Reaction
Victim became a highly sociologically significant film; many believe it played an influential role in liberalising attitudes (as well as the laws in Britain) regarding homosexuality. It was not a major hit but by 1971 had earned an estimated profit of £51,762.
The British Board of Film Censors originally gave the film an X rating. In a letter to the filmmakers, the BBFC secretary raised four objections to the film. First, a male character says of another man, "I wanted him". Second, references to "self-control" in the revised script were left out of a filmed discussion of homosexuality, leaving the discussion "without sufficient counterbalance". Third, the film implies that homosexuality is a choice, which "is a dangerous idea to put into the minds of adolescents who see the film". Finally, when the blackmailer Brenda unleashes a tirade against homosexuality, her popular view will be discredited since she is such an unsympathetic character.
Its most recent UK cinema re-release in 2005 received a PG rating. The use of the term "homosexual" kept the film from being released at first in the U.S. The film code changed within a year, and the film made its first official appearance in America.
The term "queer" is used in the film, with anticipation of complete understanding on the part of the (British) audience in two completely different ways. As reported, "FARR IS QUEER" is painted on Farr's garage door (i.e. Farr is homosexual), and the expression "Queer Street" (meaning in desperate poverty) is used in a letter to some red herring blackmailers.
Read more about this topic: Victim (1961 film)
Famous quotes containing the word reaction:
“Sole and self-commanded works,
Fears not undermining days,
Grows by decays,
And, by the famous might that lurks
In reaction and recoil,
Makes flames to freeze, and ice to boil.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Christianity was only a very strong and singularly well-timed Salvation Army movement that happened to receive help from an unusual and highly dramatic incident. It was a Puritan reaction in an age when, no doubt, a Puritan reaction was much wanted; but like all sudden violent reactions, it soon wanted reacting against.”
—Samuel Butler (1835–1902)
“Children, randomly at first, hit upon something sooner or later that is their mother’s and/or father’s Achilles’ heel, a kind of behavior that especially upsets, offends, irritates or embarrasses them. One parent dislikes name-calling, another teasing...another bathroom jokes. For the parents, this behavior my have ties back to their childhood, many have been something not allowed, forbidden, and when it appears in the child, it causes high-voltage reaction in the parent.”
—Ellen Galinsky (20th century)