There is pointless censorship all over the place, ranging from large mainstream movies to smaller less well known films. One of the most pointless instances of censorship I have ever come across is in the film Victim, which is a 1961 classic by Basil Dearden. This film was very controversial leading up to it's release, even being banned in the United States for a short period of time. The reason the film was banned and so controversial was because it was the first English language film to use the word homosexual. Yes that's right, the whole source of controversy that caused an entire country to ban this film was the word homosexual, and the use of this word even led to the main characters house being vandalized.

This is one of the most blatant and hysterical overreactions to some sort of touchy subject in the media. It wasn't even a homosexual theme or a scene depicted a homosexual act that caused the mass controversy, it was just a simple mention of the word homosexual. While this was back in the 1960's and the view on homosexuality was very different back then it is still mind boggling that Americans were so ignorant and afraid of the thought of homosexuality that they banned an entire movie due to one mention of it. They would probably have a heart attack now if they heard how prevalent the term "that's so gay" is in society today. The funniest part of this whole thing is that the extra attention the movie received with the initial ban caused a lot more publicity and success one the ban on the movie was lifted, so by attempting to ban this movie the US government instead ended up increasing its popularity.