The classification of films is changing

“FUCKING” IS NOT what it used to be. Where once the mere presence of a “fuck” would be enough to merit a “15” rating in a film, and an “18” if said often enough, today the guidelines of the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) have softened. Today a friendly “fuck”, as it were, will merit merely a “12” rating. Similarly, an affable “cunt” might slip past as a “15”. But a hostile use of the word—perhaps “by a strong man against a vulnerable child or a woman”, suggests David Austin, the head of the BBFC—is likely to merit an “18”. Context, he says, is everything.