7.2 Ethical and Legal Constraints in the Creative Media Sectors - Rebecca

 Within the film sector there can be numerous ethical and legal constraints happening within them, the definition for an ethical constraint is when a person or organisation have limitations to what they can do due to whether it is morally right (ethical) or wrong (unethical). Therefore, a legal constraint is when a company or person are restricted to what they can do in terms of it being right or wrong, in terms of the law. In terms of the film industry, ethical constraints can include social issues, the representation of gender and/or religious beliefs, professional body codes of practice and so on. As for legal constraints, this involves how content is presented through the interpretation and application of media relating wars, for example, the Films Act 1985, Human Rights Act 1998, and Video Recordings Act 1984. 

Legal Constraints

Films Act 1985 -

When The Films Act 1985 arose, it took down the Eady Levy System, which was a method of taxing the box office in order to support the BFI (British Film Industry). It did this when the government realised that they system was not working; therefore the creation of the Films Act 1985 was made as a way to rid the system. The effect that this has had is that, when creating films companies and/or people have to find new ways of getting it funded - such as using a scheme called Creative England. 

Additionally, The Act created new provisions for determining whether a film was classified as 'British' or not, therefore effecting whether it was eligible for capital allowances. This meant that fewer films are classified, as being 'British' as the criteria to be met is very specific. 

Human Rights Act 1998 -

The Human Rights Act 1998 is a law within the United Kingdom that defends people’s rights, so that everyone is treated with equality, fairness, dignity, and respect. The Act was introduced so that when people felt as if their rights were not being respected they could take it to court, whereas previously the process was far more complicated. The rights include:

• Right to life

• Prohibition of torture

• Prohibition of slavery and forced labour

• Right to liberty and security

• Right to a fair trial

• No punishment without law

• Right to respect for private and family life

• Freedom of thought, conscience and religion

• Freedom of expression

• Freedom of assembly and association

• Right to marry

• Prohibition of discrimination

• Protection of property

• Right to education

• Right to free elections

• Abolition of the death penalty

• Videos that aim to inform, educate of instruct.

• Videos that concern sport, religion or music.

• 30.8% of speaking characters are female.

• 28.8% of women wore sexually revealing clothes (opposed to 7% of men).

• 26.2% of women actors get partially naked (opposed to 9.4% of men).

• 10.7% of movies featured a balanced cast based on gender.

• 2.25:1 is the average ratio of male to female actors.

• 32.5% is the increase in which teenage females are depicted with some nudity.

The Video Recordings Act 1984 -

This Act was introduced to ensure that a recognised authority approved all video recordings available within the United Kingdom. This lead to the creation of the BBFC (British Board of Film Classification), which is an organisation that gave films/videos ratings before being released to the public in order to determine what demographic it was suitable for based on numerous of aspects. This Act dramatically changed the British video landscape as it meant that a lot of films met a much smaller audience or would not be able to be given a rating at all, therefore never being released. 

All videos/films must go through the BBFC before being released, the only videos that are exempt are:

• Videos that aim to inform, educate of instruct.
• Videos that concern sport, religion or music.

Copyright Law -

This law involves giving the rights to creators or literary, dramatic, musical, artistic works, sound recordings, broadcasts, films and typographical arrangement of published editions, to control the ways in which their material can be used. This law was enforced to prevent the use of other peoples material being done without consent, for example before the law people could 'steal' a film made by somebody else and upload it onto their own platform without having to get permission from the creator. Within the United Kingdom a copyright lasts for 70 years after the death of the known creator, additionally for unknown creators the copyright expires 70 years after the date in which the work was first made available to the public. 

Within the film industry, the copyright law is used when a film producer wants to present a product/brand within their film, and without permission to do so the producer could face a lawsuit from said product/brand. Furthermore this has lead to things arising such as brand deals, this is when a company want promotion for their work, and therefore they pay the production company to have their work featured in a scene of their film. 

An example of a law case that is to do with copyright would be the lawsuit from S. Victor Whitmill on Warner Bros. The case arose in April 2001l, when a tattooist (S. Victor Whitmill) sued Warner Bros. for a copyright infringement during the film The Hangover Part 2. Within the film one of the main characters wakes up after a drunken night and finds a tattoo on his face, the tattoo was a replica design of Mike Tyson’s – Whitmill claimed that the design was specifically made for Mike Tyson, and therefore Warner Bros. had no right to take his work and put it in the film or use it for any promotional material.

The lawsuit was so big that it almost affected the release of the film altogether, and if both parties did not come to an agreement then the tattoo would have to be digitally removed for home video release. The lawsuit ended with Warner Bros. settling to Whitmill’s claim (the amount was undisclosed), and the film went on to make a gross of $581.4 million.

