SOCIETY FOR PROMOTION OF COMMUNITY STANDARDS INC.
Media Law Journal – 11 September 2015: Article by Steve Price – Specialist in Media Law
A fascinating read …..Steven writes that although his article was written 10 years ago he is “inclined to think it’s relevant to the current debate about [the classification of] Into the River.”
Published in The Public Notices of The Dominion Post, Thursday 10 September 2015, B8
I hearby make this interim restriction order in respect of the publication Into the River.
I am satisfied that it is in the public interest to do so.
This order is made under section 49 of the Films, Videos, and Publication Classification Act 1993.
Family First has applied to review the current decision of the Classification Office in respect of the publication, It has made submissions in support of an additional application for an interim restriction order.
The order is in the public interest for the following reasons.
Pursuant to section 50(2) I direct that Family First must advertise the making of this Order in a daily newspaper published in each of the following cities: Auckland, Hamilton, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin. It must serve notice of the making of this Order on all those persons who made submissions to the Classification Office in respect of the reconsideration of Into the River.
Dr D.L. Mathieson QC, President of the Film and Literature Board of Review.
3 September 2015
[Title of book Into the River highlighted in Italics and underlined]
New Zealand’s censorship review board has slapped an interim ban on a book for the first time since the current law was passed 22 years ago, potentially igniting a new wave of restrictions on sexually explicit books.
The president of the Film and Literature Board of Review, Dr Don Mathieson, QC, has issued the Interim Restriction Order banning the sale or distribution of Auckland author Ted Dawe’s award-winning novel for teenagers Into the River until the full board can consider whether the book should be restricted.
Family First director Bob McCoskrie, who requested the review, said the interim order – the first affecting a book under the Films, Videos and Publications Classification Act 1993 – showed people could still use the censorship system.
“Hopefully we have set a precedent and people start bringing other books to the fore that they are concerned about.”
See full story published 7/09/15:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/books/news/article.cfm?c_id=134&objectid=11508895
Also see earlier story:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/news/article.cfm?c_id=1501119&objectid=11499271
“FILMS THAT SET OUT TO SHOCK AND OFFEND” NEW ZEALANDERS in 2002
Evening Post Editorial Comment on Anthony (Ant) Timpson’s now defunct Becks Incredible Film Festival [BIFF]. The last BIFF was staged in 2004. May it R.I. P.
Three Films were withdrawn from the [now defunct] BIFF in 2002, prompted by the actions of the Society for Promotion of Community Standards Inc: Baise Moi (a sexually explicit French Rape film), Visitor Q (featuring necrophilia, incest, gratuitous violence and rape) and Bully. Interim Restriction Orders were granted by the Film and Literature Board of Review and High Court (in case of Baise-Moi) so that the classifications could be reconsidered by the Board de novo.
“Public debates on censorship serve the useful purpose of refining and fleshing out public attitudes on important moral questions. But in a sense, the debate over censorship begs a very important question. Films such as Baise-Moi and Visitor Q (a Japanese film notable for an explicit sequence involving sex with a corpse) invite attention from morals campaigners because they highlight – even celebrate – violence, perversion and degradation. Their potential to shock and offend is unabashedly used as a selling point by organisers [such as BIFF Director Ant Timpson] of events such as the [now defunct] Beck’s Incredible Film Festival. Society might well ask whether it has lost its way when such festivals rely so heavily on films that focus relentlessly on the dark side of the human condition.” (Evening Post 23/05/2002)
Below: Complete Editorial Comment – The Evening Post, Wellington New Zealand. May 23, 2002
For background story see:
With the arrival of video-on-demand service Netflix and the replacement of adult DVDs with online porn, Nikki Macdonald – Stuff News (entertainment) – asks whether the censor’s office is more important than ever, or an expensive anachronism.
On a locked floor in central Wellington, staff are paid to watch porn and play video games.
When a vacancy comes up, the office is deluged with eager applicants. But the numbers rapidly dwindle when they’re set a work test. Few can stomach the censor’s daily diet of sex, horror, crime, cruelty and violence.
Behind the first examination door, Juliet* is classifying photos of pre-teen girls with pretty pink hair bows and exposed vaginas; next door Lucy is watching Japanese-style anime clips of explicit rape scenes with twisted messages; Henry is playing shoot-em-up video game Battlefield Hardline and in the adjoining office three senior censors are “having kittens” mulling whether to rate a German film featuring a graphic suicide scene as R16 or R18……
Chief censor Dr Andrew Jack argues censorship has never been more important, precisely because entertainment now comes in so many forms via so many different devices.
And there’s a growing recognition that, to some extent, you are what you watch.
“If I’m watching pornography that’s R18, there’s nothing wrong with that”, says Jack. “Except that if I [Dr Jack] watch large quantities of it it may be influencing the way I interact with real-life women. I think people perhaps are beginning to become more aware that you are the totality of your experience.”
For more go to:
Stuff: Story by Nikki MacDonald
http://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/film/66872326/is-censorship-dead-in-the-digital-age
*Censors’ names [e.g. “Juliet” have been changed to protect their safety.