...Alex,though, does makes a very valid point about the need for some kind of classification system in any civilized society...for example, I don't think anyone here would agree that material containing "snuff" images, or real-life rape, torture and child abuse etc should be made legally available in this country (at least I would hope not - Mark Kermode states the very good legal reasons behind James Ferman's re-framing of a particular scene in his introduction to 'Ai No Corrida').

As for disensitization, I have always had doubts about this argument...the more violence I see in film, the more disturbed I become by it. That may be because I am much-more experienced in the actual art of watching film, to the point where
my own finely-honed instincts alert me to what's going to keep me awake at night and what isn't.

Agreed Eggy. Alex does make valid points -- but I also agree with the views of Dennis Hopper and John Landis -- that if we are going to tackle the social ill of film violence with government (or quango) intervention, why stop there? Let's erradicate poverty and inequality too. Except that the latter two issues are too expensive, and the full horror of snuff movies (never actually proven to exist at all), is a much more emotive, and cheaper target...

Please don't think I have stoked up any anger on your account Dan; in fact, this thread has not made me angry in the least. I was merely defending my position.

When you write in answer to one of my posts that "This, on the face of it, is a perfectly rational argument. Then again..." and go on to discount a different post, thus: "To me, this is another plausible-sounding argument, which actually doesn't stand up to much scrutiny at all."... I don't think it is rash or pre-emptive to assume that in the latter, you refer to the former. All apologies, that this is my mistake... but it is one for which I hardly think I can be blamed.

Take care of yourselves... and each other

...indeed, Dan, the existence of snuff movies never has been proven, but the point is surely we would not wish to see such material freely available if it were (putting the very real nature of the social ills that you identify to one side).

On that subject, I seem to remember an urban myth surrounding The Driller Killer, that it got into so much bother with the censors and the DPP because of rumoured snuff footage, in particular the murder of the tramp?

quote:

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Originally posted by Mr.Moss:
Please don't think I have stoked up any anger on your account Dan; in fact, this thread has not made me angry in the least. I was merely defending my position.

When you write in answer to one of my posts that "This, on the face of it, is a perfectly rational argument. Then again..." and go on to discount a different post, thus: "To me, this is another plausible-sounding argument, which actually doesn't stand up to much scrutiny at all."... I don't think it is rash or pre-emptive to assume that in the latter, you refer to the former. All apologies, that this is my mistake... but it is one for which I hardly think I can be blamed.

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LOL! No worries, mate.

pretty heavy metal. not proven, but widely available (on the 'net) in a purely accidental form of course....

have you seen the one where the youngster gets knocked into the next mode of existence by a freewheeling freight train? it would be funny if it was not so hideously real. but now, thanks to the democratization that the internet offers, we can all "enjoy" it's degenerative brand of "fun and games".

so censorship, ultimately, is becoming more and redundant. I know it's "Oh so cool", and "liberal" to be able to think that the world would be a better place without censorship of any sort but somebody somewhere needs to strat worrying when sites like RapedBitch.Com flourish and Max Steiner continues to be able to promulgate his indefensible sadism.

Remeber, or know of, the Kilburn Killer Rapist? Duffy and Mulcahy. Clearly it must be understood that these were sick, wrong-headed individuals; but it must also be taken on board that Duffy was a woman hater who fuelled his perversion by watched hardcore porn... in reams! it doesn't take an Einstein to guage that most of this porn was sadomasochistic (at least when you know that in the build up to his series of atrocities his sex-play with his wife became increasingly violent, dominant and sadistic)...

and this sorry tale gives power to the claim by a leading expert (a claim aired recently on the Today show)... that paedophiles go, in a linear progression, from watching still images of child abuse, to moving images of the same, to the dire need to have perpetrate these crimes themselves.

So whether or not the images are fake, dissimulated -even obviously so- do we really want to encourage a situation where such media are allowed to be provided to the sick people who think they need them?

I don't think so.

Take care of yourselves... and each other

Paedophilia is illegal, regardless of whether a camera is used to record it. Murder is illegal, regardless of whether a camera is used to record it. Ergo, material depicting these acts in reality constitutes criminal evidence...witness the audio tapes of the Moors killings. Such material is already illegal, for the reasons that you accurately describe. How this fits into the censorship debate is difficult to pinpoint... Paedophilia is disgusting, but it is one of a range of issues in society (except that it is more emotive, more tabloid and vote-friendly). And I repeat: criminals and serial killers can consume Disney cartoons in a negative, deeply unhealthy way -- not just hardcore porn.

tedious anti-censorship argument.

It is blatantly obvious that the acts depicted in reality paedophile and murder footage are illegal, thereby precluding their availability. But that misses my point.

When you substantially blur the boundary between reality and fiction by melding all-too obviously real hardcore footage with dangerous and infective, violent scenarios you put sick people in danger.

To themselves. And more worryingly: to others.

Take care of yourselves... and each other

quote:

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Originally posted by Mr.Moss:
When you substantially blur the boundary between reality and fiction by melding all-too obviously real hardcore footage with dangerous and infective, violent scenarios you put sick people in danger. To themselves. And more worryingly: to others.

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Perfectly understood. But I rather sense you misunderstand (or, more to the point, are angry with) the "Marxist" argument I am advancing. I will state it a third and final time:

I am not disagreeing that the material you are discussing is thoroughly reprehensible and reptilian. I certainly would not choose to watch it. But I DO think that you obsess over it to the exclusion of other issues in our society, to which the government and its various satellites pay absolutely zero attention. This is hardly even a point about censorship at all; it is a matter of weighting and perspective... There are other social problems which ravage and hurt people daily and in their millions, to which successive governments have done strictly nothing to address. Think of poverty, the widening gap between the rich and the poor since the 1970s... Poverty is very real and it hurts/grinds people down. I find it surreally disproportionate (and a little bonkers) to fixate on films and videos in such a self-righteous fashion (not you - but the general temperature of moral panic), without addressing other equally valid issues in the same manner. It boils down to this: I would be happier about judgemental government control of visual entertainment, if the same zealous attention was paid to other equally damaging social issues.

