Page 1007 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 28 March 1990
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Last year, roughly at the time of the discussion of the classification labels, there was a public discussion on Pru Goward's program with Mr Dickie, the Commonwealth's Chief Censor, in which we dealt with the film Batman, would you believe! Batman had a PG rating.
Mr Wood: A dreadful movie.
DR KINLOCH: Thank you for that comment. At that time there were complaints from parents - indeed, I had some direct complaints. For example, one mother took a small boy to see Batman because of all the publicity about the film, the labels, the costumes, and all those sorts of things. The little boy was very frightened because of the grotesque and often violent scenes in that film. And that film was rated PG; it was not even M, never mind R. I have no doubt at all that the standards seem to have slipped in the Film Censorship Board. Mr Dickie was somewhat apologetic about that one and said there were disagreements on the board. One hopes now that the board will move to a much greater concern about classifications of these films.
I would like to refer to the Assembly two films with a particular interest at the moment. One was on television within the last two weeks and the other has been around the traps this year. They both involve an Australian, Mel Gibson. Let us take Lethal Weapon, a film which was categorised M, and was on television very recently. The "lethal weapon" of the title describes Martin Riggs, one of the two main characters, in a very violent film directed by Richard Donner. Riggs is a somewhat crazy product of a specialist military training which makes him an expert marksman and killer. He puts his lethal talents to use in the Los Angeles police force in partnership with Roger Murtaugh, played by Danny Glover, who would prefer to continue to lead a relatively calm and preferably non-violent life.
If all one knew about the United States came from films about Los Angeles such as Lethal Weapon, one would be terrified to go there. Consider some other examples - the two Beverly Hills Cop films and Fifty-Two Pickup. Lethal Weapon is yet another example of a portrait of a city in which perverted violence seems to be around every street corner. Cars smash into each other, guns sprout like weeds, macho men destroy each other and the women who are their victims. In these films, as has already been suggested by Ms Follett, violence is accepted; violence is entertainment. It was with some reluctance that I commended Lethal Weapon to some people, especially for its subliminal messages of racial cooperation. But it is a great pity that so many of these imported American films glorify violence and the men who are trained to be lethal in order to maintain the law.
Lethal Weapon was a very great commercial success, one has to say, hence Lethal Weapon II, which is a super-violent, fast paced sequel to an earlier tale of that odd couple of the LA police force. Martin and Roger, the same two, are
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