Cuts for nudity, language and politics were the subjects of lengthy public appeals argued by batteries of lawyers.įilms depicting interracial couples were considered immoral and were banned and/or censored for content as were scenes depicting nudity among the European community by the ruling party - the James Bond films Live and Let Die and A View To A Kill had love scenes which were censored by the South African government. About 1,300 films a year were studied, often frame by frame. Under the apartheid regime, South Africa had one of the most exhaustive film censorship systems of any country in the Western world. Amendations to: Three Months Gone Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? See banned musicals for blasphemy: Hair, Godspell, Jesus Christ Superstar. 55 of 1955, in alphabetical order, together with authors, which were prohibited from being imported into the Republic of South Africa, were listed weekly in Jacobsen's Index of Objectionable Literature, published by Jacobsen's Publishers in Pretoria.Ĭensorship and theatre Censored productions and plays (See Gosher, 1988) See Smith, 1990, pp45-47.Īll banned items were listed in the Government Gazette and a complete list of all publications and films, as per the regulations of the Customs Act no. While retaining the strict provisions and criterion of ‘undesirability’, it closed some loopholes and replaced the right of appeal to the Supreme Court with an inhouse Publications Appeal Board. Supplanted the 1963 Publications and Entertainment Act. This body handled appeals against bannings previously referred to the Supreme Court and sat in-camera with interested parties. Higher authority called into being by the Publications Act of 1974. (See Gosher, 1988) PUBLICATIONS APPEAL BOARD. In all, an average of about 70 films per year, and 7000 publications were banned in the decade in which this Act was in operation. Although a provision was made for an appeal to the Supreme Court, this option was seldom exercised in practice. This Act - which stayed in operation up to the passing of the Publications Act of 1974 - founded the first censorship board in South Africa, consisting of nine members, of which six were in charge of art, language and literature, allowing also for domestic censorship of ‘undesirable’ works. Prior to 1963, censorship was exercised by Customs, which meant locally-produced works were not subject to any censorship. In 1963 the Publications and Entertainment Bill was passed. Censorship is the suppression of speech or deletion of communicative material which may be considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or inconvenient to the government or media organizations as determined by a censor.Ĭensorship in South Africa General censorship
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