Let’s Review The Australian Classification Review Board, Shall We?

When trying to select movies to view, we are motivated by their content. A film’s plot, characters and setting, as well as information about its actors and directors, informs our desire to watch it. Secondary to that is the rating slapped on it by the Australian Classification Board.

The Australian Classification Review Board (there are differences between the two, but they have the same role) recently decided to ban a film more than 30 years after its release. Children’s Island (1980, Barnens ö in Swedish) focuses on an 11-year-old boy as he comes to terms with his sexual maturity. The justification for refusing classification – a dressed-up way of ‘banning’ – was a supposedly offensive three-second close-up of the boy’s penis. According to the Review Board, the scene features “the depiction of actual sexual activity of a minor and is not justified by context” – even though the whole film is about a boy undertaking sexual activity. (You can see the cached version of the Review Board’s decision here).

Basically, it was banned because a very small portion of the film (three seconds of 109 minutes) sort of, might have been, potentially, thought of as vaguely similar to child pornography.

The Review Board must have found those three seconds very offensive to go to this much effort. But banning it now, 30 years after its release, doesn’t do much. It doesn’t enhance our lives, make things easier, or change the presence of ‘real’ paedophiles.

It does, however, increase moral panic – especially when it comes to things like child pornography or exploitation. The decision brings back memories of the controversy surrounding Bill Henson’s photos from 2008. Both deal with ‘the line’ between art and pornography when it comes to naked children. And, like the Henson case, people spend all their time talking about whether the works should be banned, and no time looking at their artistry.

Watching, viewing or reading something with the knowledge that it has caused controversy can damage our view of it, devaluing the art itself. We should be able to watch films for their aesthetic and artistry, rather than with the influence of hyped-up criticism about explicit content.

It also seems classification bodies are able to pick and choose which films to ban, based on what they think will cause the biggest uproar. In 2003, a public screening of Telluride Film Festival-born Ken Park (originally produced in 2002) was shut down after a police invasion. The film was banned because it features scenes with actual sex, including fetishes. Yet little more than one year on, 9 Songs (2004), which also contains unsimulated sex, was given a rating of R18+ (not even X). This was after the Review Board noted its bondage and fetish scenes.

Like an overprotective parent stopping a little kid from going outside, classification bodies take away everything that has the potential to harm us. They also deprive us of simple pleasures that might actually improve our lives. When films like Children’s Island are banned for minor sections of explicit content, the Classification Review Board’s aim is to assume some sort of goodwill duty, to dictate to us what is and isn’t safe. What it should do is warn us when something might be found offensive, allowing us to make personal choices about whether to view it. That way, we can recognise the value in films as works of art – without the kerfuffle surrounding them.

We shouldn’t just blame classfication boards, though. Recent years have seen planned screenings of Deep Throat (1972) cancelled due to complaints, and it is said that Lars von Trier’s upcoming Nymphomaniac will be heavily edited for the Australian audience. To an extent, it feels like audiences have been trained to make a fuss about offensive things until they disappear. As a society we need to be more accepting of art that provokes us, but it’s tough when we don’t even get the chance to view it.

Nobody is being forced to watch films that make them uncomfortable. I certainly don’t want to watch every confronting film – my research for this article has led me to some very unhappy moments. And I have the freedom to avoid them, if I want. But those who genuinely love and appreciate the aesthetic of these films should at least have the option of viewing them legally. Those who want to overturn every dirty stone in the film garden should be free to do so, too. And that’s only going to happen if we allow films to circulate, even when they have the potential to offend.

The Classification Board and the Classification Review Board have their place. By providing ratings for films, they help us determine what might be potentially offensive or unsafe – after all, how do you explain violence or sex to children who’ve encountered them on a screen, if they don’t have the emotional maturity for it? People are offended for many different reasons, and these reasons are (almost) all valid. But if works are banned altogether, we don’t even get the option to be offended.

The Australian instinct to ban something that features naked people must baffle our European and American counterparts, who have been proudly creating and displaying what we might deem ‘X-rated’ artworks for centuries. Films praised overseas are pilloried in Australia for their filthy content. Children’s Island won the prestigious Guldbagge in its home country, and Ken Park was screened as a ‘Vision’ at Toronto International Film Festival.

Here, a different story.

Our individual decisions about what we watch are part of what we should love about having democratic rights and freedoms. We should have the right to access art, decide what we deem best for our personal viewing — and if after all that we’re still offended, we can easily express it.

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Michelle See-Tho is editor of Farrago, and a freelance writer and journalist. Her work has appeared in The Conversation, Kill Your Darlings, and Crikey. Follow her on Twitter at @stmischa