Quote:Dear, Professor Barker

Last night I watched the wonderful documentary Video Nasties: Moral Panic, Censorship and Videotape, and felt I just had to write and thank you for your stance and bravery. At the time of the 'scare' I was an impressionable 14 year-old and while circulation of these films was not massive in my area of the country, I did see one or two - without any detrimental affect, I might add.

It was truly joyous to listen to your common sense, especially in the face of dangerous ex-politicians such as Graham Bright - a man who I feel should have been, at the very least, 'relieved of his duties' when the truth over how he brought about the VRA came to light. Let's not forget this man allowed innocent people to be imprisoned for doing nothing more than stocking films he and his cronies had decided they didn't like.

What's even more sickening about this man, is the way he now admits (without actually admitting) his motives at the time had nothing to do with the contents of these films. There were two stand-out examples of this mocking attitude during the documentary; one featuring the clip from 1983 in which he states that a survey currently underway into the effects of these films, will not only prove they're detrimental to children, but also to dogs. How he kept his face straight I will never know. There he was, openly mocking his own stance and beliefs, and no one even noticed. The second example came when he insisted that a compilation tape featuring offending scenes from a selection of these movies contained genuine murder and death. Despite this, he then explains how he and his colleagues joked about ordering some popcorn before settling down to watch the tape. In saying these things, he was either exposing himself for the charlatan he is, or admitting that he felt it perfectly appropriate to laugh and joke about so called 'snuff' movies. Not to mention, of course - as you yourself state during your summing up at the end of the doc - that these people care not a jot that all these films are now widely available, uncut, to anyone who wants them. I was very disappointed and frustrated that the makers of this documentary didn't grill Bright more thoroughly... bring him to task over the things he was saying and expose him for what he was.

Balance was restored somewhat, though, when the final word went to you - and what a summing up it was! You warn that during the next moral panic, all that went on during the nasties scare will be ignored and disregarded as 'the past'. Well, I fear we are quickly approaching such a state, and this time around Ofcom are the ones doing the shouting, with their constant harassment, goal-post moving, survey-fixing, double-standards, inconsistency and complete absence of logic concerning the free-to-air Adult Channels available on the Sky platform. They are currently doing exactly the same things to these channels, that Bright and his cronies did with the 70s slasher films, and they're not going to stop until they've run them out of business.

Once again, thank you for being the voice of so many people who otherwise would never be heard.

Yours sincerely

Quote:Dear

Many thanks for this email. It’s not the only one I’ve had after the documentary came out, and I have really appreciated every single one of them, I can promise you. To be quite honest, I didn’t have a single idea what Jake West was going to ask me, when he asked if he could interview me, and I certainly didn’t know how he would use me in the film – it was kind of scary and gratifying at the same time!

You are dead right that we are seeing the signs of a re-emergence of this kind of thing right now, and not just over the TV channels that you mention. The BBFC is increasingly running scared of the Daily Mail in its recent decisions to ban films like Grotesque, Human Centipede II (though it part relented on that) and A Serbian Film. It’s very clear from what I am hearing that they are doing this because they are scared of the press coverage of the rightwing press. (A kind of ‘If you can’t hack ‘em, smack ‘em’ attitude, I sense.) But there is also the general rising tide of scares over ‘sexualisation’, pornography and the like.

The only thing that is a bit different now is that I sense there are more people around who are willing to stand up and challenge the nonsense they serve up. I hope so anyway.

Thanks again for the message.

Martin

(26-11-2011 20:16 )Roquentin Wrote:  @Wanderer and followers of the Freedom of Information thread

Is this where we should discuss issues (no pun intended) from the thread? (move if you prefer)

First of all, many thanks for your work in making the requests to Ofcom, for posting all the information and in giving your take on it. Very insightful and I hope the thread continues. Presumably you would be happy if others joined in with whatever they might learn from a similar request.

It was interesting from the table they provide they only had two examples of complaints about the appearance of ejaculate from the babechannels (I assume that is what 'Adult Chat' refers to). One at night was not upheld and the other during the dayshows (??!), must've been quite a conversation!

(26-11-2011 20:16 )Roquentin Wrote:  It was interesting from the table they provide they only had two examples of complaints about the appearance of ejaculate from the babechannels (I assume that is what 'Adult Chat' refers to). One at night was not upheld and the other during the dayshows (??!)

(27-11-2011 01:10 )StanTheMan Wrote:  

(26-11-2011 20:16 )Roquentin Wrote:  It was interesting from the table they provide they only had two examples of complaints about the appearance of ejaculate from the babechannels (I assume that is what 'Adult Chat' refers to). One at night was not upheld and the other during the dayshows (??!)

I miss all the good shit! Seriously, ejaculate on a dayshow... never happened, did it.