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Using historical censorship records, industry publications, and interviews with film raters, this article reveals the evolution of gender bias in film regulation. This article asserts that film ratings in the current era repress images of agentive sexuality and pleasure-seeking for women. First, this article examines cinematic treatment of gender and sexuality during the Hays Code. Next, the transition to film ratings is analyzed with respect to its governing ideology and economic effects. Blue Valentine (2010), Charlie Countryman (2013), and The Cooler (2003) are used as case studies to illustrate film ratings' regressive management of gender dynamics. Lastly, suggestions for maintaining freedom of expression while ensuring more equitable portrayals of women are proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay provides a genealogy of Chinese film policy by focusing on the censorship of representations of ghosts and the supernatural in Chinese cinema. From China's first film censorship policy in the 1920s to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, ghost-related cultural products have attracted significant attention from the government, and national policies regarding these representations correspond to a range of changing concerns. Chinese cinema finds itself in a most difficult plight, because of the political role it has been granted by the state, and the natural lure of ghosts for the audience. Filmic representation of the supernatural causes particular anxiety because ghosts can be allegorically rich, politically subversive and economically profitable. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article focuses on the theme of the 1955 film "Muerte deun ciclista/Death of a Cyclist," which was directed by Juan Antonio Bardem in Great Britain. The film represents a clear challenge to the Spanish censors of the 1950s. It is emphasized that the illicit affair in the film is an affront to the National Catholic moral code which was founded on the sanctity of the family and strict gender roles. It has been argued that despite the constraints of historical context and censorship, the film has remained profoundly transgressive.

This article presents a brief history of the mixture of race and censorship in postwar Memphis, Tennessee. The author charts how censors used their power of control over various media as a method to enforce segregation. When the U.S. Supreme Court made 'obscenity' the sole justification for censorship that become the word employed to limit the black population's exposure to depictions of interracial equality. One example was Censor Board member Lloyd Binford's banning of films like "Brewster's Millions" and "Sailor Takes a Wife."

This article focuses on the conjunction of censorship, moral education and images of reformed men and happy domesticity, which is premissed on the question of how the film industry made cinema respectable. Scholars have sought to answer the question by focusing principally on class, suggesting that cinema was made respectable through an appeal to middle-class audiences based on a turn to the forms and names of bourgeois culture in order to uplift cinema's cultural status. The context in which the process by which cinema was made respectable is examined.

The article discusses the censorship of David Cronenberg's film "Crash" in 1996 in Great Britain. It notes that the controversy surrounding the film was not generated by a press campaign against it but might something to do with the uniquely complex relationship obtaining in Great Britain between local and national government and instruments of film regulation. The British Board of Film Classification had no legal powers to censor films, rather this power rests with local authorities as part of their responsibility for licensing cinema buildings. The board can only offer advice to local cinema licensing authorities on the regulation of the contents of films shown in cinemas in their areas.

The article discusses the history and present condition of film studies in Sweden. Film screenings used to have a low status as an art form due to several reasons, including the imposition of taxes on entertainment in 1911. A national system of censorship was created during the year after a public debate over film's allegedly bad influence on its young audience. The published works of film researchers Bengt ldestam-Almquist, Gösta Werner and Rune Waldekranz contributed to the development of film studies in Sweden. Two current projects in the country aim to investigate the methodological possibilities of computer technology in film research.

The article analyzes some of the formal, structural and ideological characteristics of current romantic comedy films. According to film scholar Brian Henderson, the lack of romantic comedy films in the 1970s was the consequence of two sets of factors, one of them related to matters of representation and censorship, and the other to attitudes to the self and to heterosexual romance. The author of the article asserts that the emergence of a new cycle of romantic comedies signifies an assertion of the values of traditional heterosexual romance.

The article discusses instances of attempted programme censorship at Ipswich Film Theatre in Great Britain in the 1980s. The theatre has been subjected to government scrutiny as it expanded its role beyond that of an exhibition venue and sought to promote a debate-centered film culture. The plan of the theater to launch a film that seamed to support anti-nuclear movements was met with opposition by local officials. The theater's other films that were denounced by the local government were "Greenham Common: A Question of Conscience" and "A Guide to Armageddon."

The article discusses the censorship of the film "Baby Face" and the role of Joe Breen in helping the films' producers to get government approval. The film was banned in the 1930s due to its sexual themes. Will Hays, president of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America Inc. (MPPDA), supported censorship rules in the U.S. in the 1930s, leading to stricter Studio Relations Committee codes. Regulatory obstacles prompted the film's producers to delete sexually explicit scenes and dialogues. Efforts of Breen to help the film's producers to pass the SRC scrutiny are cited.

The article discusses the sexual representation in films in Great Britain. A discussion is presented on the definition of representation and material. It has been asked in Great Britain since the late 1960s how to not reproduct dominant relations in film. The filmmakers of the London Film Makers Co-operative who were concerned to have their experimental film practice not simply become a different style, or a private individualistic expression in another form of poesis, realized that the moment-to-moment work with, on and through process is the film.

An interview with James Ferman, secretary of the British Board of Film Censors (BBFC), is presented. He discusses the three-way relation of the BBFC with the trade, the local authorities and the criminal law. He describes the different film classifications and categories. Ferman talks about the Protection of Children Act (PCA) and the Obscene Publications Act (OPA).

Examines the history of motion picture censorship in the United States between the world wars. Examination of the Hays Code that regulated the motion picture industry; Lack of clarity on what filmic representation was; Fundamental uncertainty surrounding the mechanics of the code.

The author offers her views about some questions raised by feminist politics and cinema exhibition. She believes that the cessation of all mainstream exhibition in favour of progressive screenings is not an adequate answer to the problem of social change. She thinks it is a kind of censorship which can only make a very partial impact in the overall national situation and is therefore ineffective in itself as a strategy for intervention at all levels of society.