All censorship is wrong

All censorship is wrong. Censorship curtails and limits free speech and artistic expression. It is a tool of those in power who seek to impose their morals, views and values on to the individual.

 (This was the topic for a script for a debate that I had to write.)

            I've decided to look from a creative point of view at the banned Iceland ad and several deleted scenes from Disney and other popular films. Ads, films and TV shows are different forms of art and by being censored, the creators are basically being prevented not only from artistic expression but also from spreading the lessons veiled in their work.

             Let's take the Iceland ad as an example. It's an animated ad that's 90 seconds long and its purpose is to show the deforestation the production of palm oil causes. The ad features an orangutan whose habitat is being destroyed by the producers of palm oil and is supported by a very strong poem about it. It sends an important and clear message of how important it is for the palm oil production to be reduced because this way many forests would be saved and what's more, the animals in them.

            So, why was this ad banned? The only reason is because it was deemed too political by Clearcast which approves ads on behalf of Sky, Channel 4 and ITV. It was deemed too political because the ad was made in a collaboration with Greenpeace which is a campaign that defends the natural world, investigates, exposes and confronts environmental abuse.

            The ITV chief said that the Iceland ad should have aired after the Greanpeace stamp was removed from it but unfortunately, it didn’t. Even though it advertises a shampoo, the Iceland ad also sends an important message, that's done in a very creative way- by animating it and composing a little poem to go with it. That censorship prevents people without access to the internet from seeing it on TV. Fortunately, Iceland uploaded the ad on YouTube because they didn't want the people to miss out on the message they wanted to send. In this case, censorship is wrong because it stops the team behind the advert from spreading their message to the world.

            Another example of when censorship is bad can be found in several Disney movies but I'll focus only on two, Descendants 2 and the Beauty and the Beast live action film. The scenes that were cut from these films have to do with the same thing - LGBT representation. In Beauty and the Beast, the scene that was cut was apparently only 3 seconds long and showed LeFou dancing with another man while everybody in the bar was singing Gaston's song. Apparently, in this scene he was represented as an openly gay character but it didn’t make the final cut.

            Additionally, in Descendants 2, the scene that didn’t make it was a kiss between Harry Hook, the son of Capitan Hook and Gil, Gaston's son. It sparked outrageous response when Thomas Doherty, playing Harry, shared the photo of the two characters kissing on his Instagram,  and a lot of people were very disappointed that it didn’t make the cut. Disney is known for its lack of representation or how hard it is to get it to include some diverse characters but what's even worse in this case is that by cutting of the scene in Descendants 2, they cut out a small part of the original story that is in the books.

            So in this case it doesn’t only prevent artistic expression but also removes the LGBT representation which has become such an important part of our media.

             Recently, an author of colour, Amelie Wen Zhang, who was very close to having her debut book “Blood Heir” come out was forced to pull it out due to the outrageous response of the white people who read the advanced review copy they got. The controversy surrounding this topic is a bit unclear since the negative response it received was mainly by white people on Twitter. Allegedly, it features discrimination but people on different platforms can’t agree on what kind exactly. The author decided to pull out her book and apologized for it but unfortunately, this wasn’t the only case. This stopped her and all the other own voices authors from sharing their stories which is terrible for the people who need this representation in their life. The hypocrisy surrounding this is huge because white people manage to get their books about the same problems published, while the own voices authors get rejected.

 And last but not least, The Hunger Games film was banned in Vietnam due to its violent content, arguing that those scenes could be normal and accepted in America but were too much for Vietnam. While they do have a point, The Hunger Games is a dystopian piece of fiction the purpose of which is to shock the viewers and make them think and ask themselves if this is our possible future. The violence plays a big role in the overall story and it doesn't get glorified because even though the characters live in this world and are used to it, they try and fight against it. And by banning the film altogether, the viewers are prevented from seeing this and it completely curtails the artistic expression and removes the message the films are trying to send.

So, I've given examples for just a few cases in which ads or films can be censored but there are a lot more. It proves that it doesn’t only prevent artistic expression but it also removes diverse representation where needed. Censorship in art is wrong because by censoring one aspect of the overall piece, it can change the message the artist is trying to send or completely remove it. What’s more, by censoring something deemed inappropriate, the general public would be more likely to want to see it and hence, it will get more attention than if let alone. This way, the audience would be able to see and form its opinions based on no previous bias.