The impact of censorship on Thai films industry

Abstract

Thai films had been censored since the implementation of the 1930 Film Act because the authority wanted to control the contents carried in each films. Mechanism for censorship had included strict control law, direct government, military or police force control over the broadcast media including films, and the use of economic and political pressure. The censorship board at present continues to operate according to that Act, where theatre owners must submit films that they plan to show in their theatres to the Film Censorship Board for review. The board was assigned to examine films for its harmful content before the mass screening and may ban films if its requirements that portions of the film to be removed are not met. Reasons for censoring films include violating moral and cultural norms and disturbing the public order and security. This thesis found that Thai films industry has been constantly developed in the past decade in terms of technology being used and the scale of production. However, the weak plot, acting problems, rationality and limited plots are still the main problems of Thai films. Moreover the majority of Thai films are still occupied with old popular genres like action flick, comedy and horror. The censorship board had been to a certain extent blamed for framing a very limited freedom for directors to make his film. Many of the sensitive issues has been forbidden to be the plot or even mention in Thai films such as religions and politics in order to maintain social stability as they claimed. Thus it resulted in the imminent decline of the improvement of Thai films. They said the problem with the censorship board is that people in the board lack the understanding of arts and film making process.