New film laws

Decided by an international panel of dedicated film fans

By Rebecca Peterson, Humour Editor

The United Nations’ Film and Television Council recently met to decide upon a new set of laws for all films and TV series to adhere to, with the strict understanding that should any of these laws be broken, those responsible can be fined up to $1,000,000,000, or sentenced to life in prison.

The laws in question are as follows:

Pets are no longer allowed to be killed in movies under any circumstances.

A Pet’s death by old age or illness, while still tragic, is still lawful as long as it passes through the Investigative Board to Prevent Unnecessary Sadness. However, pets are no longer allowed to have their lives cut short by natural disasters or the actions of humans, under any circumstances.

If women are shamelessly objectified in a film, men must also be shamelessly objectified in the same film, to the same extent.

Many men take this to mean long, lingering shots of a fully-clothed male character with lines and a backstory flexing his arms. This is not what we mean. If you are showing women without lines in your movie in tiny bikinis giggling and posing in the back of a shot, you must also have an equal amount of silent men in tiny speedos giggling and posing at some point during the film.

(We would also like more shots of fully-clothed female characters with lines and backstories flexing their arms. These do not need to be balanced out by similar shots of men.)

If a movie is longer than three hours, there must be a middle portion that can be slept through without impacting the story.

It has officially been deemed inhumane to expect a movie-goer  to sit in a dark theater in a padded seat for over 180 minutes without allowing any time for a quick nap. Middling portions of unnecessary expositional dialogue or subplot must be at least 15 minutes long—but no longer than 30 minutes total. It is unlawful to include these unnecessary scenes in movies under 175 minutes, and any movie found padding their runtime illegally will be publicly set alight.

A movie is allowed one ending only.

Known as the “Return of the King” regulation, a movie can only have one logical ending. This is to prevent the mental trauma of thinking a movie is over, only for it to continue past a soft fade-to-black end-card. After-credits scenes are lawful so long as they are not vital to the overall story arc of the film.

Filmmakers who white-wash characters of colour must explain to a diverse audience why they didn’t want to hire a person of colour to play the part.

This same law applies to filmmakers who cast cisgender actors to play transgender characters, and able-bodied actors to play disabled characters. After doing this, the filmmakers must then reconsider their casting choices, and cast appropriate actors to play appropriate characters.

Romance movies are no longer to be referred to as “chick flicks,” and it is unlawful to shame those who enjoy them.

This law comes with an added clause that romance movies are categorized as movies featuring an ultimately healthy and supportive relationship. If a movie wishes to fall within the “romance” genre, it must first be reviewed by a relationship counselor, a psychologist, and a licensed sex educator.

Starting in 2018, there is a ten-year ban on using the death or traumatic experience of a woman to propel a man’s storyline.

Filmmakers will be allowed to have that trope back when they learn to use it properly, instead of as a lazy, misogynistic plot device.

Oscar-nominated movies must have a plot.

It is also recommended that the dialogue be clear, concise, and interesting, and not feature the senseless ramblings of an actor chewing the scenery while dodging allegations of sexual assault charges off-set.

Every single movie made from 2017 onwards must include a Wilhelm scream.

It is the law.