Speech On Censorship In Movies

The word censorship is from the Latin word root of censere, which means to give an opinion or expression to be judged upon. Censorship is the restriction of certain material, and due to its expression it is seen offensive to someone else. The origin of expression of censorship can be tracked back to the Roman Empire when Roman officials assessed the conduct and attitudes of other Roman citizens. The Roman government viewed that in order to have a strong government, the behavior and conduct of the peopled had to be changed according to what they thought was correct. Censorship continued to be a controversy over time. It remained a controversy over time, through many empires, the age of Enlightenment, World War II, and even today. As censorship progressed through the ages it still continues today. Today, censorship occurs at schools. It occurs in libraries, classrooms, and even in student publications. Even though censorship can occur to a certain extent at schools, students’ First Amendment rights are still protected at school. The First Amendment protects freedom of expression, speech, press, religion, and assembly. Students are allowed to express themselves freely at school as long as they do not affect the education and as long as it is not an activity supported by the school system.

Although we, as citizens of this country, are guaranteed freedom of speech and press by the first amendment, we are encouraged to “watch what we say”. In order to avoid unnecessary violence and to keep people from being offended, it is recommended the certain things be censored. While many may look at this censorship as a well-needed percussion it can reversely be seen as going against one's first amendment rights, in itself causing controversy.

     Since this country was founded, we have had a set of unalienable rights that our constitution guarantees us to as Americans. One of the most important rights that is mentioned in our constitution is the right to free speech. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the

Censorship is defined by Caso as the suppression of speech or any other public communication which may be considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive politically incorrect as determined by the government or any other control body (3). Censorship may be justified from the conservative view whereby the free speech can be maltreated where it undermines the customary principles and communal solidity as withheld by a particular community.

Censorship is a concept with several different meanings. To each individual censorship has its own meaning. Is it a violation of our rights or is it a protection for our well being? Censorship in the generic sense refers to the suppression of information, ideas, or opinions. It occurs in all forms of communication from technological media to print media. Each society, culture, or individual's belief is violated by the codes of censorship that our society instills.

Censorship has evolved over time in America, from TV, books, and even the internet. America has prohibited specific things from citizen’s beliefs. The role that censorship plays in America is taken from personal beliefs, such as voting for certain things to be banned from books, TV, internet, and articles. This allows and denies things that are used for public use, due to personal preferences on things that are appropriate and inappropriate for public users.

Welcome to the United States of America. This is the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave. A place where our forefathers once gathered and drew up the foundation for which we live our lives. The Constitution of the United States grants us a certain amount of freedoms for which we cannot be punished for. The first amendment to this constitution of the Constitution allows us the freedom of speech, religion, the right to assemble, and to express ourselves in a way in which we feel fit. Under this amendment, people such as musicians and newsmen and able to write and speak what they feel without being told that it is wrong. They cannot be manipulated to change their thoughts or views on a topic, or

Censorship is not easy to define. According to Webster’s Dictionary, to "censor" means "to examine in order to suppress or delete anything considered objectionable." Its central characteristic is the suppression of an idea or image because it offends or disturbs someone, or because they disagree with it. In many countries, censorship is most often directed at political ideas or criticism of the government. In the United States, censorship more often involves social issues, and in school is commonly directed at so-called "controversial" materials.

Censorship dates all the way back to 443 BC in ancient Rome with the Office of Censor. In that time this was an office of great repute, the Office of Censor was charged with the shaping of the character of the people. Thus it was considered to be an honorable task, since then the connotation of the word and such an office has changed greatly. Today censorship is the practice of officially examining books, movies, etc. and suppressing “unacceptable parts” based on whoever is defining “unacceptable.” Unacceptable has been considered to be a wide range of concepts from ideas to sexually explicit content. Historically in the USSR most leaders used censorship in every form as a means of suppressing whatever or whoever was perceived as a

All children are born with innocence; they have no knowledge of anything bad in the world. Some television programmers seem to oblivious to this fact. The morbid content shown on popular television shows and movies today is incriminating evidence of this. It is as if the concept of censorship is foreign to them. The legal definition of censorship is the act of banning any or all media resulting from the presumption that its content is perceived to be immoral by the Federal Government of the United States. Censorship involves the banning of any immoral content. Much of broadcasted media

Music censorship has taken many forms in the past, but many forms are overbearing and generally ridiculous. Censorship comes in many forms. The practice of censorship is defined as “...the act of changing or suppressing speech or writing that is considered subversive of the common good.”(Merriam-Webster). Old forms of censorship included not allowing airplay, refusal of sale, and refusal of publishment. The major issue found with those that oppose censorship, is that they have no real grounds to address the problem sensibly. Most focus of censorship, however, is focused on the younger genres of music such as Metal, Punk, and especially Rap.

Censorship in music has been a major problem plaguing America since the early nineteen forties. It came to a head during the nineteen sixties with the Vietnam War and the hippie movement. During the nineteen seventies and eighties heavy metal and hard rock were getting the brunt of the censorship heat. Now in the nineteen nineties the major focus of censorship is rap; primarily gangster rap. Some of the main factors of music in general that cause legal ramifications are sexual content, suggestive violence and obscene language. Censorship is an attack against our first amendment right guaranteeing the freedom of speech. However if a song or album is deemed obscene the first amendment does not protect this.

The book utilizes a wide variety of primary sources of films from the 1920s onward. Leff and Simmons also use many newspaper and magazine articles that analyze censorship in films. They utilize these sources to illustrate examples of how films went from having

Today, censorship is in place in more ways than you can imagine. As mentioned previously, movies, music, television, and more are filtered one way or another. Some people go to such lengths as illegal means of spreading materials deemed inappropriate for a certain viewing audience.

In order to establish a group that censors televisions and movies, the Motion Picture Producers Association (MPAA) was created. Each rating category has a description of the appropriate age at which to view the film and whether or not a parent’s accompaniment is necessary. The Motion Picture Producers Association assesses a film and gives it a rating of G (general audiences), PG (parental guidance suggested), PG-13 (parents strongly cautioned), R (restricted), or NC-17 (no one under seventeen admitted). As the film industry has been changing over time, so have the ratings. More and more parents are having issues with the ratings that some films are issued. “The man behind the ratings, Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), says the system works just fine. ‘Parents use it and trust it, and that's why it's lasted for almost 35 years,’ Valenti says. ‘It warns parents in advance about what's in a particular movie, but ultimately, parents are responsible for the behavior and conduct of their children — not the ratings system’ (Hansen 273).”