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Censors and sensibility

By Julian Bodenmann - posted Thursday, 27 November 2008


“Banned in Australia for over seventeen years,” the theatrical poster to Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom cried, “now for the first time, Australian audiences have the opportunity to judge one of the most controversial films in the history of cinema”.

That was in 1993, when Italian arthouse director Pier Paolo Pasolini’s final film before his murder was unbanned by the Australian Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC). The film, an adaptation of the Marquis de Sade’s book The 120 Days of Sodom and a savage indictment of World War II-era Fascist Italy, was followed with an unbridled firestorm of controversy from politicians, religious groups and other public figures on its theatrical run. The Reverend Fred Nile took great pains to emphasise, both parliamentarily and publicly, the importance of an increasingly despotic censorship regime.

Then, in one of the most nauseating bipartisan coups against free-mindedness in Australia’s history, Queensland Labor Premier Wayne Goss agreed with Opposition leader Rob Borbidge with regards to the “outrage” that was an R18+ rated Salò, and he “urge[d] Queenslanders to stay away [from the re-released film] in droves”. A reclassification eventually came in 1998, after Judy Spence released a statement erroneously titled "Borbidge Must Act on Sex Film that Glorifies Pedophilia." The OFLC caved; the film was banned.

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The ’98 ban was confirmed five years later. In July 2008, the applicant “Shock” re-submitted it for classification. For a fourth time, Australian authorities banned Salò. Soon after, the film enjoyed a highly publicised and best-selling re-release by arthouse distributors Criterion in the United States.

It was a sobering sequence of events to see unfold - a picture that was widely available to most of the free world was prohibited by Australian authorities and damned to the recesses of cinephiliac memory. Since 1998, distributing, purchasing or even possessing a copy of Salò is an offence punishable by a jail term. The Australian Classification Board cites dozens of non-pornographic works, some legal a few hundred kilometres across the Tasman in New Zealand, with similar status.

At what point did democracy go wrong?

A statutory board that is secretariat to the Attorney-General’s department, known as the Classification Board and Classification Review Board, governs the Australian classification scheme. Before the ex-ABC chief Donald McDonald began his tenure at the dusk of the Howard era in 2008, the Board was known as the Australian Office of Film and Literature Classification. However their purposes as outlined by their website, remained the same despite the name change: “[to classify] films, computer games and publications, and also provide classifications to the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) on Internet content, advise enforcement agencies such as the police, and advise the Australian Customs Service.”

It’s worth noting that the Board’s title is at once a misleading one. At no point does it suggest that it serves, or even has the power to, censor and prohibit. The Board does so in a charlatanic, roundabout way through employment of the “RC”. An acronym for “Refused Classification”, films classified RC are prohibited for sale, free distribution, possession and even exhibition in Australia or any of its territories.

The national classification scheme the Board abides by is outlined by the National Classification Code, found within the Classification (Publications, Films and Computer Games) Act 1995 (Cth). The decade-old legislation encompasses video games, books and film: classifications G, PG, M, MA15+, R18+ and RC are administered Australia-wide.

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Pornographic films containing real, but non-fetishistic or non-violent, sex are classified X18+, but are restricted for over-the-counter sale in the Territories. The “no violence” rule has led to a number of unfair decisions. This is often confused in the public eye as being synonymous with “violent sex”, considered reprehensible generally, but this is not always the case. An example: two princes engage in a sword fight over a princess, one prince dies, the princess allows her prince to have his way with her. The sword fight automatically bans the film, irrespective of the severity of the violence.

Hardcore sexual activity is not permitted in R18+ classification, with the Board writing in their guidelines, “a general rule is: simulated, yes; the real thing, no”. Certainly films have been banned for contravening this guideline. The 1979 Penthouse co-production Caligula, which starred Peter O’Toole, 2007’s Best Actress Academy Award winner Dame Helen Mirren and Malcolm “A Clockwork Orange” McDowell in the title role, contained six minutes of hardcore sex inserts in its 156 minute running time. After a weeks-long run with an X18+ classification, the film was banned. A re-classification in 2003 confirmed its status as contraband. The ban took place because of the “sword fight” example - Caligula decapitates a dissenter, before attending a decadent Roman orgy later in the film. A version excised of 50 minutes (that’s five-zero, ten under a full hour) was released in Australia, while the uncut print was made available in the United States and much of Europe.

The banning of Ken Park in 2003 for “real sex involving minors” (though only one brief sequence was real, and the “minor” involved was 23 years of age) would forever be branded into the memories of Australian cinemagoers. Critics rebelled, and Margaret Pomeranz of ABC’s At the Movies had a protest screening shut down by police. Pomeranz succinctly described the situation by melancholically observing, “we are not allowed to see a film that millions of people around the world have seen.”

