I’m working up an idea for a new TV series at the moment about censorship. Still early days but i’m keen to connect up the current debates about censorshop — particularly the proposal for a national internet filter and sedition laws — with the history of cultural censorship in Australia.
I’m not planning on doing a tits and arse story or something with gratuitous shock value. I want to to explain and explore why, how and who Australia censors. I’m someone who has explored the topic for a while i’m still not entirely clear as to the precise process and raitonale for censorship in Australia. Makes me think it’s ripe terrain for a new series.
I also think it’s one of those areas where there is a great potential to connect up common threads from the theatre and visual arts with the mass media and with current events — which always appeals to me. It seems that nothing gets are from the ghetto of the arts section and onto the news pages quicker than a censorship related scandal or story.
I’m also interested in the tales of people who have been censored or have been at the centre of censorship scandals. I’ve got my head around the last decade or two but i’m interested in hearing from people with a bit of historical perspective or with suggestions for interesting tales.
Some artists clearly court censorship by pushing boundaries and adds to their notierity and boosts their careers. While in other cases (the famous Eugene Goosens saga springs to mind) an encounter with censored material — or even calls for censorship — can be enough to ruin someone’s career or forever marginalise someone.
At this stage, i’m bouncing concepts and ideas around before sitting down to sketch out how a series might work. I’d actively looking for examples and observations — interesting tales and stories — that might be good fodder for the show.
What do you think? Any ideas?
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I think this is a great idea Marcus, and although I don’t have an historical case study in front of me, it does seem that we are seeing a rise of conservatism within the context of censorship in this country. It seems clear to me that Australian politicians are very concerned with being seen to tow the line so to speak, when it comes to censorship, and most recently those political lines have been focused on children and also on the internet. For example, the Australia Council for the Arts have introduced a policy around children and art within their funding guidelines which could be construed as a form of censorship. According to their guidelines, they are “safeguard(ing) children from exploitation and harm.” But I also see many double standards arising at the same time, for example why are we so concerned about how children are portrayed in art, and less concerned about their exposure to violence through video games, and mainstream media? I do get the impression that policymakers and also the story hungry media in this country don’t seem to want to give the Australian people the leniency of making their own decisions about what is acceptable?
I always thought Anthony Larme’s visit to the Classification Board Offices was halfway between morbid and hilarious: http://groups.google.com/group/aus.censorship/msg/61efb05f61f412c6
It’s written like a trip to the CIA, but it sounds more like a bunch of confused bureaucrats were confronted by a Uni student…
Hey Marcus,
I’m not sure if this is any help, but I’m writing about SLAPP “Strategic litigation against public particpation) suits at the moment. They were massive in the US in the 80s, but have since been legislated against in most American states. I’ve been looking into their history in Australia – the trend caught on in the early 90s. Corporate censorship through abusing defamation laws, which were designed to protect people’s (ie human beings’) reputations, has all sorts of consequences for democracy and free speech. Anyway I think you know a couple of SLAPP defendants like Heidi Douglas.
Cheers
Liesel
I have personally been involved in a censorship scandal but you wouldn’t have heard about it on the news. Generally speaking “censorship scandals” in Australia are covered up to protect the guilty.
This is also a form of censorship.
Could be good. Got to start with the Oz Magazine guys. Talk to Richard Neville, ‘ The Futurist’. Famous cover Issue #6, February 1964, of ‘The Urinal’ artwork by Tom Bass. Those guys got hard labour for putting a zine together.
http://www.richardneville.com/Ozera/Aus_6/Oz_No6.html
The went on to a bigger and better obscenity trial in London in 1969.
Lots of fims and books censored, and some art like Piss Christ etc. Excellent topic in fact, and the challenge will be to see how much censored material you can show on free-to-air! It will be great to expose how much our perceptions change, and that things that were once scandalous are now normal. I suggest you pitch it to Channel Nine as a 20 to 1!!!
call Tamara Winikoff
Have you thought of looking at the classification systems for computer games in Australia. Games get banned from distribution in Australia quite frequently. This forces developers to retool the game for release here or more often than not just ignore this territory. This problem happens because the classification system hasn’t been updated for 20 years. So although the audience has gotten older and the themes more mature, the industry is still viewed as interactive CD-ROM’s from the early nineties. The AGDA has made a bit of noise to try to get games and movies to have the same classification system. But it’s an under 30′s entertainment medium at the mercy of over 40′s politics.
