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Removing the Age Restriction on "The House of Seville"
A new year 2022. Looking at new official trailers I see lots of blood without age restrictions.
The "blood-based" age restriction was always a borderline decision. It is now looking more
and more like excessive caution. I am therefore removing the restriction and going with the
less obtrusive algorithm-managed rating "not made for kids".
PREVIOUS
Why does "The House of Seville" have a Youtube Age Restriction?
Posting "The House of Seville" on Youtube for
public viewing raised a question of audience rating. Our movie has animated
violence with a murder scene based on the "Carmen" story. In our
discussions we thought it was a low level issue and we should use the Youtube
upload option "not made for kids". However when I did the upload and
carefully read the Youtube guide notes I made the call to "play it
safe" and go "age restricted".
We work with a storytelling trope that ghosts are obsessed
with causing the living to reenact their deaths. Here, the ghost of Carmen
takes control of Ray and causes him to kill Daria with a sword. The critical
items from the Youtube checklist are (1) the audience can see blood and (2) the
editing and animated camera point of view highlight the blood beyond incidental
detail. This is balanced by a non-realistic animated depiction.
Blood is a major rating element. I went through an exercise of
reviewing Youtube scenes of violence and other content that could be
challenging for sensitive viewers. These were mostly trailers for horror movies
as well as examples like "1917", "Dunkirk" and "Gladiator".
Challenging yes, with many life-at-risk tension moments, but mostly contrived
to be bloodless. It was very difficult to find any example clip that showed
blood. It appears that a convention has developed that bloodless violence is
OK. Reflecting on that I agree that blood is an issue and I should restrict a
film that depicts it. However, how OK is it to have wide audiences for
otherwise realistic violence without blood? Advances in movie tech are making bloodless
violence more intense. We are seeing entertainment violence that is missing
violence realities like long term pain and suffering: including a lifetime of
guilt and remorse for the perpetrators after a moment of impulse. Blood is a
truth of violence. And film-makers should tell the truth. To age-restricted audiences rather
than using the bloodless excuse to market violence to a wider audience.
Watch "The House of Seville" on Youtube
Watch the Murder Scene as discussed here