JOHNNY: Julian, thank you for talking to www.allthingshorror.co.uk. Your name has featured in the news recently concerning proposals outlined in a Private Members Bill to give the government a tighter rein over the classification of films deemed fit for public viewing. Can you give me an exact outline of those proposals?

JULIAN: 1) To give the power of scrutiny for the appointment of the five principal officers of the BBFC to the Home Affairs Select Committee of the House of Commons. (That is the president, two vice presidents, director and deputy director). In each case the BBFC would be required to submit a short list of three names to the Committee, allowing it to interview each of them. The BBFC would then make the appointment but the Committee would have a veto.

2) To give a similar power of veto to the Home Affairs Select Committee over the BBFC’s guidelines.

3) At present only the industry can appeal against a ruling by the BBFC, either to restore cut material or to lower a classification. No appeal from anybody else is allowed. Clearly there have to be limits on appeals or there would be potentially vast numbers originating from a handful of objectors but the current system is completely unbalanced. The Bill proposes to introduce a power for an early day motion signed by 50 members of Parliament to trigger an appeal. The BBFC would be required to keep a list of volunteers from whom a jury of 12 should be selected by random selection to hear all appeals. (In Australia anyone can appeal)

4) There is no way of retrospectively changing a decision except at the BBFC’s own behest. The Bill would allow for retrospective rulings, again if triggered by an early day motion signed by 50 Members of Parliament.

5) Finally it will seek to find ways of enforcing BBFC rulings via outlets such as the internet which were not envisaged at the time of the Video Recording Act. (On this last point alone the measure has the BBFC’s support)

JOHNNY: SS Experiment Camp has been commented upon in press articles such as that published in the Sunday Express (27th January, 2008). The Times Online and Mediawatch-uk attributed the following statement on the film to you -

We live in a country where half of all males think forced sex is justified under some circumstances and it’s this kind of film that glamorises the torture of women…This film may have an 18 certificate but in practice, whatever its classification, it will rapidly find its way into the hands of under 18s –

Is this an accurate quotation, or is there a wider context of which I am unaware?

JULIAN: This is an accurate quotation (except that the survey related to young males not all males). Indeed, I would go further. The film doesn’t just glamorise the torture of women, it uses the hideous context of Dr Mengele’s pseudo-scientific experiments conducted during the Holocaust to provide an erotic backdrop for a film in which the torture of women is glamorised. This is dangerous in a country which has seen violent crime increase significantly in recent years – especially violence towards women.

JOHNNY: - This paints a rather grim view of the UK’s male population. What statistics are you drawing upon?

JULIAN: This comes from a very detailed study by Glasgow and North London universities for the Zero Tolerance charitable trust, which was a survey of 2,039 young people aged 14 to 21 in Glasgow, Manchester and Fife. This was reported in several papers including the Guardian. The figures are shocking. The findings were that half of all those surveyed had said ‘forced sex’ was acceptable in one set of circumstances or another.

http://www.zerotolerance.org.uk/upfiles/young%20peoples%20attitude%2085.pdf

JOHNNY: You have been an MP for some time, why has the issue of ‘censorship for the public good’ recently become an area of focus?

JULIAN: I first raised the issue in July 1997 in a 10 Minute Rule Bill, which attracted a lot of cross-party support. This year the opportunity has arisen to do something about it – only four or five MPs get the chance to have a Private Members’ Bill actually debated and analysed by Parliament each year.

JOHNNY: I think we’d all agree that there are some things better left unseen – the abuse of children, beheadings of civilians, which can be viewed easily by those who seek to.
In discussing these questions with a friend she made comment of a documentary she saw on TV when she was 11 years old. It showed news footage of ‘necklacings’ in South Africa and machete attacks resulting in the on-screen deaths of the people being filmed. She said it was the end of her innocence. Would your focus on film classification be better placed in guidelines for factual-based broadcasting – where real events ARE more graphic and shocking than fiction and children have more ready access to it?

JULIAN: That can be relevant too but not instead of other areas

JOHNNY: Recently, there was a film released called ‘Saw IV,' part of a series oft cited in the ‘gorenography’ debate. The opening weekend saw over four hundred thousand people attend screenings. That means that roughly one in every one hundred and sixteen people (over the age of eighteen) turned up to see it the very weekend of its release. If so many people are choosing to watch a film freely that contains strong, bloody violence, can your bill be truly expected to have substantial support?

JULIAN: This bill doesn’t seek to stop the showing of all things gory or horror-related. All it is trying to do is make sure the BBFC is properly accountable to Parliament and to the wider public. At the moment it operates basically at its own whim; if the bill gets passed, the BBFC will have to justify its guidelines before a committee of MPs and its decisions (if challenged) before a jury. The public is very concerned about mounting violence – a range of political leaders including David Cameron and the PM are starting to link it to this kind of influence.

JOHNNY: Could you be accused of ‘nanny knows best’ policies? Suppressing culture is a dangerous thing, lessons learned from Mao and current dealings with the Taliban can testify to that. I know it’s a moral and ethical debate, but is there really no better way of enforcing moral judgement and good citizenship?

JULIAN: I think this question should be taken in two parts. The first is that the Bill itself doesn’t impose a “nanny knows best” approach at all – quite the opposite; it allows for greater transparency in the processes of the BBFC and public involvement in their decision-making process. The wider question, however, is whether censorship of violent films and video games is valid at all, and whether wider availability of such media will have a negative effect on society.

The sheer amount of money companies invest in television advertising demonstrates the effect they believe television has on our actions. In September the Ministry of Justice published a research paper (research series 11/07) which concludes that there is “clear and consistent [evidence that] exposure to pornography puts one at increased risk for … committing sex offences… and accepting rape myths.” Preventing access to such videos is a positive step in the battle to combat violent crime.

JOHNNY: Tighter classification and outright banning of films – does this solve anything? If a child has no moral guidance, any stimulus could provoke an anti-social outcome. Do you think films like ‘SS Experiment Camp’ are directly responsible for youth violence today? Or, perhaps, is it a generation gone feral – left to raise itself in a harsh world?

JULIAN: There are many reasons why so many young people in the UK feel disconnected from the society around them and turn to violence, drugs or casual sex. Iain Duncan-Smith’s report “Breakdown Britain” made an excellent analysis of the pressures which have caused this societal collapse. I would highlight the disintegration of the nuclear family and the poverty of educational opportunity for those born into the most deprived areas. However, to disregard the effect of films, television and video games is to ignore a substantial amount of evidence – especially as this is something we actually can do something about.

Thanks again go to Julian for agreeing to be interviewed and to Marcus Walker who helped set it up.

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