Is film classification pointless these days?

Look at that film poster. You can't miss it's meaning.

Bad Luck Banging Or Loony Porn is getting a cinema release in Ireland. It's the story of a woman who's sex tape is leaked to a public mad for a bit of scandal. They lap the tape up and then judge her harshly for it. If you've seen it you will probably be stunned. It's rather graphic you see. And by that I mean it's extremely graphic. It's opening 5 minutes are exactly what it says on the tin. 

The Irish film classification office has come a long way in the last few years. Nothing is cut by them anymore, very rarely is anything banned. This last film censored here was in 1998 - Dangerous Beauty - and the last film banned was I Spit On Your Grave in 2010 which had previously been banned in the early 80's. If films are snipped it's because Ireland is getting copies of films from England who've had distributor cuts forced on them by the British Board Of Classification. We've a very lenient bunch over here these days. It's like they've finally released that no matter how extreme a film is you can always find something far worse within 30 seconds on the little plastic rectangle we all carry around in our pockets these days.

It begs the question - in an age where everyone has access to the net is film classification even needed anymore? An 18 cert might stop a 10 year old going into the cinema to see a film but when it pops up on netflix or amazon prime a year later who's going to stop them seeing it then? At that stage it's up to the parents and even at that it's still not much of an obstacle to get around. I'll bet the vast majority of us got to see exactly what we wanted back in the 80's and 90's and that was long before the ease of streaming. 

Imagine it, some day in the future we settle down the local omniplex to watch the next ultra violent Jason Statham film and just before the lights go down a family arrives in with 4 giddy kids.

Shudder.