Do you know what is real? Can you actually believe everything you see or hear on the internet? Perhaps this is because of censorship which is a form of control because it controls and influences people’s thoughts and ideas as it only allows the specific group of people that fit into a categorised range to view the content. Without being able to view a wide variety of materials expressing a range of beliefs and ideas, our next generation will miss out on being able to judge ideas that could define what they believe in.
The government is considered to always be in control because they have the power and authority to keep secrets, and the government controls everything, e.g school, taxes, censoring texts! This should not be the case, the government should not be able to control everything, and they should not be able to influence people thoughts through censoring films and texts.
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Censorship is portrayed in many, many films and texts. Steven Spielberg’s 1982 classic children’s movie, ET: the Extra Terrestrial, grabbed the audience’s attention. Spielberg’s story of a stranded alien that makes friends with a young boy, who then helps his return to his home planet was rated PG “some scenes may disturb small children,” and in Sweden it was given an 11+ rating, not because young viewers might be scared of some of ET’s wrinkly bits, but because the movie allegedly “portrays adults as enemies of children.”
This links to censorship as the government of Sweden have abused their power to censor these texts by making the people of Sweden believe that statement.
Elliot and ET are a united pair from the start and their bond is loyalty and friendship. In the beginning the boys show friendship and loyalty, but the government agents pursuing ET, and hunting the extra-terrestrial being down made the young boys beliefs crumble. The government agent’s faces are nowhere in sight, not in any scene.
Toward the end of the movie, ET goes missing and Michael, his brother, finds him dying in the forest and then brings him home to Elliot, who is also dying. Their mother becomes frightened when she discovers her son’s illness and ET sprawled on the floor. Their mother forces them to leave ET, but the government invades and quarantines the house with all of them in it. This shows that the government are trying to maintain power within the movie and that they have proper authority when it comes to censorship, they censored the fact that there was a sick alien within the community.
Season 1 of a supernatural thriller “stranger things” by the Duffer brothers, was a big hit for Netflix. Set in the fictional town of Hawkins, Indiana, it focuses on the investigation into the disappearance of Will Byers, and a few supernatural events that occurred around the small town. A supernatural being, in the form of a human appears, with psychic abilities who helps the missing boy’s friends in their search for him. In stranger things, the power is not directly held by the government, but by Hawkins Lab. Hawkins Lab is a privately run facility running on government funding. The lab is situated outside of the town, in the middle of nowhere so that the people of Hawkins weren’t aware of this lab and the secrets it holds. The government is withholding the existence of a portal to a whole new world, which unleashed a deadly, dangerous monster.
The officials of Hawkins Lab were experimenting on eleven in secret, because they saw what she could do. When eleven escapes the lab, she ends up at a restaurant where a kind chef helps her out. A ‘child protective service worker’ shows up, eleven starts running and the officials use force and violence in their pursuit of eleven. They go to extreme length in order to stop her, they fire guns and end up killing the chef. This is an example of coercive power as the government use threatening techniques and force to attempt to gain what they want.
The similarities between the two texts are uncanny, stranger things was inspired by Spielberg’s movie. The concept of government control within these two texts are similar, in ET the government are tracking ET plus always searching in the dark, and in Stranger Things the Lab officials seemed stressed and were in pursuit, which leaves the impression that they didn’t want anyone knowing about the supernatural being.
Not only is censorship portrayed through TV shows and movies, but it is also seen in the real world. A great example of this is the Pine Gap facility located in the centre of Australia. This facility is considered one of the country’s most secretive sites. The facility summons up images of secrecy and power, and has involved a few conspiracy theories. A well-known conspiracy at pine gap was when three men were returning home in 1989, when they noticed a hidden door in the surrounding terrain, within the door there laid a huge, metallic grey disc. It moved without a sound, hovering for a moment over the base, as the three shocked men continued looking the disc shot off at the speed of light (Lowth 2018). Pine Gap is said to be the Area 51 of Australia, but its officially stated purpose is to monitor the many satellites in space.
The government run facility uses coercive power as the Pine Gap is based on in-depth information and knowledge. The government is keeping information from Australians and people of the US, as no one really knows the truth of what actually happens within that facility. This is an example of political censorship, as the government attempts to withhold, conceal or fake information that the citizens of Australia have the right to know about. The Pine Gap relates to these texts because, it is run by the government and they aren’t letting the truth out, similar to Stranger things.
So what would having no censorship do to society? Censorship, which is a form of control, only allows certain people to access the information or secrets. If everyone were able to access this information children and adults would be getting the complete truth. I believe that rather than protecting us from obscene material, censorship is actually shutting down opposing opinions. Stranger things and ET are fictional texts that reflect government control in the real world through censorship. These texts are good to watch as they make communities aware of how government control and censorship is dangerous.
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