Rachel from Friends, as seemingly inoffensive as any sitcom character can be, has cost the latest box set of the series a PG rating under new, tighter age guidelines announced yesterday.

Discriminatory language, crude sexual references and scenes that do not show actual gore but are frightening are now much more likely to attract a higher certificate than before.

The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) revises its guidelines for films, DVDs and video games every four years in response to consultations with the public. Its US equivalent, the Motion Picture Association of America, however, does not consult and is often more lenient.

Although the BBFC described the revised guidelines last night as “a tweak”, nonetheless they will subtly alter the nation’s viewing habits. They always do.

Decisions by the organisation have helped to shape and reflect British attitudes to sex, violence, drugs and youth culture since its foundation in 1912. In 1916 it listed 43 “grounds for deletion” including “indecorous dancing” and “men and women in bed together”. It was a bulwark against social changes in the 1950s, instructing wholesale cuts to scenes of antisocial behaviour and teenage violence in Rebel Without a Cause (1955). But by the end of the 1970s it had become a more progressive body, waiving previous cuts to Last Tango in Paris. This month it passed an uncut version of Antichrist by the Danish director Lars Von Trier, one of the most shocking films to be screened at the Cannes Film Festival.

The first rating decision to be affected by the new rules concerns a repackaged DVD set of Friends that contains an episode from the first series that was judged in the 1990s to be PG material. This time the BBFC has imposed a 12 rating on The One with the East German Laundry Detergent because of the moment when Rachel, played by Jennifer Aniston, describes herself as a “laundry spaz” to explain her inept efforts to load a washing machine.

Peter Johnson, the BBFC’s head of policy, said that discriminatory language had always been taken into account when making rating decisions but would now be seen as a priority matter.

“What the research told us was that for the public this is now as important as drugs or horror or sex. Where you have got people using terms like ‘spaz’ [short for spastic] or ‘mong’ [originally a reference to people with Down’s syndrome], which is quite common in American works, we have found that UK audiences are quite offended.”

Historical context is taken into account, so that a re-release of the British war film The Dambusters can still get away with a labrador called “Nigger” because this was a common name for black dogs in 1955. A proposed remake of the film, however, has struggled to gain a consensus on the acceptability of the dog’s name.

The Pacifier, a 2005 children’s film starring Vin Diesel as a former Navy Seal turned nanny, would now earn a 12A rating instead of a PG because it used the word “spaz”, the BBFC said.

Repeated verbal or visual sexual references in films that were borderline 12A/15 rated before were now more likely to earn the higher age rating, Mr Johnson said.

“Where the tone is crude rather than cheeky we should err towards 15 instead of 12A. I would make a distinction between something like [the American comedies] Norbit or Meet the Spartans and something like the Austin Powers films, which are likely to be a 12A.”

Another prominent change concerns “frightening elements” in films such as the ghost story The Others, starring Nicole Kidman. It contained no scenes of explicit horror but the frequent “disturbing sequences” would now probably be enough to rate it a 15 rather than a 12A.

Some films will achieve a broader audience after the nine-month public consultation advised the BBFC that pedantic adherence to its own rules was on occasion “ridiculous”. Examples include the Israeli animated war film Waltz with Bashir, which was rated 18 because of a single scene featuring cartoon pornography. It would probably now be a 15.

Only films that were borderline in the first place were likely to be affected, Mr Johnson said. “We are only tweaking,” he added. “People are telling us that we are getting it right.”

WHAT IT MEANS

Five films that would get a different rating under new rules

The Others (12A) Would now be 15. Why: horror. Contains frequent or sustained disturbing sequences

The Pacifier (PG) Would now be 12A. Why: discrimination. Use of the term “spaz”

Date Movie (12A) Would now be 15. Why: sex. Contains frequent crude references

Waltz with Bashir (18) Would now be 15. Why: sex. Its single animated pornographic scene no longer justifies higher rating

Pilgrimage to Lourdes (PG) Would now be U. Why: drugs. Single reference to “opium wars” no longer automatically confers higher rating

Source: BBFC

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