Alex, the fact that you find anti censorship arguments "tedious" does not invalidate them. You have not addressed my points about the consumption of films - specifically, the fact that a person can watch anything in a perverse fashion, and have it "influence" him/her to act as madly as a brush. I remember watching Disney's Lost in the Desert in the mid 70s (at the age of ten), and leaving the cinema half crazed with fear. That same year, I watched Jaws in the cinema with my dad and just loved it. I was terrified by Born Free as a child. Consumption of films is like sexual orientation: we all have our kinks, preferences and dislikes. Different films affect different people in different ways.

well yes, you're quite right... to a pervert, the most innocent of things will be a corrupting and degrading influence. but surely we must be wary of things that are clearly designed to cater for the corrupt and which perpetrate degradation, blatantly.

Sorry I never got back to that bit about 'Death of the Author'. That's partly because when I tried to read it I got confused and my head started hurting. But I'll accept its meaning is what you say it is in precis. To which I'd respond that it seems somewhat absolutist; that the author is dead and the entire responsibility and dynamic rests with the reader...

I'm never comfortable with radical or extremist positions. Literary theory is something I am bound to know a lot less about than you, but I did read something that rather appealed to me recently that derives from Wolfgang Iser's phenomenological approach to the reading process. That recognizes that there is more than one force at play: for any given work, for it to be realized, there is both an author and a reader; the artistic and the esthetic. And it cannot exist without both. ...I am terrbly bad at trying to explain all this so I'll leave it to Iser...

'reading causes the literary work to unfold its inherently dynamic character'

...I guess my point is that there's no smoke without a fire: a deranged individual will "consume" texts in a deranged way but if the "dynamic character" of a text/(video) is that it causes derangement (and although admittedly and thankfully these are a scarce commodity) then isn't it right that they are suppressed?

Take care of yourselves... and each other

quote:

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read it I got confused and my head started hurting

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it, being 'Death of the Author'... not your post, which I found much more lucid.

Take care of yourselves... and each other

I think we are approaching a point of agreement Alex - which is great. And I agree about absolutist positions: Barthes was writing in the 50 and 60s, and the author debate has moved on a tad since then.

Boy, this forum is a lot more wordy than the 4-car one!

I think censorship is sadly still a good thing. It is just the barometer of the boundaries of public perception. Some of us are pushing against its constrictions while others think the world is dirty and rotten enough as it is.

The online anrchy that is the internet is stretching all sorts of boundaries and opening the doors of perception ever wider. This has good and bad consequences.

Art is never divisible from cluture so we must take responsibility for our art as well as our actions. I will defend a director's rights to plumb the depths of human depravity but when I reached a certain age I decided that I wanted to make the world to be a better place. Given the choice of watching "60 days in Sodom" or "Antz", i think i would go for the woody with an allen on the end of it.

Be nice.

Should certain rap artists be banned, in the light of increasing gun crime in the UK? His lordship David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, seems to think so, because apparently, some rap music makes guns seem "cool" as fashion accessories. Any ideas?

Hey Danno, guess what I'm gonna say

Banning records because of the rise in gun crime? Ridiculous, waste of time money and resources, for what is a stupid cause. Records don't kill people, for that matter guns don't kill people, its people that kill people. Perhaps if Blunkett et al were to look at people rather than art for all the crimes committed, then perhaps things might change....

Simon

Favourite Quote, "I like to watch" Chance the Gardner

I knew you were going to say that Wabbit... Intriguing parallel chat going on here:

http://forums.lowerdecks.com/index.php?act=ST&f=26&t=2722&s=252fc1c0c82222ba68ad3197e89e572d

Yep - I think the Home Office bleatings are typically naive and (again) they eschew real issues, such as unemployment, poverty, and of course the drugs trade...

Blaming is always easier than solving and socialists do love telling you what's wrong and what's right.

Every time i hear something by this government i now start asking:
"Why are they telling us this now?"
"What are they trying to make us feel?"
"What latest scheme are they preparing us for?"
"What are they trying to divert attention from?"

We all have a sneaking suspicion that gangster rap
gives a vary macho image of guns, but when the government *actually* says so, it immediately drives another wedge seperating society and fuels the voices of ingnorance and hatred (Daily mail readers).

Some truths are left unsaid for very good reasons.

When your girlfriends/wife asks you if they look their bum looks big in that dress, what use is the truth then?

quote:

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Originally posted by julz:
Blaming is always easier than solving and socialists do love telling you what's wrong and what's right...

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You are under the impression that this government consists of socialists? Wow... I suspect that Tony Benn would disagree with you...

I see your point!

I guess I was using the term in its loosest sense, describing those more keen on "fixing" society than making enough money to fund their bizzare sexual fantasies.

The mystery of government is not how it works, but how to make it stop.
PJ O'Rourke

quote:

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Every time i hear something by this government i now start asking

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...

Funny how the breaking news over North Korea's Nuclear intentions broke less than two weeks prior to the Greenlighting of the use of Fynningdales as a site in the American Strategic Defense Initiative. This decision was hastily aired on BBC News 24 and nothing more was said on the matter. Done Deal. End of Story. One of the most ideologically significant issues of recent times and it was capped, sealed and swept under the carpet quicker than you could say "Bob's Your Uncle!". I feel sick to admit of my nationality in a greater degree as each day passes and the worst is yet to come...

These people are making a very mockery of the theory and practice of a 'representative government'.

Take care of yourselves... and each other