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10 Scenes Malaysians Will Officially Stop Seeing In Local Films

Be assured that your television will from now on be sterile enough to feed a baby with.

Cover image via Vector

Putrajaya tightened the noose on freedom of onscreen expression when it recently issued a directive banning scenes considered 'inappropriate' in all local films aired on television

Image via ABN

LPF chairman Datuk Abdul Halim Abdul Hamid said such measures were necessary to protect Putrajaya's image.

"It can bring a bad image for the government, so we avoid this. Such scenes will definitely be censored, there is no avoiding it because we have our people in the television stations doing the censorship."

However, the new guidelines, enforced on June 15, are only applicable to local films aired on television stations here.

themalaysianinsider.com

According to Datuk Abdul Halim, while the printed guidelines were new, they had been in practice

These new guidelines are merely meant to standardise the censorship rules. Why? Because prior to these guidelines, each TV station had their own appointed LPF representative to monitor the content on that particular TV station. These guidelines allowed for the representatives to have a fixed set of do’s and don’ts.

cilisos.my

Here are the 10 things you probably didn't know were banned from local films:

1. Kissing of any sort between Malay actors, however this will not affect scenes in Chinese, Tamil or Indian films. So embrace awkward side hugs everybody!

Image via cilisos.my

2. Even scenes depicting interaction between a human being and the physical manifestation of a spirit are actually not allowed. That’s right folks, no more display of entities such as the saka and the jin!

Image via tumblr.com

Don't worry, we'll still be able to rely on our Malaysian superheroes to keep us entertained.

3. Smoking and drug related scenes are prohobited from all local films, but scenes involving alcohol and alcohol abuse have only been allowed for non-Malay films

Image via Pinterest

4. There has also been a ban on scenes of "women wearing form-fitting clothes, clothes that reveal the shape of the breasts, privates, thighs, buttocks, and underwear" (except for Indian women in saris)

Image via Pinterest

5. Violence, cruel and graphic scenes such as abuse and torture are banned from all films to avoid children picking up such behaviours

Image via Stream

6. Scenes and dialogue which mock, belittle, criticise the government and the country's national sensitivities or tarnish the government's image

7. Characters with horrifying, disgusting or even gruesome masks from horror films

8. Scenes of characters breaking the country's laws are also included, unless it is an evil character and he gets his comeuppance

Image via Terbaek

9. Indecent behaviour? Yes folks, giving someone the finger or even dirty dancing on screen is a big NO

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10. Most exciting of all are the words that should be bleeped if they come on. These include celaka, dayus, binatang, bangang, barua, iblis, sial, mampus, berambus, setan, anjing… let’s just say that the list goes on a fair bit.

Image via Daily Seni

Yes, just looking through these guidelines, it’s clear they are indeed meant to preserve our Malaysian values and keep everything in line. Watching local films can now be a family affair!

Just last year, several international movies were banned from Malaysians, here are some of them:

'The Empress of China', a Chinese TV serial was ordered a re-edit as the censorship board believed the costumes exposed too much of the ladies' chests:

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