Make War not Love?

A strange headline, and not something I would advocate, but this is the question that needs to be asked about Australia’s censorship system and what moral values it is seeking to uphold.

For years it has struck me as bizarre that in Australia a movie which is full of deliberate violence and killing can make it out in to the local video store, but a film with sexual content will get a rating which makes it’s distribution far more restrictive.

The Eros Association (Australia’s ‘adult industry’ lobby group) has highlighted this superbly today in their press release about the hanging of Saddam Hussein.

In the release, CEO Fiona Patten highlights that “under Australia’s current censorship system, the film depicting the hanging of the former Iraqi dictator would receive an R rating if submitted for classification and would then be available to adults in all states of Australia, through family outlets like suburban video libraries and petrol stations.”

”In stark contrast to this scenario, a film which showed no violence or non-consent of any kind but only actual scenes of adult sexuality was refused an R rating in a controversial decision by the Classification Review Board (CRB) last month. The CRB’s decisions and rationale for classifying the film, Viva Erotica, have just been released and it has stated that the film ‘would cause offence to a reasonable adult’ and therefore must carry the most restrictive X rating at a federal level and a ban in every state.”

Patten goes on to point out that the 1995 UK film called Executions which showed a series of real-life, state-sponsored executions, almost identical to the Saddam film, had been given an R Rating by the Classification Board which had set a precedent for these types of films. “The CRB is basically saying to the Australian public that the film of Saddam’s execution cannot be said to ‘cause offence to a reasonable adult’ while Viva Erotica can.”

“While not wanting to ban documentaries on any subject, films depicting real murders or executions and real or overly-intense simulated acts of violence, should be the most restricted films under the current censorship scheme. Currently this is not the case because films which show non-violent and actual sex acts between consenting adults are the most restricted and can draw fines and jail sentences for sale in all states.”

This seems like such a common sense statement to me that it is hardly worthy of a press release, but this is the situation we find in Australia. When it comes to moral outrage, surely senseless killing and violence should be the focus rather than a few people getting it on?

To me this is not about whether pornography is legal or not, it is all about priorities. In that regard I will leave the final words to Fiona Patten, since she expressed it so succinctly, when she concludes that the signals being sent by this system are “telling the Australian public to effectively ‘make war not love’ and … reinforce the notion within Australian youth that violence is somehow more acceptable or less offensive than consenting sexuality.”

Shane