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Much excitement and anticipation surrounded Christopher Nolan’s sequel to the brooding‘12A’ Batman Begins. This eager interest in The Dark Knight was based both on the success of the previous film and the recent death of Australian actor Heath Ledger, the rising star who played Batman’s evil nemesis The Joker.

But though there has been much critical interest in Ledger’s final high profile performance some quarters of the British press focussed on something quite different – the film’s ‘12A’ certificate.

Though sometimes misunderstood, the ‘12A’ category is for films which the BBFC considers suitable for viewers aged 12 and above.  But because children mature at different rates the ‘12A’ category allows parents to take children younger than 12 to see ‘12A’ films should they choose.  What the ‘12A’ does not mean is that the film is suitable for young children - films which are suitable for young children are rated ‘U’ or ‘PG’. 

The surge of coverage included several high profile figures condemning the BBFC for passing material at a category which allows young children to see the film. It ranged from personal experience – newspaper columnist Allison Pearson and former Tory Party leader Iain Duncan Smith complaining the film was too strong for their children – to wider condemnation of the BBFC, its policies and its role. 

In addition the BBFC received over 200 complaints from members of the public. The vast majority of these appeared after the coverage in the press and were along the lines that the rating given was too low, and that the film was too strong for younger viewers.  However, some people contacted the Board during the media coverage to support the ‘12A’ decision, including John Whittingdale MP, the Chair of the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee.

The Dark Knight was submitted with a '12A' request which came as no surprise given the likely appeal of the film to younger audiences. It had also recently been awarded a ‘PG-13’, (a near '12A' equivalent), by the American ratings organisation, the MPAA.

Interestingly the first ever ‘12’ film in UK cinemas was Tim Burton’s gothic superhero blockbuster Batman in 1989 and one of the first high profile ‘12A’s was another superhero film Spider-Man. 

The key classification issues noted were violence and threat, though the examining team felt the violence was, in line with ‘12A’ guidelines, both impressionistic and bloodless. Examiners noted some scenes of strong threat when The Joker menaces other, sometimes innocent, characters. The strongest of these include sight of The Joker touching a gangster’s mouth with a knife before killing him (off screen) and a scene in which he presses his blade into Rachel's cheek. Examiners also discussed the film’s tone which included some dark and adult moments.

Though these and other scenes in which characters were held hostage or beaten had considerable psychological impact, they contained little in terms of strong detail – thus presenting a dilemma, should the BBFC be classifying what is actually seen, or what is imagined by the viewer?

Of course, this is a clear element of classification already – and is always taken very seriously. There are many examples of films at ‘12A’ which contain scenes which imply violence far stronger than seen onscreen (such as the torture scene in Casino Royale), but by the same token some ‘18’ works are placed at the adult category for events which are not actually seen in detail (such as the ear cutting scene in Reservoir Dogs).

In the case of The Dark Knight several factors were noted which supported a ‘12A’ certificate. These included the film’s comic book style, the appeal of the work to 12 –15 year olds, the clear fantasy context and the lack of strong detail, blood or gore.

The BBFC was also careful to ensure that additional advice was available to parents and other moviegoers through the websites pbbfc and bbfc.co.uk. Both sites included extended information about the film detailing how and why it was classified ‘12A’ and urging parents to think carefully before taking youngsters to see it.

Films classified '12A' are, broadly speaking, the most complained about decisions. As is often the case such complaints about The Dark Knight focussed largely on the possibility of very young children seeing the film – although many correspondents also cited what they believed to be brutal, sadistic and strong violence. Several noted in particular the focus on knife threat and violence perpetuated by the Joker character. Some complaints also linked the content of the film to concerns about knife crime. Everyone who contacts the BBFC gets a personal reply.  But it is important to set the complaints in the context of the number of people who saw the film.  In the case of The Dark Knight the 200 plus complaints are a tiny proportion of the five million people plus who saw it in the first two weeks after it opened.

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