We're all used to these types of warnings these days. Hell it's a surprise bags of chips don't say: "WARNING! contains fat 'n' shit". The powers that be have decided to nanny us and this extends to entertainment. CDs have featured the parental guidance stickers for ages. The back of the Twenty Four Hour Party People (to grab the closest video to me) states:
Language: Some, very strong
Sex/Nudity: Some, moderate
Violence: Infrequent, mild
Other: Sight of hard drug use
A bit more information than a simple guidance sticker, but it also has this on the front cover, the spine and directly above all of this:
On other words you have to be eighteen to watch it. Now if you have to be eighteen then I'd imagine that the film's probably not going to be the Teletubbies. Surely the certification attached to a film should be enough?
But no! Anything and everything that could in any way cause distress is now listed on the movie poster and often before the film at the cinema. the sort of warnings above are fair, if a little overkill, in the sense that they don't really reveal anything that happens in the film beyond shagging, drugs and swearing. If these things offend you don't watch. But when the warnings contain sentences like "WARNING! Contains human flaying, a particularly nasty eyeball thing and decapitation by clever device" it kind of ruins Saw part 84 before you've seen it. The thing is if I'm watching Saw part 84 (don't laugh it could happen unless the world ends seventy nine years from now) I know it's going to contain this stuff. It's marketed as a gory torture filled horror and it's been tagged as an '18' which means it isn't going to pussyfoot around the violence angle. "But what if it contains nudity or swearing?" a person who eats their own hair may ask. Yes because in a film like this, they're the elements that will cause offense. "The melted eyeball being cut off with a pair of rusty scissors then the gaping wound oozing puss didn't bother me, but when it happened she screamed "fuck!" I was pure aghast I tell you". Fuck off. If I'm watching a film called the Texas Chainsaw Massacre I expect it to be set in Texas and there to be a massacre involving chainsaws in some way. If not I personally would feel short changed. What I don't need is to be told that a film with that name starting at midnight on TV that's notorious and an '18' certificate "may include scenes that viewers find distressing". OF COURSE IT FUCKING DOES!
But it's not just the 84 Saw movies and all those Rob Zombie arsefests (get back to making shite music instead of shite films, gore does not equal scary fuckwit (and that goes to you too Eli Roth, although not the music bit, unless you were in a band in college or something, then in that case aye) (deep breath) no, the warnings appear before kid's films too. Kid's films. Those fluffy innocent clouds of cotton poo have warnings before them, just in case your little darlings get all scaredy waredy. "WARNING! Contains mild peril". Mild peril. Oh God, no. Imagine witnessing mild peril. What does that even entail? A footchase a la Point Break but the characters are only playing tig? When I was young, as in a kid, I watched Raiders Of The Lost Ark, a 'PG' certificate, that includes a man's face melting off, while his mate's head explodes! As peril goes that's way beyond mild.
When I was a kid it seemed that all films aimed at me contained something that would get the film a '15' these days. These things are fun in a kid's film. Obviously these films should be a 'PG' but that should be enough to tell parents that they need to maybe check the film first. Slapping "WARNING! Contains melting face" kind of buggers the ending of Raiders. Shamefully instead it seems that audiences are going to be nannied more and more. I'm sure, and I hope I'm correct so I'm not making it up but equally I hope I'm wrong, I've actually seen a warning along the lines of "WARNING! Contains nothing that may cause offense". Now that's reassuring.
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