In 2004, the ban on locally produced horror and supernatural films was lifted, marking an era when the number of supernatural film screenings skyrocketed in local cinemas. Much of this was due to the efforts of Shuhaimi Baba, as she managed to convince the censorship board to reconsider the ban so that local films could be financially competitive with the influx of foreign horror films (Hassan, 2013, p 228). It is useful to note that before the censorship was being lifted – for few decades, overseas horror films has been already pervasively seen in local cinema, despite a few horror films that were censored due to excessive violence.
In light of the popularity of horrors generally, the commercial viability of overseas horror urged the appropriation …show more content…
Khoo (2006) has coined a term to describe the dominating Malay cinema practices as “Cinema of Denial”. She criticised the tendency of Malay commercial cinema to deny the visibility and identities of other ethnic groups, which mostly facilitated by the ruling racial political parties and its counterparts advocating Malay supremacy. “Multi-ethnic diversity is not typically shown in Malay cinema because anything pertaining to race relations has been deemed a sensitive issue ever since the May 13, 1969 race riots” (Khoo, 2006, p 104). The state legitimised censorship practices and filmmaking guidelines were rationalised from this form of social stigma. Further controversies in film representations that complicate political issues will normally be associated with Internal Security Act and Official Secrets Act. Khoo (2006) concludes the consequences of this repressive ideological apparatus often leads to self-censorship, thus hinders dissenting voices to the status …show more content…
As a result, several revisions have been gradually taken place by the censorship board realising the importance of films to engage into a more accurate diversified representations and its commercial potentials. Nevertheless, the constrains between the censors and filmmakers become an ongoing struggles that continued to be highlighted in terms of what it is considered to be acceptable to social and cultural norm, however, to regard censorship as an isolated institution that is contradicting to the freedom of expression is reductive. According to Kuhn (1998), the censorship board is an institution which “…only part of a larger assemble of institutions, practices, powers and relations; they participate, in short, in an apparatus” (Kuhn, 1998, p 12). In analysing the rationale of censorship practice in Malaysia, it is important to investigate the mechanism of censors in relation to other social, cultural and religious institutions and how it shaped the established measures. This strategy is not only crucial to reveal possible mitigating act by filmmakers through creative and thematic strategies in filmmaking whether consciously or unconsciously performed through self-censorship but to account for the influences of other social institutions to the issues of
In light of the popularity of horrors generally, the commercial viability of overseas horror urged the appropriation …show more content…
Khoo (2006) has coined a term to describe the dominating Malay cinema practices as “Cinema of Denial”. She criticised the tendency of Malay commercial cinema to deny the visibility and identities of other ethnic groups, which mostly facilitated by the ruling racial political parties and its counterparts advocating Malay supremacy. “Multi-ethnic diversity is not typically shown in Malay cinema because anything pertaining to race relations has been deemed a sensitive issue ever since the May 13, 1969 race riots” (Khoo, 2006, p 104). The state legitimised censorship practices and filmmaking guidelines were rationalised from this form of social stigma. Further controversies in film representations that complicate political issues will normally be associated with Internal Security Act and Official Secrets Act. Khoo (2006) concludes the consequences of this repressive ideological apparatus often leads to self-censorship, thus hinders dissenting voices to the status …show more content…
As a result, several revisions have been gradually taken place by the censorship board realising the importance of films to engage into a more accurate diversified representations and its commercial potentials. Nevertheless, the constrains between the censors and filmmakers become an ongoing struggles that continued to be highlighted in terms of what it is considered to be acceptable to social and cultural norm, however, to regard censorship as an isolated institution that is contradicting to the freedom of expression is reductive. According to Kuhn (1998), the censorship board is an institution which “…only part of a larger assemble of institutions, practices, powers and relations; they participate, in short, in an apparatus” (Kuhn, 1998, p 12). In analysing the rationale of censorship practice in Malaysia, it is important to investigate the mechanism of censors in relation to other social, cultural and religious institutions and how it shaped the established measures. This strategy is not only crucial to reveal possible mitigating act by filmmakers through creative and thematic strategies in filmmaking whether consciously or unconsciously performed through self-censorship but to account for the influences of other social institutions to the issues of