Censors and sensibility

“They want decent advice, but they want to make their own decisions.”

Politicians of Harradine and Fielding’s nature are, unfortunately, not uncommon in the Australian political sphere. Of their ilk is the Reverend Fred Nile. Nile, in his address to parliament after the Salò ban was repealed by the OFLC in 1993, said, “It was correctly banned by the Commonwealth Film and Literature Classification Board, which is not known for its rigid decisions” (again, a very relative statement: the opinion of this author would be that the OFLC was notorious for its rigid decisions). A decade later, Nile dobbed in the infamous Ken Park screening and in 2005 voted against a bill that would permit X-rated material in New South Wales. Nile, a member of the minor Christian Democratic Party, had an eight-year term in the New South Wales Legislative Council renewed in 2007.

“You’re always fighting on the edge,” Pomeranz concludes. “You don’t particularly want to be there, but you’ve got the start at the edge in case it moves closer to the centre.”

Back to Salò, and as the black text credits flash up on a pure white screen, it’s easy to forget that just viewing this picture in Australia could make one a criminal, even as citizens in the UK, US, France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland and a phalanx of others are able to watch it without fear of the wrath of a regime that makes a mockery of democracy.

Fascism, indeed.