A wonderful thing happened in 2002; the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) finally removed the 12 certificate from theatrical releases. Gone were the horrid instances of families wanting to see the latest superhero film being turned away from theatres because their children were a fraction under the age of 12. In place of the 12 came the bright and shiny 12A certificate, which allowed parents to make their own decisions with regard to what their children could see with them at the cinema.

I vividly recall standing in the foyer of my local cinema in January 1998. I had come to see Titanic for the 3rd or 4th time, when I witnessed a confrontation at the ticket office. A woman had brought her two girls to see the film and I guessed they were aged between 9-11, so just under the age needed to see it. The cinema employee was explaining to the mother that her children were not old enough to see Titanic since it contained nudity, and therefore it had been rated 12. The mother, who had clearly seem the film before, replied politely with "yes, but they saw more nudity during their school trip to the National Gallery last month." By this point though, the girls were visibly upset so the mother conceded and left the cinema with them.

I remember this incident well because of how unfair it seemed. Here was a perfectly pleasant woman wanting to treat her children to a film she thought appropriate for them, but they weren't allowed to see it because bureaucrats somewhere decided that they know more than her about what is best for her children. The beauty of the 12A certificate is that it was supposed to largely do away with those ruined nights at the cinema by letting parents decide what their children could see in their company. The 12 certificate remained for home releases, which means parents remain in control there too, and children cannot just go and buy the DVD of a film even though they may have seen it in the cinema.

However, while I remain a committed advocate of the 12A certificate, the way in which it has been implemented has created a different type of problem. The issue is best illustrated by a quote from the BBFC itself regarding the 12A certificate - "Responsibility for allowing under-12s to view lies with the accompanying or supervising adult." While this may seem fair enough in some respects, my concern is that the BBFC has gone from having all the responsibility to having none, and as such they are not doing the things they should be in order to assist adults and parents.

The BBFC sees a film before the public does, and normally before most critics do too. They are in the best position to provide information for parents to use in making up their minds as to whether or not to take their children to a 12A. The BBFC would argue that at the moment such information is readily provided, but it's the quality of this information I take issue with. In essence, I think the information given is too vague and too unhelpful to be of any assistance.

Every time you go into a shop and buy an item of food or drink, look at the back and you will find a table of all the nutritional qualities. It will say how much salt, fat or protein and other similar things is in the product, and it will give figures correct to the fraction of a gramme. Contrast this to the level of detail usually given with regard to a 12A certificated film - you're normally lucky to see a dozen words:

"Contains moderate sex references, language and gross humour"
"Contains fake gory images and infrequent strong language"
"Contains one use of strong language and moderate violence"

The three lines above represent the consumer advice for three recent 12A releases. Without investigating using the BBFC website it would be pretty difficult to be 100% certain which film they apply to, and that is part of my point. Yes, this information gives us a rough idea of what we can expect from the film, but it doesn't give specifics which might interest us, nor does it say how close the film was to being rated PG or 15.

What prompted me to spend this month's Feature looking at the 12A certificate was my experience of watching Date Movie. Leaving aside how bad the film was, what struck me was the sheer number of people who left the cinema at certain points during it. The majority of these people had young children with them - clearly under 12 - and they weren't just leaving at random points, but after some of the more crude events in the film. I would agree with anyone who says it's questionable parenting to let children not much older than toddlers see Date Movie, because it's not as though one can expect wholesome entertainment from such a film. However, when these parents read the consumer advice for the film - which is the first of the three quotes I give above - should they have expected: