The Committee on Obscenity and Film Censorship, better known as the Williams Committee, was a 1970s

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

Home Office committee chaired by Professor

Bernard Williams Sir Bernard Arthur Owen Williams, FBA (21 September 1929 – 10 June 2003) was an English moral philosopher. His publications include ''Problems of the Self'' (1973), ''Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy'' (1985), ''Shame and Necessity'' ...

. The task of the committee was to "review the laws concerning obscenity,

indecency Inappropriateness refers to standards or ethics that are typically viewed as being negative in a society. It differs from things that are illicit in that inappropriate behavior does not necessarily have any accompanying legal ramifications. C ...

and

violence Violence is the use of physical force so as to injure, abuse, damage, or destroy. Other definitions are also used, such as the World Health Organization's definition of violence as "the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened ...

in publications, displays and entertainments in

England and Wales England and Wales () is one of the three legal jurisdictions of the United Kingdom. It covers the constituent countries England and Wales and was formed by the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. The substantive law of the jurisdiction is Eng ...

, except in the field of

broadcasting Broadcasting is the distribution of audio or video content to a dispersed audience via any electronic mass communications medium, but typically one using the electromagnetic spectrum ( radio waves), in a one-to-many model. Broadcasting beg ...

, and to review the arrangements for

film censorship Film censorship is carried out by various countries to differing degrees, sometimes as a result of powerful or relentless lobbying by organizations or individuals. Films that are banned in a particular country change over time. Rating systems A ...

in England and Wales". The committee reported in 1979 that: "Given the amount of explicit sexual material in circulation and the allegations often made about its effects, it is striking that one can find case after case of

sex crimes Sex and the law deals with the regulation by law of human sexual activity. Sex laws vary from one place or jurisdiction to another, and have varied over time. Unlawful sexual acts are called sex crimes. Some laws regarding sexual activity are ...

and murder without any hint at all that pornography was present in the background." The Committee's report was evidently influenced by the

liberal Liberal or liberalism may refer to: Politics * a supporter of liberalism ** Liberalism by country * an adherent of a Liberal Party * Liberalism (international relations) * Sexually liberal feminism * Social liberalism Arts, entertainment and m ...

thinking of John Stuart Mill, a philosopher greatly admired by Williams, and who used Mill's principle of

liberty Liberty is the ability to do as one pleases, or a right or immunity enjoyed by prescription or by grant (i.e. privilege). It is a synonym for the word freedom. In modern politics, liberty is understood as the state of being free within society fr ...

to develop what he called the "harm condition," whereby "no conduct should be suppressed by law unless it can be shown to harm someone."Jeffries, Stuart
The Quest for Truth
''The Guardian'', November 30, 2002. Williams concluded that pornography could not be shown to be harmful and that " the role of pornography in influencing society is not very important ... to think anything else is to get the problem of pornography out of proportion with the many other problems that face our society today." The committee reported that, so long as children were protected from seeing it, adults should be free to read and watch pornography as they saw fit.Obituary, no byline. "Professor Sir Bernard Williams," ''The Times'', June 14, 2003. It found that the existing variety of laws in the field should be scrapped, and that terms such as ‘obscene’, ‘indecent’ and ‘deprave' and

corrupt Corruption is a form of dishonesty or a criminal offense which is undertaken by a person or an organization which is entrusted in a position of authority, in order to acquire illicit benefits or abuse power for one's personal gain. Corruption m ...

’ should be abandoned as they were no longer useful.Media and Arts Law Review
Obscenity, Pornography and Art
The Committee thought existing laws should be replaced with a comprehensive new statute, under which the availability of material would be restricted so that it did not cause offence to reasonable people, and was not accessible to children. The recommended restrictions on availability would not have been confined just to material that involved nudity and/or which was sexually explicit. Restrictions were to apply to: "matter (other than the printed word) and to a performance whose unrestricted availability is offensive to reasonable people by reason of the manner in which it portrays, deals with or relates to violence,

cruelty Cruelty is the pleasure in inflicting suffering or inaction towards another's suffering when a clear remedy is readily available. Sadism can also be related to this form of action or concept. Cruel ways of inflicting suffering may involve ...

or horror, or sexual, faecal or urinary functions or

genital A sex organ (or reproductive organ) is any part of an animal or plant that is involved in sexual reproduction. The reproductive organs together constitute the reproductive system. In animals, the testis in the male, and the ovary in the female, a ...

organs." Regarding the definition of pornography the commission stated that, "a pornographic representation is one that combines two features: it has a certain function or intention, to arouse its audience sexually, and also a certain content, explicit representations of sexual material (organs, postures, activity, etc). On the difference between 'obscenity' and 'pornography', the committee found that the word 'obscene' was a subjective term that refers to peoples reaction to material, and that " it principally expresses an intense or extreme version of what we have called ‘offensiveness’. It may be that it particularly emphasises the most strongly aversive element in that notion, the idea of an object's being repulsive or disgusting." 'Pornography' however was found to be "a rather more objective expression referring to a certain kind of writing, picture etc ... Pornography will have some tendency to be obscene, but will not necessarily be so ... a tendency to be offensive is built into it, but it is not universally even offensive ... Still less must it inevitably be very strongly offensive or obscene." On whether

art Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas. There is no generally agreed definition of wha ...

could be obscene, it reported that, "work ... may be experienced as offensive, and also be experienced as having aesthetic interest, but in the case of which the two experiences do not occur at the same time. These will be works which are found offensive at first, or by a spectator who remains distanced from them, but which lose that character for someone involved in them. It did however recognize that "it would be unwise to deny that ... there could be works which were, and remained, offensive, indeed intensely offensive or obscene."

References

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External links

* H2G2
Censorship, Obscenity and the Williams Committee
* terramedia.co.uk

Film controversies in the United Kingdom Film censorship in the United Kingdom United Kingdom pornography law Obscenity law Obscenity controversies in film Home Office (United Kingdom) 1970s in the United Kingdom 1970s in British cinema

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References

External links