Horror and fantasy have, as a genre, always been a scapegoat for society’s ills. Think back to the Victorian Penny Dreadfuls, Frderic Wertham’s clampdown on the EC and Warren horror comics in the 50s, the video nasty debacle of the 80s.
Now, it seems, creators of horrific or disturbing images are under attack again. And this time, ordinary law-abiding citizens who are completely unaware that they’re doing anything wrong may be as well.
Jane Longhurst, a teacher from my home town of Reading, was murdered in 2003. Her killer, Graham Coutts had strangled her to death, and police later found out that he was a regular visitor to strangulation websites.
Jane’s mother Liz, appalled at how easy it was to access this material, started a petition to ban violent pornography. She quickly gathered 50,000 signatures, and the support of an army of MP’s, including my own, Rob Wilson.
That petition has now been mutated into the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill, set to go before Parliament next month. I’ve chosen the word “mutated” with care, as the bill now seems to have changed from a well-meaning attempt to protect us from the worst excesses of the internet, to becoming a direct assault on the makers of horror and horror fantasy images, the BDSM community and even readers of some magazines that you can easily pick up in WH Smiths.
Here’s the problem. I’m quoting section 64 of the Bill, sub-section 6:
“An “extreme image” is an image of any of the following ~
(a) an act which threatens or appears to threaten a person’s life,
(b) an act which results in or appears to result (or be likely to result) in serious injury to a person’s anus, breasts or genitals,
(c) an act which involves or appears to involve sexual interference with a human corpse,
(d) a person performing or appearing to perform an act of intercourse or oral sex with an animal, where (in each case) any such act, person or animal depicted in the image is or appears to be real.”
See the problem? It’s that little word “appears”. With that word in place, prosecuting officers using the Bill can make it mean whatever they want it to mean. There’s no distinction between the kind of nasty, abusive porn coming over the borders from Eastern Europe, and horror films like Hostel 2, or indeed the simulation of violent sexual activity that could be coming out of a consensual scenario between two lovers. Think back to the Spanner Case in the 80s, when a group of BDSM enthusiasts were imprisoned for acts that caused no-one but the group themselves any damage. All of a sudden, we’re on the brink of legalising governmental intrusion into areas of our lives in which they have no fucking business. (scuse the pun.)
The situation takes a surreal turn, however, when you take note of the material that will not be covered under the Bill. Anything certificated under the BBFC, for example. That august body is required to abide by the Obscene Publications Act, and as long as the material it sees does not breach those guidelines, it’s legal. So, going back to Hostel 2, for example, a movie that contains the kind of images that would appear to be a shoo-in for prosecution under the bill. It’s filled with images of pretty American girls being tortured and abused. It’s director, Eli Roth, is the poster boy for the horror sub-genre that lazy journalists are calling “torture porn” or “gorno.”
It’s 18 Certificated. Perfectly legal to own and watch. Indeed, the BBFC are increasingly relaxing the rules. Sue Clark, the BBFC’s press officer, has said in a recent interview with Bizarre Magazine,
“Our guidelines have changed, in line with public expectations. This time, we polled over 11,000 people across the UK to come up with the current guidelines. The public told us that adults should be able to choose their own entertainment, within reason and law, so we do not intervene at 18 certificate unless the work contains illegal material.”
So the BBFC says that adults should have more choice over the kinds of stuff they watch. The new Bill takes the opposite view, but those in charge seem to have little idea how that Bill would be policed or enforced.
One thing is made perfectly clear though. If found guilty, the maximum sentence would be “imprisonment for a term not exceeding three years, or an unlimited fine, or both.”
The question remains, then, as to who exactly the Bill will, through it’s own fuzzy definitions, affect. Certainly not film-makers who have the money and backing to get their films a BBFC certificate. No, rather, it’s independent film-makers, who distribute through the web using their own sites and resources like YouTube that need to watch out. It’s people whose sex lives are played out in front of a camera. It’s people with an interest in the darker side of the human psychspace.
In at least two out of those definitions, the Bill is aimed at people like me. And hundreds of thousands of people like me.
The Bill was born out of a genuine desire to bring something good out of an awful act. What is happening is not even the opposite. A bad situation is being made worse by bringing the law into an area where legislation already exists, or where it has no place.
There is a strong campaign against this bill already in place, and I urge you to visit Backlash and read up on the facts. The government is facing opposition from all kinds of unexpected directions, and this can only be a good thing. Get yourself heard, or run the risk of being silenced. Or worse.
EXCUSES AND HALF TRUTHS 