Filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma spoke about the delay in the censorship of Jana Nayagan and said that the Censor Board is outdated and irrelevant in this age of internet.
Jana Nayagan is facing a tough time with the Censor Board, which is not providing a certificate to the movie quoting some political dialogues. The makers approached the Madras High Court, which issued a direction to the Board to provide the certificate immediately.
But the Censor Board has decided to file a petition at the court against the movie. This has caused a delay in the release of Jana Nayagan in theatres. The movie has been with made a big budget and theatrical rights were sold for record prices. The delay in the censorship has put a hefty sum at stake with the film industry worrying over the loss due to this delay.
Controversial filmmaker, Varma is one of the directors, who suffered setbacks due to the Censor Board with each of his recent releases facing issues with the board. The director took to his X account to slam the Board over delaying Jana Nayagan release.
RGV said that Censor Board was relevant when there was scarcity of images and video. It could control movies and protect society. But in this age of internet, everything from porn movies to a terrorist activity is easily available on a smart phone to every child. In such a scene, cutting down some controversial scenes would not protect society.
Ram Gopal Varma posted a lengthy argument on his X account. Read below:
"CENSOR BOARD is OUTDATED."
"Not in the context of just @Actor_Vijay's #JanaNayagan 's censor issues but in an overall manner, it is truly foolish to think that the censor board is still relevant today. It has long outlived it's purpose, but it's being kept alive out of laziness to debate it's relevance now , and it is the film industry as a whole which is mainly responsible for this."
"We live in a time where a 12-year old with a phone can watch a terrorist execution filmed on a GoPro, a 9-year-old can stumble upon hardcore porn, and a bored retiree can binge extremist propaganda, indulge in conspiracy theories , from anywhere in the world, uncut, uncensored, algorithmically pushed. All of it is available instantly, anonymously, and without a gatekeeper."
"At the same time, everybody in every wake of society speak in abusive language from new channels to YouTubers and from other apps ..If you quote that age old belief that cinema is a powerful medium , don't ignore the fact that the social media has far more reach than cinema .and it is full of political venom, communal poison, character assassinations, live, uncensored shouting matches in the name of debates."
"And in this reality, for the honourable censor board to believe that cutting a word in a film, trimming a shot, or blurring a cigarette will "protect society." is a Joke."
"The censor board was born in an era of scarcity when images were rare, access was limited, and the state controlled the media . Cinema halls were crowd points. Newspapers had editors. Television had schedules. Control made sense then."
"But today, any form of a control is impossible because no one can no longer decide what people should or should not see."
"In such times as now, censorship doesn't prevent exposure… it only insults the viewers."
"We are supposed to have smartness to decide who should rule us but not what we want to see or hear ???"
"What the censor board actually does now is not protection, but only theatrics . It's a ritual of authority in Oscar worthy performances where scissors replace thinking, and moral pretence moves around in a disguise called responsibility."
"The same society that freely scrolls through graphic violence on social media suddenly becomes "concerned" when a filmmaker shows something in a theatre."
"Censorship assumes people are children forever as if they aren't even aware what all things children have access to?"
"Cinema is not meant to be a classroom where lessons are taught . They are mirrors , view points , expressions and opinions meant to entertain."
"The job of the authorities is not to edit or cut them out, but to trust citizens enough to decide for themselves, which is the main point of freedom of speech and expression, guaranteed under the constitution."
"If the argument is "think of the children or adults who are like children "it takes very less intelligence to understand that they cannot be protected by blunt scissors wielded by committees ,whose own personal tastes pass off as public morality also not to forget their bias and agendas."
"Age classification makes sense. Warnings of the content makes sense. Censorship does not."
"Continuing to defend the relevance of the censor board today is like insisting on a watchman for a building whose walls have already been broken and everyone can see what's inside."
"The world has already moved on to so many platforms which are unfiltered and unsupervised and so the painful question is whether the authorities have the courage to admit that they are obsolete, and more than that, whether we as a film industry collectively have the will to question them on the same."
"So instead of raising this topic once in a while over a particular film , the fight should be with that particular system of thinking which created the censor board."
