Sir, On Saturday evening, I went with my 15-year-old daughter to watch The Dark Knight, the new Batman film. I was astonished that the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) could have seen fit to allow anyone under the age of 15 to watch the film. Unlike past Batman films where the villains were somewhat surreal and comical figures, Heath Ledger’s Joker is a brilliantly acted but very credible psychopathic killer, who extols the use of knives to kill and disfigure his victims, during a reign of urban terrorism, laced with torture. It is a relentlessly violent film, filled with dark themes, and as I left I wondered what the board could possibly have been thinking. There is no way that a parent could have been guided by the classification and realised what they were about to see.

I am not complaining about the film: I enjoyed it and thought it very well made. My concern is that the board seem to have caved in to commercial pressures and forgotten that there is a protective purpose to the classification system.

Iain Duncan Smith, MP
Chingford & Woodford Green

Sir, Warner Brothers has been panned for its lurid celebration of knife crime in the Batman film The Dark Knight, as has the BBFC for giving it a 12A certificate. Those who defend the film claim there is no proven link between what we see on screen and our behaviour. But the link exists, or billions of pounds would not be spent on television and cinema advertising. Impressionable youngsters cannot be immune to on screen imagery when their more cynical parents are so receptive to it. Passed as suitable for children, The Dark Knight, features an abducted little boy with a gun pressed to his head, a mother with a gun pressed to hers before her screaming children, a knife passed slowly and suggestively across the heroine’s face and a detailed eulogy from the Joker on the luxury of a slowly drawn-out knife murder over a quicker execution with a gun. In the face of our national knife crime epidemic, The Dark Knight should be withdrawn, reclassified or recut.

Times Archive, 1966: In defence of Batman

Not a word of complaint was received from the police

• Batman sticks to letter of the law

• Batman's £3m. U.S. success, 1966

Nick Hadjinikos
Richmond, Surrey

Sir, I recently saw the new Batman film The Dark Knight and greatly enjoyed the film with its brilliant performance by Heath Ledger. However, the film is very violent. I was therefore horrified to find that it is rated as a 12A.

I believe that the BBFC has given the 12A rating because none of the violence is overt. Grotesque violence is very frequent, but the actual point of impact (bullet, knife, pen and bomb et al) is not shown, the editing being highly accomplished, albeit morally dubious. This does not take away from the effect at all, but it does force the BBFC to give the film the lower rating, thereby increasing the potential audience. Unfortunately the studios are adept at playing the ratings game. The parental advisory label is all very well, but to be properly informed the parent would have to see the film first without the child, and then potentially with the child if it is deemed appropriate; this hardly seems practical.

Surely it is time for the ratings system to be reviewed to take into account the greater sophistication of the studios’ ability to manipulate the ratings, both with their enhanced technology, and their ability to pay top dollar for the best talent. The BBFC may be doing its best, but it’s up against a billion-dollar industry, and the potential victims in this conflict are our children.

Charles Sandeman-Allen
Icklesham, E Sussex

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