A new Oasis documentary about the recently-reformed rockers has landed guidance from the British ratings board that some quarters of the British press have slammed as “woke.”
“Oasisdefinitely,” directed by the former managing director of Oasis’ label Creation Records Tim Abbott and timed to release in the U.K. with the launch of the band’s sell-out tour (which kickstarted in Cardiff on Friday), looks back over hundreds of hours of previously unseen archive footage. It was Abbott who in 1993 famously received a call from his Creation colleague Alan McGee who declared he had just found the next Beatles after hearing them play in Glasgow. They signed a few days later.
Any documentary about the notoriously hell-raising Gallagher brothers would be expected to come with a little on-screen color, and that’s exactly what the British Board of Film Classification has highlighted.
In its online guide, the BBFC — which has given the film a 15 rating — cites “infrequent very strong language” (such as the word “c**t”) and “frequent use of strong language” (including “fuck”) alongside the “use of rude gestures.” There are also, it claims, “references made to cocaine and to ‘getting high,’” while “people are smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol throughout.”
Of course, for a band known — at least throughout the 1990s and early 2000s — for excessive swearing, drinking, smoking, a song literally called “Cigarettes and Alcohol” and lyrics including “Where were you while we were getting high” (from “Champagne Supernova”) it would be a shock if none of these elements had made it into the film. But in highlighting them, the BBFC has been accused of slapping “Oasisdefinitely” with “woke trigger warnings” by various British tabloid newspapers.
For the BBFC, however, it’s merely part of its “extended content advice” for films — guidance that it’s been doing since 2007 which it says it offers in order to give viewers more information when it comes to deciding what’s right for themselves and their families to watch.
But it’s not the first time the body has come under fire for offering such information. Last year, it sparked a minor fury — including from Piers Morgan — after a line in its guidance for “Wicked” alerted viewers to the film’s depiction of discrimination against a woman with green skin and the persecution of talking animals.
“Through our age ratings and content advice, the BBFC works to empower audiences to make informed viewing decisions. ‘Oasisdefinitely’ is rated 15 for very strong language,” said a BBFC spokesperson in a statement to Variety.
“We base all our age ratings and content advice on our Classification Guidelines, which are the result of large-scale consultation with the public — most recently involving 12,000 people — which are updated every four to five years to ensure they continue to reflect the expectations of U.K. audiences.”