AFED #3: Cannibal Holocaust (Italy, 1980); Dir. Ruggero Deodato
A few weeks back I found myself sitting in a pub discussing Video Nasties: Moral Panic, Censorship & Videotape , a documentary released last year about the absurd furore that preceded the implementation of the Video Recordings Act in 1984. Having been only seven/eight years old at the time of the controversy it had largely passed me by and I was asked how I felt about the subject - and the censorship debate it sparked - retrospectively. Being something of a woolly liberal I instinctively adopt an anti-censorship stance. It's not that I disagree that there can ever be grounds for banning or censoring work, but rather in the vast majority of cases I fail to see what's actually being achieved. Provided that children are protected from extreme material - that responsibility surely lies squarely with the parents/guardians - then mature adults should be trusted to make their own decisions. Isn't that the basis of any democratic society? Yet the subject continues to gnaw a...