A Few Words From A Censor
This job is very important. I keep telling my wife and nine kids that I guard society’s morals. I don’t like to angkat bakul, but fact is fact. Audiovisual mediums embed a strong imagery into people’s minds. Those that are gullible and naive will easily follow what is onscreen. So people like me do a national service in protecting citizens from moral corruption.
by Aerie Rahman
A censor speaks his mind.
During my 20 over years in the censorship board, I’ve never faced so many attacks coming in.
In the good old days, when films were banned, no one will make noise. Why? Because when something is banned, it isn’t heavily publicised. It was discreet. Just like when we banned Schindler’s List. A decision I’m still proud of.
Nowadays with social media, people start to drill in questions as to our decisions to censor. So irritating lah. I wish I could just respond and silence them by outlining the ciri-ciri as to what gets censored. But I find 140 characters so complicated… it’s not easy being a censor you know.
Okaylah, as a pegawai kerajaan there’s a lot of security. A lot of teh tarik sessions as well, at 9.30 am and 3.00 pm. But people don’t understand our contributions. So I want to clarify the misconceptions. I’m sure my rakan-rakan at the Kementerian Penerangan would understand my outspokenness.
People seem to think that as a censor, my job is just sitting down and watching films in the dark all day long. I arbitrarily decide what others can or cannot watch. I get paid to watch films. Everyone wants that, kan? That is incorrect. There’s a lot of paperwork also. Laporan this, laporan that. So many laporans just to justify one scene that is censored. It can be stressful.
Currently, we have to justify to the top as to why we didn’t ban a certain local movie from being screened. We have to review it. More work. But I cannot talk about it here. Sulit.