Ethical Constraints

Gender Representation -

Within film, there has always been an unequal representation between males and females, however due to ideologies; such as feminism becoming more widely recognised gender representation is slowly becoming more ethically correct. A study made by the New York Film Academy found out how woman in particular are portrayed in films (based on top 500 films from 2007-2012), they found out that:

• 30.8% of speaking characters are female.
• 28.8% of women wore sexually revealing clothes (opposed to 7% of men).
• 26.2% of women actors get partially naked (opposed to 9.4% of men).
• 10.7% of movies featured a balanced cast based on gender.
• 2.25:1 is the average ratio of male to female actors.
• 32.5% is the increase in which teenage females are depicted with some nudity.

Additionally to these on-screen inequalities, within the film industry as whole males are presented with far more 'superiority' than women too. For example, the ratio of men working on films to women is 5:1. Furthermore, in 2013 Forbes presented the information that actresses made a collective pay of $181 million, compared to male actors making $465 million, meaning that collectively women make less than half the money men do within the film industry. All of this evidence clearly shows the ethical constraint that the film industry has when it comes to gender representation, however although it continues to slowly improve, males are far more 'superior' within this industry due to no definitive reason. 

Representation of Religious Beliefs -

Religion is a very sensitive topic when it comes to film, as the presentation of different religions can come across as very controversial to viewers. Religions can be represented in different ways in the film industry, it can be done in a realistic and/or educational manner, and however it can also be portrayed as religious satire. Religious satire is a form of satire that is aimed towards religious beliefs; this means that in film it is when sarcasm or humorous irony targets a religion. Clearly this is a controversial thing to do, as religion is a very large part of todays society, therefore religious satire can be seen a way of degrading someone’s religious beliefs, which is an offensive and unethical thing to do in some circumstances. 

An example of a 'religious' film that was very controversial would be Larry Charles' Religulous. It is an American documentary film that is said to present a range of views on various religions from around the world; the films title is a portmanteau from the words religious and ridiculous - which already problematic. Although receiving a respectable 7.7/10 rating from film website IMDb (Internet Movie Database), religious communities gave it a far lower rating. A website called Christianity Today wrote a review of the film, and overall they thought that the film was more of an 'anti-religion' film and it was a way to take religions and "humiliate in as public a way possible". They say that this film presented religion to be a dangerous threat and made comments about religions such as Catholicism "wasn't relevant". 

Overall, it is very obvious that religious beliefs aren't presented in a way that religious people would want them to be, as they are either mocked or dramatised. Therefore, this is a question of whether some topics just cannot be mixed into the film industry without causing an issue, or if people are oversensitive. One thing that can be mentioned however, is that although religion in films has received more negative responses than positive, that does not mean that there are not some successful religious films, for example Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ had a domestic total gross of $370,274,604.

Case Study

Mikey & James Bulger -

Mikey is a horror and thriller film released in 1992, directed by Dennis Dimster. The films plot revolves around the character Mikey; he is a young boy who is adopted after the death of his previous adoptive owners. Unfortunately for his new family, rather than being the pleasant child they hoped for, Mikey ends up being a violent psychopath and serial killer out to kill his family. Although originally the film was withdrawn from release in the United Kingdom, in 1996 the BBFC still refused to issue the film with a UK release certificate - therefore the film is still banned to this day within the UK.

The reason for the ban was due to the tragic murder of James Bulger in 1993. In Liverpool, James Patrick Bulger was murdered at the age of 3 years old from being abducted, tortured, and violently murdered by two 10-year-old boys (Robert Thompson and Jon Venables). Originally it was said that the two 10 year olds crime was linked to the horror film Childs Play 3, where a doll comes to life and proceeds to murder numerous people violently, however this link was never proven. 

Due to the uprising of this murder case, Mikey was not allowed to be released within the UK as child psychopaths a sensitive territory so that nothing like this would occur again. The BBFC believed that the deadly visuals seen within the film could act as an 'inspiration', therefore allowing more incidents like this to happen. 

Mikey is not banned in any other countries; it may have never been banned from the UK either if the James Bulger murder did not happen. However, along with Mikey, many other overly violent films are banned within the United Kingdom due to it being unethical, offensive, and somewhat even dangerous. For Mikey in particular, the ethical issue that it arose was children and violence, as well as making film linguistics harsher. Linguistics in film is the language used within a film, making sure that it is appropriate for viewers - this is one of the many reasons for the BBFC giving age ratings, as not only must certain ages be restricted from the visual content they see, but also the language.