Page 1008 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 28 March 1990
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
goodies who only kill people when they have to. Unfortunately, they have to kill people about every five minutes in some very bizarre ways, including the use of a very large stapling machine. I hope that did not give Kevin Biro any ideas!
Meanwhile, in that film the nasties kill people about every four minutes, so that the total number of stabbings, staplings, shootings, drownings, decapitations, hangings, throttlings, bombings, booby-trappings and lethal car smashings - including one particularly horrific decapitation by glass - add up to the total annual road death toll in Australia on a holiday weekend. No-one dies peacefully in his or her sleep. And this is entertainment! To be fair, that film is mildly redeemed for a few minutes by the creative peace-loving, life-saving activities of a dog called Sam and a cat called Burbank.
Basically, I object to this film because of its obsession with violence as entertainment and its continuation of the glorification of the gun as a central element in law enforcement. Its values are in the gutter. It is far more objectionable in its effect on young people - and here I come to another point - than a soft core - not hard core - straightforward depiction in a documentary way of some elements of simulated sexual activities. Perhaps there should be a special category of rating other than R for this kind of film. How about "V" for violence?
I do believe that these kinds of film - Black Rain, which is on at the moment, the Rambo films, the Schwarzenegger films, with the exception of Twins - are violence for entertainment. They set terrible standards and they import the worst kinds of American values. However, on a day when we are seeing the honour paid to the film Born on the Fourth of July, I must recognise that some violent films perhaps do not deserve as harsh a category as they have received. For example, Full Metal Jacket, a Kubrick film, was rated R. That film, if anything, depicted violence in order to lead people to object to brutal methods of military training and the hideousness of some aspects of the Vietnam war.
In Full Metal Jacket, for example, there was a case for arguing that M might have been a better category. However, there was such objectionable language in the film that it got rated R. I wonder what is worse - some objectionable language, and we are quite used to that in this house; or the kind of hideousness of some of the violence shown. Similarly, in another of Kubrick's superb films, Clockwork Orange, there is a case for making use of simulated violence in order to make a case against violence. I think there ought to be a recognition that these kinds of violent films should be publicly shown for a very large audience.
Therefore, I do wish to endorse Ms Follett's motion which was foreshadowed, if I may say, last year. I have long felt this strongly about violent films. I very deeply regret that we spend so much money on these imported
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .