Film Industry - Ethical and Legal Constraints (Article)

Ethical and Legal Constraints make a major barrier on what is appropriate in the media industry. For example, due to the Race Relations Act (1976) in Films and Radio, the producers will have to be extremely delicate in regards to what is considered a 'racial slur' and what people will find offensive.

 Lawsuits against movies and filmmakers often stem from copyright infringement, plagiarism, or inaccurate details surrounding true events.

 A well-known permissible case was took to the high court concerning Jamie Theakston v Mirror Group Newspapers Ltd. Jamie Theakston tried to injunct the Sunday People from distributing a story about how he stayed in a brothel in Mayfair, London. Theakston claimed that the publication of the story broken his right to privacy under Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights. He said that the events had taken place privately and thus it ought to be treated as personal and that the article had no public interest. The Sunday People then debated that the publication of the story was in the public interest given the apprehension of the BBC, to be sure that presenters of programmes designed for younger people conduct themselves suitably in public. The court were sceptical of Theakston's statement that he only become conscious he was in a brothel when other prostitutes came into the room. Theakston was unsuccessful at his endeavour to injuct the Sunday People.

Another example is in October 2011, a Michigan woman called Sarah Deming filed a lawsuit (PDF) against the Emagine Novi movie theatre and FilmDistrict Distribution for production of a misleading trailer for Drive, a movie starring Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan, and Albert Brooks.

Deming stated that the film provider “promoted Drive as very similar to the Fast and Furious, or similar, series of movies.” Deming was distressed that Drive was a systematic art film that “bore very little similarity to a chase or race action… having little driving in the motion picture.” Deming included the movie theatre where she viewed the film for the reason that it violated Michigan's Consumer Protection Act, claiming that the film was anti-Semitic for depicting members of the Jewish faith in an inauspicious and clichéd light.

The race relations act 1976 was established by the Parliament of the United Kingdom to prevent discrimination on the grounds of race. Items that are covered include discrimination on the grounds of race, colour, nationality, ethnic and national origins in the fields of employment, the provision of good and services, education and public functions. An example of a breach of this law would be if the BBC were to advertise a job and only accept applications from ethnic minority groups, this would discriminate against people not of an ethnic minority.

In regards to stereotypes and offensive terms, this will affect the age restrictions on the film. For example, if a film had extreme violence it would not be classed as a U film as it means it would not be suitable for young children.

The age restriction is decided by the BBFC insight. Independent, self-financing and not-for-profit media content regulator, the BBFC operates transparent, consistent and trusted co-regulatory and self-regulatory classification and labelling systems in the UK. They highlight the key issues in a film then expand on this giving examples of the sorts of things you will see or hear. This is mainly to protect the public and children from sensitive content. These may include, for example, violence, bad language, and sex references.

BBFCInsight also notes any other issues that might be important for parents, or those wishing to take younger viewers to see a film – for example themes of divorce or bereavement or use of discriminatory language or behaviour.

This will also affect the representation of the Media as a whole. Representation is where producers make ethical judgements on how aspects of the media are portrayed. For example, people, places, objects, events, cultural identities and other abstract concepts. Things such as age and gender affect these decisions. An example of a negative representation is a place such as Moss side near Manchester. We see Moss side as dangerous place, we associate it with the black community and also with guns, crime and violence. We have this negative perspective on such a place because of how it is exampled in the media. On the news, it's likely to see gun crime that has took place in this certain area, although some things may not be true this is how it is perceived by us therefore, makes a negative representation of the people who live there and the area.