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Censorship: No! Labelling: Yes!

By Bob Ryan - posted Tuesday, 11 January 2011


(ii) the portrayal of persons in a demeaning manner.

It can be immediately seen that, with the possible exception of NCC (d)(1), all the above provisions run counter to the Millian principle of self-protection, as I will now demonstrate.

Dealing with the possible exception first, there is a law against inciting violence and those who do so, by whatever means, including arts-media, are charged and tried on matters of fact. No need for censors there. As for sexual violence and (d)(ii), this is only relevant where there is an unwilling victim, but the censors have no way of knowing that. The evidence, given by victims, to the (USA) Meese commission on pornography (1986) makes disturbing reading but those days are over; even so, from that evidence, the theme of pornography then was sex, not violence. As to sexual violence, one need only look at web sites such as collarme.com, alt.com phonehumiliation.com and hundreds of others, to understand that millions of people want to be sexually abused and demeaned. However, because nobody but the person concerned can be demeaned, it is no business of others if that person wishes to be demeaned and to be portrayed so.

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It is, perhaps, the provision of (d)(ii) that points up most clearly a hidden agenda. Censorship might be partly for self-protection but for the most part it appears to be for the protection of a set of standards to which those in authority aspire.

Mythical standards

Looking at community standards, there is the acceptance of a myth here that the “reasonable adult” is synonymous with whatever those standards are. Section 11(a) might just as well come right out and say, if you don’t agree with these standards, you are unreasonable. Former federal Attorney-General Daryl Williams took a different approach when he said:

the “reasonable adult” test acknowledges that individuals may have different personal tastes. In other words, although some reasonable adults may find the material offensive, and thus justify a restricted classification for it, others may not. They should be allowed to have access to the material if they wish.

The fact is, no government has ever had any idea what the standards are. (In discussions with Newspoll, I was advised that, to their knowledge, no survey had ever been done and such a survey would be complex and very expensive.) Donald McDonald’s immediate predecessor as chief censor, Des Clark, added weight to the myth when he said: “I am confident that the model of censorship we have in Australia does indeed make for a more decent society”. It is not known how Clark could come to this conclusion when there has never been a censorship-free period in Australia; so there is no way of knowing what the level of decency might have been without censorship. The best that can be said is censorship maintains the status quo of decency - whatever level that might be. So, it would seem, those of censorious bent have a target in mind; that of making Australians conform to some unspecified levels of morality, decency and propriety.

This has nothing to do with self-protection in the Millian sense; the same may be said of the rest of section 11. The quality, character and intended audience of arts-media are not matters of self-protection. Furthermore, the parenthetic “if any” in 11(b) indicates a degree of snobbery, especially as anything can be art. It is not for a few people to decide what is, and is not art; as Franny Moyle observed in her work, Desperate Romantics, “art was in the domain of the people now, and the people were its judge”. Many other art critics take the view that anything can be art, and yet, to paraphrase Moyle, a few of the old guard still try their hand at separating art from non-art - hence the law includes “if any” when requiring the Board to take “merit” into account. Clearly, the lawmakers have in mind something other than self-protection.

Lawmakers are the real censors

Decisions made by the Board must be seen in the light of the government’s guidelines for classifying arts-media materials. The Board is far from free to make up its own mind on controversial matters. It cannot lawfully act against the guidelines, as Maureen Shelley (Convener of the Review Board) confirmed when refusing to classify the movie, Ken Park. Thus, “guidelines” is a euphemism for “requirements” - the Board being required to act in a particular way. The guidelines state what shall be refused classification (RC) and the Board is bound to obey. Shelley’s chief objection to Ken Park was a 2-minute masturbation scene, which, she observed, the actor was enjoying. I fail to see what the actor’s enjoyment has to do with society’s self-protection, but the law believes it should interfere in such matters and so bans the showing of it. The movie, Baise Moi, the banning of which caused Bob Carr to refer to the bad old days, was first released and then its rating revoked because some people objected to it.

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Ken Park and Baise Moi are two examples of many more than a “very small number” of controversial movies, but they need not be controversial if, again using Mill, it is accepted that each individual is the best judge of his or her own interests. It is not sufficient, I would argue, that some scenes are too violent, or there is too much sex, to ban arts-media. Correct and detailed labelling, as suggested above, would spare those who object, the offence of viewing such scenes. (My personal gripe is against vomit scenes, but the NCC doesn’t protect me from them.) The fact is, those who object want movies banned or heavily restricted because they object to them - they set themselves up as their brothers’ and sisters’ keepers. There is no “generally acceptable” standard. Thus, controversy arises every time one side thinks something is released that should be banned and vice versa, banned but should be released. This is why former Attorney-General Daryl Williams was moved to say:

The issue of censorship [. . .] forms a significant part of the correspondence I receive as the responsible Minister.

These letters either upbraid me for not stemming the tide of distasteful films, videos and publications coming into the country, or chide me for not allowing people to make absolute choices about what they wish to read, hear and see.

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About the Author

Bob Ryan is a PhD candidate at Macquarie University; his thesis is on Censorship.

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Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

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