The Kenya International Film Festival Should Highlight the Politics of Film Censorship

George Ngugi King’ara, filmmaker and critic. Email: ngugik2001@yahoo.com

In the last ten days of October this year, film enthusiasts in Nairobi hit the streets in search of film screens freely splashing provocative content— courtesy of the Kenya International Film Festival (KIFF). But this could only happen if the Kenya Film Censorship Board (KFCB) relaxed its gate-keeping muscle and somewhat overzealous attitude regarding which content is safe or not safe for the public to watch. Like many Kenyan filmmakers, I have a bone of contention to chew with the Big Brother Board over its apparently arbitrary censorship policies of filmic content. Recently KFCB via its Chief Executive Officer, David Pkosing, released an ultimatum promising to outrightly ban any film that induces, incites, justifies or glorifies violence, terror, explicit sex and occultism.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49D9ftkB-CY

In reasoning why Otto: the Bloodbath—the first horror film ‘officially released’ in Kenya—was permanently banned before it lit the day for the public, KFCB said that Bloodbath is “too horrific even to an adult”. Bloodbath, the board concluded, has “too much blood” besides other macabre scenes. Obviously the producers of the film—Jitu Productions—are immensely angry as they were hoping to capitalize on the horror niche. “We do agree with the censorship board that the film was too horrific but how else would you do a horror film?” Jitu was quoted to have asked.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWDOwnfizmo&feature=related

Controversial film censorship, as history reveals, has always existed wherever a film industry has flourished. Perhaps this type of censorship is an indication that innovative film is unsettling. It might follow that unsettling film provokes, disturbs and pokes the audience to contemplate their lived realities at a deeper level. The unsettling film should shock, jar and poke the audience into looking beyond the raw materials constituting the filmic story content, for example literal images of corpses, blood, violence, sexuality etc. Indeed, important films should test the yardsticks of what society regards as proper, right and wrong. Since the science of judging the effects of media content on the viewing public is very elusive, if at all it exists, it is hard to conclude that Otto was ‘too horrific’ even for adults, and therefore harmful to its target audience.

After the release of some of his trend setting films in 1940s Hollywood, American filmmaker/aviator Howard Hughes was forced to go in front of a panel of judges representing the Production Code Administration (PCA) to explain why his films should not be banned for being too erotic. In the era of conservatism on sexuality, apparently nestled in the moral-rightist elite that sought to cleanse Hollywood of perversion, profanity, lewdness etc a woman’s breast cleavage, full lip contact kissing, open mouth kissing and overt sexually suggestive actions—such as a man sharing a bed with a woman other than his wife—were not allowed on the film screen. In The Aviator, a biography of Howard Hughes, his character attempts to demonstrate the absurdity of censorship standards. He shows that more than anything else such censorship was subjective and biased towards what the Hollywood gatekeeper-establishment desired to see on film, but not what the public didn’t want to see. Though Hughes himself had to cut various scenes from some of his films as directed by the PCA, he proved that the general film audience might not after all have been opposed to viewing what the Hollywood censorship board deemed illegal.

To prove that censorship might be subjective than scientific, Hughes, as represented in The Aviator, selects a number of film shots showing female characters revealing ‘too much cleavage’, which according to the PCA would be illegal. Interestingly, these shots had been taken from previous films that the same board had licensed. Hughes therefore poses a direct challenge to the board to explain just how much cleavage is too much cleavage if similar cleavage shots from his films (e.g. Outlaw) were deemed offensive. Indeed, according to Hughes the cleavage depth, in measurements, of his controversial starlet, Jane Russell, revealed less ‘breast skin’ than those of the starlets in the licensed films. He therefore asks how come films featuring these obviously more revealing breast cleavages had been granted licenses for public exhibition.

Closer to home, it appears that the ghosts of The Big Brother of Moral Right that constricted filmmakers such as Hughes have arrived in Kenya. The utterances of the adamant CEO of KFCB after the Kalasha Awards 2009 reveal KFCB’s drive to rein in filmmakers such Jitu Productions for ‘creative excesses’ no matter what. Pkosing’s words should be a warning bell to current and prospective filmmakers in this country that they must ‘toe the line’ or else.

For this reason, time has come for filmmakers, advocates of a free media and those of audience’s rights to petition, indeed reject the abstracted criteria that apparently guides the KFCB into defining what type of filmic content is offensive and what is not. As gatekeepers, members of the KFCB apparently have enormous power in ‘naturalizing’ the definition of ‘offensive content’ based on personal or subjective ideas concerning material that may or may not be offensive to the public. Were this not the case, the board could have at least reviewed the recent absolute ban on the horror film Otto: the Bloodbath, since Jitu were willing to re-edit the film for propriety. There should be no reason why such a film was not granted a reprieve after its makers indicated a willingness to edit out parts seen as offensive to the public.

Given the arbitrariness, subjectivity and value judgement that might have influenced the total ban of Otto, I believe time has come to examine the audience’s right to choose. The non-convincing yardsticks of what constitutes Horror or what is ‘too scary, even for adults could be based on a religio-political-moralism that requires critiquing. The intentions of the KFCB may be honourable, but they may also be constricting. They may end up being too controlling in terms of how individual members of society should live their private lives with media content, or how it should appeal to them. In a sense, if allowed free reign the KFCB could consistently restrict the public’s access to a variety of filmic content based on narrow frameworks of what constitutes harmful content. In light of this, any call for a critique of the KFCB censorship methods are not only currently relevant but they should be addressed whenever the right opportunity avails itself. For this reason, forums such as the Kenya International Film Festival should endeavour to enlighten the public on censorship, and challenge the KFCB to liberate the audience’s say in the choices they make when judging which material to consume. Particularly, it could provoke the KFCB to realise that adult audiences should be guaranteed an elastic range in choosing media content. While media content censorship has a place in a mediated society, the audience has the responsibility to police itself against harmful media content.