In spite of these examples, there have been too many “exceptions” to the aforesaid “general” rule to make it anything other than a platform to excrete repellent hypocrisies and film snobbery. György Pálfi’s sublime Hungarian feature Taxidermia, Nagisa Oshima’s transcendent In the Realm of the Senses, and Catherine Breillat’s shock-film zenith (or nadir, depending on which film school you subscribe to) Anatomy of Hell have all been classified R18+, despite containing hardcore sex varying from a few frames to a few minutes.

The differences between these films and the likes of Caligula are budget and “artistic merit” - In the Realm of the Senses comes trumps when placed against the former, although both are essentially sleaze-history opuses. It all depends on what the Board considers “legitimate”. Showing prostitutes servicing their clients in explicit detail in an exploitation film is far less permissible than the same thing in an arthouse one. And, according to the Classifications Act, In the Realm of the Senses contains enough real sex and unrelated graphic violence to warrant a ban in this country.

This illustrates not a need to tighten existing laws, but the need to bring Australia’s censorship regulations - suggested by some independent international bodies to be “amongst the most restrictive in the Western world” - up to a democratic standard.

It would be prudent to note that reforming these guidelines should obviously exclude any material where illegal activity takes place: “snuff” (a term used in the loosest possible way given these films are only purported to exist), child pornography and bestiality must be unconditionally prosecuted by all governments. It’s only motion pictures like Caligula, Salò and Ken Park that are in contention, given Australia is one of the only democratic Western nations to prohibit such material, on the grounds of what is essentially the perceived immaturity of their adults.

What has been crucial in this argument is the gross subjectivity of “artistic merit”, community standards and moral objection. The Board should rectify their guidelines so that their policy remains far more impersonal than this.

The government certainly hasn’t been averse to prosecuting those who they perceive to have tumbled down the imposed moral high ground. In 1991, Australian Customs took Rod Williams to court for mail-ordering “prohibited imports”. Customs had previously opened Williams’ parcels, but allowed them to be sent through. The straw the broke the camel’s back was a VHS copy of Zombie Holocaust (which may now be bought through any DVD retailer uncut). Of the seven films that Williams was prosecuted for, three have since been made available on DVD, and the remaining four do not have a listing on the Board of Classification’s website. Spurred by his prosecution, Williams now runs “The Chopping List”, one of the most comprehensive online sources for censorship in Australia.

“Any work of art that deliberately resulted from the non-consensual harm, abuse, or death of another person should be banned. The creators should also be prosecuted according to the usual laws,” Williams stresses. “Otherwise, anything goes. What could be more simple?”

Nigel Rennard, of Siren Visual, agrees. Siren Visual, one of Australia’s premier horror, cult and arthouse film distributors, have found themselves at the wrong end of the Board of Classification’s stick many times. “The question must be ‘What is the use or role of a body like the Board of Classification in the time of the internet?’” Rennard says. “Pope Kevin Rudd will, as a Christian conservative, keep the system going for appearances, continue to discriminate against the film and DVD distribution companies [and] waffle around while modern technology bypasses [the Board].”

Further incensing Rennard is the Board’s policy of banning films. “The Board acts on the receipt of a single complaint against a release, even thought that release may already have sold thousands of copies,” he explains. The reverse does not take place, with the Board of Classification reluctant to repeal “RC” decisions without overwhelming public support.

A measure of politicisation must be accounted for here: by and large, both the ALP and Liberals have been loath to allowing relaxation of censorship standards. One of the most significant nods towards anti-censorship came before Wayne Goss’ misguided and ill-informed anti-Salò diatribe, when he dissolved the Queensland Board of Classification and ousted the reactionary Gail Malone. Why Salò proved such anathema to Goss is a mystery, but the Australian political system has generally fostered such sentiment, paving the way for figures such as Brian Harradine to grasp power.

Harradine was one of the most damaging political figures the Australian cinema-going public has ever had to contend with. An independent senator for 30 years until 2005, Harradine’s socially conservative, parochial politics played a crucial role in Senate power plays. Margaret Pomeranz concurs, and bemoans the fact that Steve Fielding of Family First has essentially succeeded Harradine as the Senate’s moral crusader: “With all the years of Harradine holding the balance of power in the Senate, and holding the country to ransom in terms of his moral values,” Pomeranz says, “now we’ve got another one”.

Pomeranz is a prominent figure in the anti-censorship movement, and she is a committee member of the independent Australian organisation “Watch on Censorship”. She explains further, “I firmly believe adults in this country want to be treated as adults, and any suggestion that someone will make decisions for them is repugnant.

“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.

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About the Author

Julian Bodenmann is an avid filmgoer. He is a recent winner of the Cairns Post Post-Ed Senior Journalist of the Year award, Best Book Review of the Year.

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