Maarten Holl

Chief censor Andrew Jack.

OPINION: At last someone speaks sense about film censorship in this country.

Recent tension between on line television provider Lightbox and that self-serving body of bureaucrats known as the Film and Video Labelling Board has exposed something more than the impossibility of micromanaging broadcasting "standards" in the internet age.  

It has brought into greater focus a rort that has been going on for years.  

SUPPLIED

Stage Door star Katherine Hepburn.

The FVLB's insistence that they re-rate the same material for different formats, charging one fee for a film's theatrical classification, another for its VHS rating, a third for its DVD rating and now a fourth for its broadcast or on-line rating, is nothing but a waste of time and money, serving no purpose beyond keeping some Wellington do-gooders in cushy jobs.

Lightbox have taken advantage of a ruling which endorses the view that such repetition is unwarranted.

Quite reasonably, they argue that if a film or a television show has already been assessed once it need not be so again and that pedantic notes about levels of violence, language or content are so subjective to be next to meaningless, not to mention irrelevant in an era where the hardest core pornography can be accessed with a click or two of a mouse.  

What do these censors really think they are protecting us from? Do they toss and turn on cold winter nights, fretting over the distinction between "coarse language" and "offensive language" or whether a cartoon sock in the chops constitutes "low level" or "medium level" violence? What do these silly little designations even mean? Different things to different censors, I suspect.  

Given that we each have our own inherent tastes and standards it is a certainty that they mean something quite distinct to each member of the public.

A rugby player who is motivated in the changing room by a string of f-word invectives or an average lad who swears like a sailor to impress his mates in the play ground likely have different ideas about language than, say, a Mormon from Utah out here on his mission.

The notion that censorship notes are unambiguous messages sent and received as intended by a grateful viewership is simply garbage.

The idea that the population is desperate to be told what to think about movies or television by some self styled "experts" in the field is much more offensive than any combination of cuss words.

I've yet to meet anyone in this life whose opinion about the worthiness of cinema I would place higher than my own. Censors and censorship be damned.

One aspect of the issue that the Lightbox affair didn't touch on directly is how the FVLB and its obscene charges deny the New Zealand public access to perfectly innocuous material on DVD.  

A single example should serve to illustrate the point.

As a young, budding film buff I used to watch old Hollywood movies on television. One title I found particularly moving.

Stage Door is based on a stage play and tells the tale of a group of aspiring actresses who board together in New York. A bona fide classic, it co-stars Katharine Hepburn and Ginger Rogers.

As a 1937 film made under the industry censorship of the day there is nothing in Stage Door beyond a subtlety suggested suicide that should trouble anyone. I watched it at 4pm or thereabouts one afternoon in the early 1980s. The classification given it by the all-knowing FVLB for its VHS release is PG.

Despite the fact that the film has played many times since on New Zealand television, is intermittently posted on Youtube and can no doubt be illegally downloaded by those untroubled by copyright restrictions, Stage Door is unavailable on DVD in this country.

The FVLB feel it is of sufficient threat to the well being of the commonwealth that it cannot be officially released until they have given it a censorship rating for the digital format.  

Stage Door is not even the tip of the iceberg. Historic material dating from the silent era is particularly problematic for the FVLB as it tends to be packaged in large collections. Given they charge by the hour for their dubious services, it is not cost effective for distributors to put box sets through the system.

The country misses out not for reasons of morality but for reasons of process.

The obvious solution is to make all films made before 1960 exempt from censorship. It would not solve the wider, systemic problems with the FVLB but it would be a start.
 

 - Stuff