2000-06-05
I've never quite understood the Ontario Film Review Board.
First of all, the name is deceitful. This is the Ontario Censor Board, in all but name. The politicians realized that the general public doesn't approve of censorship so instead of addressing the real issue they made a meaningless cosmetic change: Ontario Film Review Board.
Our society doesn't know what do to with free expression anymore. In principle, we all agree with it. In practice, we'd all love to censor anything we don't like.
A director named Ron Mann has made a documentary film about the history of our society's attitudes towards marijuana. The Ontario Film Review Board saw the film and, to put it mildly, had a fit. THIS FILM CANNOT BE SHOWN IN ONTARIO.
Why not? Does it show mutilation? Full frontal nudity? Urination? Masturbation? Surgery? What? What was so offensive that all of the people of Ontario MUST be protected from it?
Monkeys smoking pot.
That's right.
You see, about 30 years ago, the U.S. government conducted some research into marijuana and it's effects on various living beings. In one of their experiments, they strapped a bunch of chimpanzees into chairs and made them smoke some pot. They filmed this, those clever scientists! About 30 seconds of this footage is used in Grass.
There are also scenes of adults smoking marijuana in Grass.
That did not arouse the ire of the Ontario Censor---
Film Review Board. That is because no animals were abused in the
process of making those scenes. Hmmm.
You will have noticed that the footage in question was made by the U.S. government, not by the film-makers. So the censor board is saying, well, you can't show films of criminal activities.... er... just because they were made by someone else, even if it was the government??
Does this mean that archival war footage cannot be made into movies anymore? Just think: there is lots of film of soldiers getting killed in battle. Since we don't want soldiers to be killed in battle, no one should see those films. Or would you argue that killing people during war time is perfectly legal? But then, it was perfectly legal for the U.S. government to torture monkeys too.
This is not the only film by Ron Mann that has aroused, shall we say, the concern of the Censor Board. About twenty years ago, he made a film in which a poet heaped lavish praise upon the form and appearance of a female breast. That too was considered pernicious and dangerous for public consumption even though an actual breast was never shown.
I think the Ontario Film Censorship
Review Board is a little confused here.
I think they are going by their bad instincts. When they see a scene
that disturbs them, they try to find some reason to ban it. They
will tell you it breaks a certain rule or violates a certain community
standard. The truth is, they don't have any logic or rationale for
what they do. The truth is that, in the age of the internet, they
have become entirely irrelevant anyway. In a few years, people will
download movies from anywhere they want to, without the slightest
interference from censor boards or politicians. We're not very well
prepared for that coming world. We're shocked at monkeys smoking
pot.
What would they do with a scene of alligators eating their own young? Or of a cheetah taking down a young Reebok? Or a bull fight?