ejm duggan (ejmd@cwcom.net)
Mon, 19 Jul 1999 10:24:10 +0000
On Sun, 18 Jul 1999, AnonymeInc@webtv.net
(Mark Sullivan) wrote:
> As far as I can see from across the pond, the UK has
some odd glitches
> in its video bans.
Yes--but it's just to give the rest of Europe something to
laugh at.
> As I understand it Reservoir Dogs at least was, if
it's not still,
> banned,
What tends to happen is the press will amplify a shooting
incident
(still pretty rare over here, unless you count what goes on
in the north of Ireland (that phrase should ensure this post
is picked up by government spooks)) and the next video
release with a bit of gunplay tends to end up on the
moralists' sacrificial altar.
> but Man Bites Dog, a particularly nasty and graphic
(not criticisms) satiric
> pseudo-documentary of a serial killer, was
not.
I haven't seen this. I'll look out for it.
> The rationale? The latter was in black and white,
which meant it appealed
> to a more arty audience who were somehow more immune
to screen violence.
Indeed. The concern is really about *audiences* rather than
texts. A mass audience (or a working class audience, or a
young male audience) is more stringently policed than a
middle class audience. I realy really hope that the three
protestors arrested at the weekend for rolling around in a
field of GM rape plants claim that they were influenced
by
_The Archers_ (that's a middle-class, middle-brow radio soap,
broadcast daily on Radio 4 and may even be on BBC World
Service).
> Does this keep homegrown product, like the great,
extremely violent
> Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels from being
released on viddie?
No. Odd, innit? LS&TSB is available in a choice of video
covers (buy
'em all--collect the set).
> There was a good book from the late '80s called
Video Nasties about the
> then-current banning of a number of horror and/or
slasher films.
I think this might've been by Martin Barker. There's a new
contribution to the debate called _Ill Effects_ edited by
Martin Barker and Julian Petley, which is well worth a
read.
ED
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