Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Dedication
- Introduction
- Part I Censorious Rigmarole and Legalistic Overkill
- Part II After the Deluge
- Part III Nineties Nightmares
- 7 ‘Not Suitable for Home Viewing’
- 8 Vicious Drivel and Lazy Sluts
- 9 Doing Harm
- 10 The Anatomy of a Newspaper Campaign: Crash
- 11 The Last Battle, or Why Makin' Whoopee! Matters
- Part IV New Millennium, New Beginning?
- Appendix: The DPP List of ‘Video Nasties’
- Bibliography
- Index
11 - The Last Battle, or Why Makin' Whoopee! Matters
from Part III - Nineties Nightmares
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Dedication
- Introduction
- Part I Censorious Rigmarole and Legalistic Overkill
- Part II After the Deluge
- Part III Nineties Nightmares
- 7 ‘Not Suitable for Home Viewing’
- 8 Vicious Drivel and Lazy Sluts
- 9 Doing Harm
- 10 The Anatomy of a Newspaper Campaign: Crash
- 11 The Last Battle, or Why Makin' Whoopee! Matters
- Part IV New Millennium, New Beginning?
- Appendix: The DPP List of ‘Video Nasties’
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The Blair government is … old, old Labour. With one exception, it has run away from every libertarian challenge. It is profoundly illiberal. As Home Secretary, Jack Straw always wanted to make clear early in the conversation that he was not a liberal. Nor is Tony Blair. Liberal is a word that crosses Blair's lips as infrequently as socialist. The third way he seeks between these terms is the only one available: reliably and fiercely conservative. Hugo Young, ‘Final Proof That Labour Is Not Liberal’, Guardian, 18 July 2002
In August 1999 the Video Appeals Committee (VAC), established under the Video Recordings Act, announced that seven videos which the British Board of Film Classification had refused to certificate at ‘R18’ (the licensed sex shop category) should be passed. These were Horny Catbabe, Nympho Nurse Nancy, TV Sex, Office Tart, the trailer for Carnival (international version), Wet Nurses 2 (continental version), and Miss Nude International (continental version).
However, on 28 September, BBFC President Andreas Whittam Smith and Director Robin Duvall announced they were seeking judicial review of the decision
because, in the Board's view, it is based on a definition of harm which is an incorrect interpretation of the Video Recordings Act. The VAC judgement, if allowed to stand, would have fundamental implications with regard to all the Board's decisions, including those turning upon questions of unacceptable levels of violence.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Film and Video Censorship in Modern Britain , pp. 129 - 158Publisher: Edinburgh University PressPrint publication year: 2011