No Sex Please…
Listening to Radio 4's Thought For The Day this morning (yes, I know I have no one to blame but myself), I heard someone going on about the fact that Michael Winterbottom's 9 Songs has been passed for cinema release uncut despite containing lengthy scenes of real sex. Unfortunately, the BBFC spokesperson quoted seems to have done the organisation no favours by noting that they don't make moral judgements, as people apply different standards of what constitutes morally acceptable.
This gave the irritating woman who was taking issue with them an opening to explain that of course they make moral decisions - they do so all the time when they decide what should or shouldn't be seen by the public. And of course she's right, which allowed her to criticise them for their position, rather than for what she started out attacking, which is the depiction of the sex in the first place. "'Real' sex to me is what happens between me and my husband - if people are being paid to do it, it's just a transaction." (I paraphrase slightly.) It's clear that her real issue was there, rather than with the BBFC itself, but rather than do the usual routine of coming across like she's being prudish she was instead able to make it seem that she was rightly chastising a public body for abbrogating its responsibilities.
It's a pathetically carping attitude to take which is the more annoying because she was given the opening in the first place. But if the BBFC are going to be responsible for setting a standard of 'public acceptability', they do indeed have to recognise that they are making value ('moral') judgements on a daily basis.