Marcus
Background reading … Max Harris & Geoff Dutton … Australia’s Censorship Crisis … a paperback from the 60s on Australia’s long list of banned books (provocative inclusion of ‘extracts’). You’ll probably also find a few issues of Media Information Australia helpful (you know, the media studies journal … they’ve run feature issue on this a few times over the last decade or so with good analysis of recent cases and policy) … might have to go to the libarary for that.
If you look at the Piss Christ case, be sure to also check out the Serrano portfolio that ran in one of the international art magazines & showed at a private Melbourne gallery at the same time. I recall picking up the art magazine in the Queelsland Art Gallery bookstore (no warining label, no shrink wrap) and being rather surprised by one image – “Red Pebbles” (a photograph of a naked woman fondling the erect penis of a small pony). Lots of fuss over a photograph that claimed to be an image of a crucifix in a jar of urine vs. barely a mention of the other.
Recall also the fuss over something as tame as Madonna’s Sex book. I remember seeing a nice moment when Richard Stubbs joked that it was a big heavy book that needed two hands to hold it open, so it must be art, not porn … you might find that as a nice bit of old TV footage.
My feeling is that while some areas have become more liberal … saying Fuck on TV, for example … while … newspapers still rarely print the word … other issues seem to have tightened up … for example the fuss last year over Henson & the subsequent Art Monthly cover.
If you feel like being really clever, you could go way back and look at the fact that until the 1710 copyright satute, copyright and censorship were combined under church law in the UK … so the issue isn’t just censorship by government, but control of knowledge and information … in fact, if you were to broaden your scope in this way, you’d have a really different kind of program, but one which might challenge the usual ways of thinking about the issues. On the history you might find a book by Saunders, Hunter & Williamson called On Censorship (a book that proudly notes that it contains not one single bit of censored material … yep, it can be done.)
good luck with it … Peter
I think this is a brilliant idea!! As Cash Brown alluded to, you no doubt may have heard that NAVA (T. Winikoff and gang) is currently publishing a censorship guide for release pretty soon. There’ll be lots of cases (including some of mine!!) to look through (pretty sure they’re cases based in Australia).
Considering the current enhancement of anti-terror laws etc and the child exploitation issue – a program like this would be ground-breaking! You have my support!
cheers, Van
Like #4 Bob Bain I too have been in the middle of a censorship scandal and exactly as he states – it never got out due to the guilty parties closing ranks.
The censorship (plus extortion and blatant falsification) was performed by a highly respected non-mainstream arts organisation that prides itself on openess to ideas – and resulted in the destruction of several careers of artists.
- censorship can leap out from under the most surprising rocks, in our circumstance years later we still can’t identify what was the mechanism or circumstance that triggered an irrational censorship response. Perhaps your research will reveal the underlying factors of how such events can occur.
These scandals also have quite an overlap with the problems of our anti whistle-blowing / keep your head down / dont rock the boat culture.
I’m happy to email you further details of our for your research if you wish.
Right now the ABC have a very rough proposal on the table and i’m waiting to see if they come back with enough interest to take it further. While that’s happening i am gently letting it rattle around in the back of my head before setting to the task of reasearching and writing a new series probably later in the year for production some time next year. If it happens, i’ll definately chase up all these leads in some depth.
I was on a panel last night at Sydney Uni Law Lounge discussing censorship for the verge festival. It was chaired by Philip
Adams – ABC who commented that he wished it was filmed as it would make a really great documentary
http://www.vergeartsfestival.com/Whats_On/VERGE_TALKS_Censorship.aspx?t=7&d=1902
The panelists were very interesting and it was good to get perspectives from PEN, theatre, law, television, literature and visual arts perspectives.
I hope you do get it off the ground, NAVA are in the process of creating guidelines for the visual arts sector for dealing with censorship, hence my suggestion you phone Tamara.
It is an important project as many creatives feel disempowered by the lack of readily available information on where they stand. It has to go way beyond the issue of art v porn too, as this is only a small, albeit popularly discussed aspect.