatever genre. How could someone change for the better if the close-mindedness limits their thoughts and keep them inside the box, not letting them to see a single ray of light from the outside of the box? If they cannot change for the better, how can they even improve themselves, which gives an impact on the whole society and the entire world? If the movie is censored, citizens in Malaysia will be unable to experience and discover new things in life and they would not be ready for changes while the citizens in other countries are already ahead of them, opening their minds to accept and learn new experiences in life through film.
Film is a form of art, and cinema is a medium to enable the art form to be shared with. A film should be kept as original as possible in its final form to enable the audience to appreciate the beautiful artwork by the directors. If a director is forced to cut a part in the movie just because of sexual content, it is as if people do not respect the hard work that the director spent on that film. Also, a film should be shown entirely to the audience without parts being cut as a sign of respect and appreciation to the director. For example, the film ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ which was released in 2013 has been banned in Malaysia where part of the reasons is due to sexual content. The president of international at the film’s production company Red Granite, Christian Mercuri stated: “You try to make a film for a worldwide audience. This is a spectacular movie, all three hours of it. It’s a shame that certain countries don’t allow art to be screened in its entirety.” Therefore, this stands strongly as a proof that films should be screened fully without any form of censorship on it as it exists as an art.
Moreover, a censored movie will affect the audience’s expectation and satisfaction for the movie. In a movie with sexual content, usually the scene where sexual content is screened is the climax. If the audience had already immersed themselves into the feelings of the movie before the climax, what would happen if when the climax comes, the scene such as a kissing scene is being cut off and there is clearly a disconnection between the scene before and after? This situation will instantly make the emotions that the audience felt throughout the movie to be vanished. As an example, “Goodbye Mr. Loser”, a film released in 2017 involves kissing scenes which was censored because the scenes were considered too violent, where the kiss was forced upon the female character. If the kissing scene is being cut from the entire movie, it is like a puzzle missing a puzzle piece, and the storyline of that movie will not be complete. The emotions that the audiences felt will go downhill and they will not immerse themselves whole-heartedly in the movie. Therefore, it is important for the sexual content to not be censored so that the audience can truly experience what the director wants the audience to feel and get the message that the film wants to deliver while watching the movie.
People who stands on the opposite side often says that censorship is compulsory because it protects the young and the innocent from sexual content in films. But, is censorship really needed to protect them? To fully prevent them from watching the movies, parents themselves should keep an eye of their children so that they will not watch films with sexual content. It does not matter if the sexual content was censored or not, because children who eagerly wants to watch the movie would still go and search for pirated version of the movie to watch online. Sometimes the movie that they searched online is obtained from other countries, which means that there is a big possibility that the sexual content in the movie is not being censored. So, censorship does not fully guarantee that children would not watch the movie. Parents are the primary censors who should take responsibility by not allowing them to watch movies with sexual content which obviously is not suitable for their age to prevent their children from violating their innocent minds Therefore, parents should be their children’s own censors until their children can finally gain more knowledge about this issue and make their own judgements, so we can say that censorship is not compulsory to protect the younger generation in watching movies with sexual content.
In addition, people tend to think that censorship in Malaysia helps to ensure social harmony in the multi-racial society especially in the religious aspect. However, it is undoubtedly wrong because censorship does not have the power to control what the nation thinks and it cannot alter the mindset of the people to let them tolerate among themselves and bring peace to the society. Malaysia is an Islamic country where majority of the citizens are Malays. In Islam religion, it was understood that the believers should not involve themselves in anything regarding sexuality whether it’s personal or not. They should be a loyal believer to their religion without violating their religion’s law by watching films with sexual content, even if there is no censorship. It is their own obligation to know what they should and should not do. They should set the right piece of mind and adhere to the law of their own religion. Therefore, censorship clearly is unable to harmonize the multi-racial society if the citizen themselves are not willing to devote and be loyal to their own religions.
Taking everything into account, censorship of sexual contents in movies should not be compulsory in Malaysia. Malaysia should follow the footsteps of other developed countries in the world where censorship is conducted more loosely. This would enable the citizens to be more independent and also to ensure that they are capable of knowing their own responsibilities as a Malaysian to truly understand their duty in helping the country and make it a better place. With loosen censorship in Malaysia, it can help to shape the freedom of not only the average citizens, but the whole country and nation. If the strictness of censorship increase rapidly, the citizens will have no enjoyment of new experiences as if they are trapped inside their own shell, unable to get out. Why is censorship necessary if the citizen themselves have their right to experience and view something from their own point of view? Therefore, the people of the whole nation should always be ready to think out of the box without keeping themselves struggling inside the world filled with censorship.