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| Gangs Of Wasseypur - swearing helped establish characters |
A controversial move by the recently appointed head of India's Central Board of Film Certification was voted down on Friday, paving the way for a more nuanced approach to the use of language in film. Pahlaj Nihalani, former head of the Association of Motion Pictures and TV Programs Producers and himself a filmmaker, had proposed a list of 28 "objectionable" words which, he argued, should never be used in films at all. Although it never had official status, the list was applied to several films during the censorship process before being formally rejected on Friday. These films may now be looked at again.
Indian cinemagoers have long had to put up with beeps in films where words deemed unacceptable have been censored, but use of the list threatened to make things a lot worse. Including words in both English and Hindi, it featured terms like 'bitch' and 'asshole' which are generally considered tame elsewhere in the world, and it had the potential to make some US films very difficult to follow.
After listening to arguments about films like Anurag Kashyap's Gangs Of Wasseypur, in which swearing played an important role in providing authenticity and establishing characters, a majority of Nihalani's fellow board members agreed that language needs to be considered in context. Although they broadly remain opposed to gratuitous swearing, they note that only around 5% of Indian-produced films are problematic anyway.
