What is the Censor Board doing?

I was worried about what could happen if innocent moviegoers watching Oppenheimer were to stumble upon a nude scene. Would it brainwash them and prompt them to start wearing less clothing? Representation Pic

I have always been a huge fan of the Censor Board. I know this is not how most Indians feel, but I have always believed there should be a small group of men (and maybe one or two women to meet any quota requirements) in charge of what we can or cannot watch. It's not as if we aren't used to a small group of people deciding the fate of a billion people, given our long and comfortable history with foreign rulers. Also, I don't believe I can trust myself to watch something that hasn't been vetted because there is no way of knowing how a TV show or movie may harm me.

Consider the film Oppenheimer, supposedly on track to become one of the year's biggest releases worldwide. Should we be allowed to watch it without any cuts or changes just because it's been called a great film made by a great filmmaker? I think not. I'm pretty sure the world's greatest writers, filmmakers, or musicians pale in comparison with our highly qualified Censor Board officials. I don't know what their exact qualifications are because this isn't always public knowledge, but would they be elected to their posts if they weren't supremely competent? I'm pretty sure it's like Parliament, where only the best, brightest and most educated Indians are elected to office. In fact, I'm willing to bet every elected member of the Central Board of Film Certification has a master's degree in Entire Political Science, now recognised as the gold standard for education.

This is why I was very relieved to hear that the Board had insisted on a few cuts to make Oppenheimer more palatable to delicate Indian sensibilities. I was informed by those living abroad that there were a few scenes of graphic nudity, and I began to panic because I worried about what young Indian men and women would do if faced with the prospect of a nude actor or actress on screen. Everyone knows how averse we are to nudity, unless it is pornography, of which we are supposedly among the world's top ten consuming countries.

I was worried about what could happen if innocent moviegoers watching Oppenheimer were to stumble upon a nude scene. Would it brainwash them and prompt them to start wearing less clothing? Would it make them more comfortable with their natural bodies and traumatise the rest of us by displaying more flesh? Would there be riots in movie theatres and hordes of scantily clad folk on the street? These possibilities were too much to bear. Luckily, I'm told the Board either cut out all those frightening scenes or used advanced technology to tastefully add clothing where necessary. When these scenes were compared on social media later, almost no one could tell that cuts had been made. I'm pretty sure Christopher Nolan could learn a few things about editing from the Board too.

What most of us fail to acknowledge is just how difficult the Board's job is, and how its members must spend so many hours of their day trying to figure out if a stray nipple or cuss word may cause immeasurable damage to our fragile society.

They bear the brunt of all this sex and violence so we don't have to, and their role should be applauded instead of vilified. Yes, it may make us seem like a nation of prudish adolescents in the eyes of the wider world, but that is a small price to pay if it means protecting our adult men and women from looking at other adult men and women without clothing. The fact that we don't have much sex in this country is testament to how innocent we really are, and it is only because of organisations like the Censor Board that we can preserve this state of innocence. If we became the world's most populous nation in 2023, sex had nothing to do with it.

Critics have long railed against what they refer to as our country's regressive attitude and penchant for moral policing. They say we are living in 2023, not 1823, and that adults should have the right to see what they want without government interference. What they fail to understand is that we don't have a problem with nudity; we only have a problem with nudity if it's in a movie. This is why members of our ruling party spoke out against Oppenheimer but were silent when Indian women in Manipur were stripped and paraded in public.

When he isn't ranting about all things Mumbai, Lindsay Pereira can be almost sweet. He tweets @lindsaypereira
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The views expressed in this column are the individual's and don't represent those of the paper.