· 17 comments · Save ·
News & Current Events Mar 23, 2026 at 11:52 PM

There should be an exception for true events in film censorship

Posted by Proof-Bed-6928

There are so many important historical atrocities that gets overlooked because they are simply too graphic to be shown to many people on screen. I can’t believe so few people in the west know about the Nanking Massacre and Unit 731. These events deserve a PG-13 rating. It may traumatise kids but it’s important for the kids to know them regardless.
🚩 Report this post

17 Comments

Sign in to comment — or just click the box below.
🔒 Your email is never shown publicly.
ifhysm Mar 23, 2026 +10
I feel like a lot of people in the west are familiar with Nanking and Unit 731
10
ReagenLamborghini Mar 23, 2026 +5
Yeah I definitely learned about it in school
5
Famous-Attention-197 Mar 24, 2026 +3
I'd bet good money it's substantially less than a percent, at least in the US. Not sure what history classes cover in other western countries.  The majority of adults read below a 6th grade level. The typical classes certainly don't cover this in school. So unless there's a movie or a tiktok. 
3
ifhysm Mar 24, 2026
You truly believe less than a percent of Americans have heard of Nanking or Unit 731? It was covered in US history classes
0
general-theory Mar 24, 2026 +2
Less than a percent is a stretch but you are underestimating how bad education is here for wide swaths of the country.
2
Famous-Attention-197 Mar 24, 2026 +1
It actually wasn't covered in any history class I took. And lots of things were covered in history classes that people don't know.  Only single digit percentages can name the rights enumerated in the first amendment despite that being covered since elementary school. Shit even I forgot the last one.  Vast majority couldn't find Afghanistan on a map despite hearing about it every day for almost two decades. 
1
Kamen-Reader Mar 24, 2026 +1
They never talked about it in school. I had to find out in college through a Japanese History class.
1
THEreal_doc_friendly Mar 23, 2026 +4
I think there are ways to demonstrate these scenes without graphic detail. For example, if Hollywood did a movie about a school shooting they could show the gunman drawing his weapon, cut away and you’d only hear gunfire and screaming without visually showing it. Something like that could get by with a PG-13 rating.
4
whitepangolin Mar 23, 2026 +4
Sir this is a Wendy’s
4
longjumpingtote Mar 24, 2026 +2
There has been. Go watch the miniseries Holocaust from the 1970s. But it’s the movie industry putting labels on Films, it’s not state censorship. The film still get made. And released.
2
CortexCraft_ Mar 23, 2026 +5
i get the intent but i feel like toning those events down just to fit a lower rating might end up doing more harm than good in how they’re understood
5
Proof-Bed-6928 Mar 24, 2026 +1
No that’s what I’m saying. These movies deserve a PG13 without toning anything down
1
LordAcorn Mar 24, 2026 +2
"historical" movies are an ounce of truth wrapped in a pound of bullshit. People should absolutely not be learning anything from movies. 
2
Kamen-Reader Mar 24, 2026
Hollywood's relationship to violence, real or fake, is very odd. I would also say, if we're on the subject of "teaching audiences" movies would not be the best way to do so.
0
iamnotparanoid Mar 24, 2026
I don't know if that's true, about teaching audiences. Especially in regards to history, movies are absolutely where many people get their information from. There are a lot of people that will unknowingly cute movies when discussing history, and if the movie is correct then they might as well be talking out of a textbook.
0
Kamen-Reader Mar 24, 2026 +1
Oh no, I didn't mean that people *can't learn* from movies, I'm saying that they shouldn't be used as a way to teach. You make a good point, I just think that since movies follow *very* specific structures a narrative has to be shoehorned into historical facts and might inadvertently sensationalizing an event. Example, I watched *The Men Behind the Sun* because it was about Unit 731and I wanted to see how a movie would handle it, and...well...it treated the whole thing like an exploitation movie. I came out of it learning nothing beyond what I already knew save for witnessing horrible acts onscreen. But there was nothing to learn. Nothing you couldn't find better in a book.
1
LordAcorn Mar 24, 2026 +1
This is true and it's also a bad thing. Because historical movies are usually very far from the truth so people end up misinformed. 
1
← Back to Board