Age Resctrictions

What Is the Difference Between a 15 and 18 Rated Certificate?

In films there are different age certificates due to the content in films and what the BBFC deem acceptable for certain age groups within Britain. This is due to certain scenes and footage within films like language, violence and the content of the films. This is then analysed by the BBFC and other age rating companies in other countries to decide whether a film is a 15 or 18 etc. They do this to stop certain age groups seeing content that is too explicit for their age. For example if you are 14 and trying to see a 15 film, you wont be able to as you will need to have ID to prove you are 15 to buy/rent or watch the film anywhere. This therefore applies to the other age groups.

A 18 Certificate contains:

• very strong violence
• frequent strong language and very strong language
• strong portrayals of sexual activity
• strong verbal references to sex
• strong horror
• strong blood or gore
• real sex (in some circumstances)
• discriminatory language or behaviour (e.g racism or homophobic)
• drug taking.

A 15 certificate contains:

• strong violence
• frequent strong language
• portrayals of sexual activity
• strong verbal references to sex
• sexual nudity
• brief scenes of sexual violence or verbal references
• discriminatory language or behaviour (e.g racism or homophobic)
• drug taking

This research that I have have used from a member of my group is very useful to our overall research as it allows us to understand the boundaries in the film industry and see what we can use in our clip if we want it to be either a 15 or 18 rated clip. As well as this it gives us an insight into the audience and how censorship works, additionally what audience we should target depending on our chosen age certificate. From this research I learnt this and learnt the different aspects of these classifications.

Furthermore, after this I went on to then look into each of the categories within the age certificates to see what they were defined as and examples of them were:

Nudity:

Nudity in the form of sexual content can be shown but not in thorough detail with only the basic appearance of it and to certain audiences, as well as this nudity can be shown regularly as long as it shown in a plain ordinary manner and not presented in a sexual way.

Drugs:

Showing drugs in films are acceptable, however it is how they are presented that is what makes it wrong and right. It can only be shown if they are shown in a bad way, showing them being misused and not advertising them and persuading audiences.

Horror:

Horror is allowed to be shown to a certain extent, e.g you can't show someone committing suicide as people can get ideas and think it is acceptable and certain scenes cannot be shown in detail as it is too explicit.

Discrimination: 

Meaning the media cannot endorse discrimination in the form of language, behaviour, what is displayed or portrayed. For example discrimination such as disability, race, age, sex etc.

Sex:

Sexual scenes are allowed without detail, although they should not be aimed to arouse or pleasure the audience but just for the story etc.

Violence:

Violence is allowed in case and can be strong violence as well as sexual violence in some examples. however gory violence or overly dramatic probably will not be.

Language:

Strong language is allowed and most language is allowed in film throughout, however if it repeated to become an item or a phrase that is easily absorbed by the audience then it isn't.