Research: Age Certificates- Ms Begum

The BBFC?:
-The BBFC (British board of Film classification) are a highly expert and experienced regulator of the moving image world. They serve a social function within society which is to advise and protect viewers from harmful moving images/films/movies. The BBFC provide public information that empowers them and parents to make appropriate viewing decisions for themselves and those in their care. Furthermore they help to protect vulnerable viewers and society from the effects of viewing potentially harmful or unsuitable content while respecting adult freedom of choice, inturn they developed a systematic way of rating films for different ages, shown below along with the BBFC logo:

The Age Certificates:
-U- Universal
The age rating U stands for universal which means that the film is suitable for every age group to watch, this inturn means that a pre- school child can watch this film withought their parents having to be afraid of any harmful scenes that their child may come across as U films are always positive or have a positive way to counter-act any bad things that the child may see. In this film bad things hapen to some characters which may scare a vulnerable child however this is always counter-acted by something good within the film. An example of a U film is Ice Age, shown below:

PG- Parental Guidance:
This age certificate is aimed at children who are 8 years of age or older, as the film may disturb a child who is younger than that age. The term Parental Guidance means that it is the parents duty to check if this film is suitable for their child, one film with this rating is The Pink Panther shown below:

           

12&12A:
These two age certificates both do not allow  child under the age of 12 to watch these films as the content may upset or disturb yonger children. However the only difference between these two ratings is that children 12 and above are able to watch a 12 rated film without their parents worrying about the content in contrast to a 12A rated film where a parent is advised to look at the content and decide if this film is suitable for their child as the child could be sensitive etc. an example of a 12 rated film is Sherlock Holmes and an example of a 12A rated film is The Hunger Games, both shown below:

12A?:

Why 12A you may ask; Well the rating 12A was created when the first ever spiderman movie came out, this was because there was complaints about the film being to violent and not being suitable for a child aged 8 and under, due to these complaints the BBFC decided to rate the film a 12. However after doing this more argumens arose which stated that Spider-man was infact a comic book hero who children looked up to so it would be unfair if children could not watch it, this then drove the BBFC to creating a 12A rating which meant that children can watch spiderman as long as they are accompanied by an adult. Spiderman is shown below:

15
The age rating certificate is aimed at people who are 15 years of age or older due to these films containing material which may upset children under 15, this category exists purely for video works as no one younger than 15 may rent or buy a 15 rated video work. An example of a 15 rated film is Collateral, shown below:

18:
The last age rating in the UK is 18, this is for people aged 18 and over as the content shown in these films may touch upon criminal law and display criminal offence. Also these films may sho violent or dangerous acts, illegal drug use, portrayals of sexual or sexualised violence which may endorse or eroticise sexual assault. An example of an 18 film is The Green Mile, shown below:

 

 

Thriller age ratings:
Thriller film age ratings vary from 12A upwards depending on its use and display on things such as drugs, illegal acts, portrayals of sex or violence. Most thriller films are rated at 15 as they usually contain violence and which may harm kids younger than 15, however there have been exceptions within the industry, such as, the film Spiderman which was labelled a 12A even though it shows fighting scenes that may harm a 12 year old. This in turn was why the rating 12A was formed, so that parents were able to go with their 12 year old children and see if the film is suitable for them to watch.

Conclusion:
Conclusively I am able to say that I have learned the different age certificates and how they affect parents and their children. due to me being equipped with this knowledge i am able to have an advanced judgement on what my thriller movie rating may be and how to adjust it to suit a certain audience. In my personal opinion I think that the creation and use of the age certificates is a brilliant and effective thing, this is simply because the films children watch can have a massive impact on their future lives, for example, a young child usually playfights with his/her friends and may find extreme violence good and 'cool', this, in turn, is why we must place age certificates on many films so that the young children are not exposed, effected or influenced. Ultimately, this information has helped me to determine what my thriller rating may be which is a 15, furthermore it has given me the information necessary to help me keep my thriller age rating with the 15 border, rather than raising it to an 18. Furthermore I now fully understand why the BBFC put age certificates on many films and what the age certificates mean.