My take on movie censorship……..

Growing up in the 1960’s (I was born in 1953), my formative years, I was given the opportunity to view many of the movies of the time. As early as age five I was taken to the “movies” in a local theater in Northwest Oklahoma City usually on a Wednesday night and a Saturday afternoon. The weekday movie was usually at the Penn Theater with my parents, where the 65c adult admission fit just great with them, and the 15c or 25c admission for the tag along kids was just peachy keen. One a typical Saturday afternoon I was treated with a double feature, or if lucky, a triple feature of children approved flicks at the Penn Theatre or the May Theatre, both located just few miles from home. As I became a self mobile adolescence, I lived in walking distance of the Shepherd Mall Twin, the Villa, and the Plaza Theaters. With at least five venues to view films, I could be found at the theater most often.  Give me time and I can give you an extensive roundup of the concessions that I would consume at each theater as my memories are etched in my mind.  That would include most venues in OKC, including but not limited to the Center, Midwest, State, and the before mentioned ones in the previous sentence.  Boy did I love the May Theatre which had the very best in candy, pop, popcorn, hot dogs……

My parents did not put restrictions on what I could or could not see as I grew up.  And mostly what I viewed was good appropriate flicks.  They did take me to a few movies that were just too much to handle as a young child as those few movies did “fry” by brain a couple of times. I will never forgive them on that. I still cringle thinking about Bette Davis in “What Ever Happened to Baby Jane” even though I can sit through that one today, thinking why was that so mind blowing for an eight year old.  “Judgement at Nuremburg” was another, as the Oscar winning showed the concentration camps of World War 2.  That again, was just too much for a younger child.

As I reached the age of understanding, I was attending most flicks that opened in town, no matter if they were of the “G” variety or the hard “R” rating. As of OKC, the “X” rated movies were hard to come by as of the censoring by the leadership in the community. The first major studio X rated flick I viewed was Ken Russell’s “The Devils (1971) as I was a fan of its star Oliver Reed. (A review on that movie is another story line).  “Midnight Cowboy” was another X, that being silly in 2025.  A great film with wonderful performances by Voight and Hoffman.

I had been influenced by my upbringing that censorship in any form was negative, and nobody has the right to tell you what you could or could not view if it did not hurt anyone (but yourself).  As of free will, we have it. That is something personal and God gave it to us as human beings.  We must remember, we are human beings (REN).   We, as functioning human beings, should have discretion, and the picking and choosing of what we view is our own business and how we look upon the world with regard to our belief system. As long as it does not hurt someone else, I would not take part in being a censor of another human being. If a film hurts me, again, that is my choice and I will be accountable to my GOD at my death. As a Christian, I have self censored myself, but that is my choice, not the choice someone has made for me.