HOW ARE U.K. CENSORS DIFFERENT FROM U.S. CENSORS?

The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) has delineated its differences with the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) over the ratings of films. In an interview with reporters following the release of the board’s annual report, BBFC director David Cooke said that the main difference between the two censorship boards is that “the U.S. [board] is more squeamish about sex but more tolerant towards stronger violence.” He noted that two films that were rated PG-13 in the U.S. last year, Dream House and The Roommate, received a 15 classification in the U.K. “We tend to be stricter than the MPAA when it comes to violence, threat and intensity.” On the other hand, while the MPAA handed out a PG rating to the documentary Babies, which followed the lives of four babies in different countries over their first year of life, because of scenes of breast feeding and naked babies (“cultural and maternal nudity”), the BBFC allowed it to be shown to all audiences under its guidelines that permit “occasional natural nudity with no sexual context.” It noted only that the movie “contains natural nudity.”