Nothing to Hide: The Case for Nudity on Philippine Television
Abstract
This paper seeks to explore and investigate the circumstances under which nudity and other mature content may potentially be permissible for broadcast on free Philippine television.
The current television program ratings and classification system employed by the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB) is analyzed and compared with those used by the equivalent governing bodies in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Israel in order to understand how broadcasters in these countries are able to air television programs that tackle mature themes and feature nudity.
After this comparative analysis, this thesis presents a proposal for a new television ratings and classification system that provides viewers with better information regarding the content of television shows, a recommended minimum viewer age for all shows, and utilizes a “watershed” period set aside for airing programs that tackle mature content. Furthermore, this study proposes a premise for a regular television program that will tackle mature themes and regularly feature scenes of nudity that are integral to the plot and will have literary, political, scientific, and artistic merit in order to better demonstrate how under a given set of rules and regulations, nudity may have a place within regularly scheduled local programming.
Keywords: Nudity, Obscenity, Censorship, MTRCB