The prospect of self-censorship: A discursive analysis of regional cinemas

Entering a new phase, the Malaysian film industry is seen to be increasingly engaged in the prospect of promoting and implementing film self-censorship practice. Effectively, the critical spectatorship comprising the Malaysian middle-class and even more so the industry players, will likely to be confronted with stronger demand for selfregulation from media regulating authorities in ensuring their content will not challenge censorship laws in trying to meet their own creative objectives. Given the reality of such constrains, one should begin negotiating for a prospective compromise because emerging contemporary social imaginary has the tendency to compromise local ethical values and sociocultural logic. In this article this prospect is explored across existing censorship policies and mechanisms in Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand. The empirical data in the forms of convergences and divergences are discursively analysed so as to inform the prospect and challenges of film self-censorship practice in this country. The analysis results in the conclusion that self censorship in Malaysia would do well to educate the creative industry players in film making which accounts for the four narrative and esthetic standards set by the country’s Censorship Board, namely, public safety and peace, religious considerations, socio-cultural sensibilities, and modesty and decency.