FEBRUARY 15 — It is always my delectation to visit cultural premises, be it theatre or cinema, to feel and observe with my own eyes on how cultural productions are being treasured in the countries I have opportunity travelled to.

I have recently travelled to our neighbouring country, Thailand for a short vacation. For the reason stated above, I checked at their local cinema for any film that I cannot possibly miss and to my delight, “American Sniper” is shown in their cinemas.

Knowing that it was not shown in Malaysian theaters, although its posters were laid up in many cinemas, I found no reason for not watching the film there.

Just before entering its extravaganza theatre hall, I was mesmerised by the poster of “Fifty Shades of Grey” tentatively to be screened worldwide, including Thailand, in conjunction with the Valentine’s Day.

Like many other films with explicit sexual content, it has been inescapably banned from screening in Malaysia. Let alone stoking verboten on “Fifty”, the chairman of Malaysian Film Censorship Board (LPF), was notoriously quoted in international media such as Los Angeles Times and Variety for equalling the film with pornography, a lurid spotlight which most likely to stay adamant in years to come.

Throughout the years, LPF has relentlessly working in an institutionalised prudent way to ensure only socially and politically acceptable films to be sold and shown in this territory.

In recent years, films such as “Noah” and “The Wolf of Wall Street” were slashed from their nationwide screening. Notwithstanding the fact, it is not difficult to obtain these films from the “illegal” DVD dealers as well the all-you-can-get World Wide Web.

A Swedish operating file-sharing website, The Pirate Bay, for instance, accounts for 50 million downloads in a single day during its peak operation. Albeit constantly threatened by laws, it has repeatedly bounced back with ever changing strategy in encountering their lawful convictions.

It is always an irony that the more you restrict the people, the more curious they are about the restriction. In a random check with people I know, they had then downloaded and watched “Noah” and “The Wolf” out of their curiosity on why the films were not permitted for screening.

What I find amusing after I talked to those who had watched these films, was the congruous sentiment that these films bear no necessity to be banned nor restrained from local audiences

This shared consensus is not only indicating how ready our audiences are for films which are commonly labelled as unacceptable, but it also poses a question on how relevant is our censorship board in a globalised modern society.  

*Yow Chong Lee serves in a local university.  * This is the personal opinion of the writer and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail Online.