Wednesday 8 July 2009

Anti-Antichrist

The Sun has run a piece criticising the new, liberal BBFC and its passing of Lars Von Trier's controversial new film "Antichrist" for a cinema release. It's a rather confused argument, claiming to speak for an outraged moral majority while proclaiming anti-censorship credentials in the same breath. A weird circular logic claims that as it is a "torture porn" film (a term coined by newspapers like the Sun to market horror films that has nothing to do with pornography) then the BBFCs assertion that it isn't porn can't be true. In the end, the gist of the argument seems to be that there needs to be a new certificate for films worse than your average 18. A 21 perhaps? A 40?

What's interesting here is the schism between the old, outraged tabloid press and a newspaper fully aware that a substantial part of its readership wants to see films like this, all in the same article. It's like watching them being dragged kicking and screaming into maturity right before your eyes.

3 comments:

meschi said...

you might be interested in this mate:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090819/ap_en_ot/eu_britain_horror_film

just a small link.

Ben said...

Yes, thanks! Someone mentioned this to me the other day, I really should write a short post about it

Ben said...

OK meschi, I've written a quick piece. More when I actually see the film!