28th January 2008.
MPs press for ban on video nasty’, screamed the tabloid newspapers on Sunday, January 27. Were we in a time warp? Had a ‘Life on Mars’ glitch taken us back to those bad old early 80s days where everyone with a VHS copy of The Beast in Heat started worrying about police raids? No, yet again the people elected to supposedly govern the country are attempting to legislate on bad taste. Anyone with half a brain cell would realize that SS Experiment Camp, the DVD on sale in our high streets uncut causing this latest outrage, is nothing more than an amateur slice of tacky concentrated camp sleaze tricked out with that exploitation standby of real medical footage. In director Sergio Garrone’s quite rubbish 1976 glob of Gestapo gore a swishy Nazi commandant wants some new testicles and robs the hero of his. Cue the grainy sex change footage splice and the fabulous line “You bastard, what have you done with my balls!” If anyone of any nationality or religious persuasion takes that seriously they deserve to believe the ‘Based on Documented Fact’ credit too. For once the BBFC have my total support in their statement response - “There is nothing in this film that anyone should have any concerns about”. Good on the BBFC spokesperson quoted as saying “It is tasteless – but then I find most Mel Gibson films tasteless. We do not believe that anyone watching this title is going to become anti-semitic as a result. It is not going to create an attitude towards Jewish women that is harmful” And so say all of us. Personally I’d ban the Bridget Jones films because they have caused more binge-drinking ‘Heat’ magazine influenced hen parties to annoy me in central London at weekends!
Those who live in London would also have been astonished by mayor Ken Livinsgtone’s recent televised debate with mayoral candidate Boris Johnson. He said that youth crime and yob culture were a direct result of all the uncensored violent movies being released. Livingstone never had a chance of getting my vote anyway, but even if he had, this would have been the deal breaker. That anyone would still subscribe to such an outmoded, and always unsubstantiated, view is the real shocker here. Every report on the effects of cinema violence/EC Comics/TV/video games/song lyrics has been either put together by a biased moral majority group or failed to reach any proper conclusion. Because there is no basis in any fact at all and there never will be. It’s nonsense.
Once again the problems of our age are being conveniently shoveled towards any excuse but the real ones, the government’s total failure to tackle social issues on every level from knife crime to teen murder. Much easier to blame a 32 year-old Italian movie from the golden age of exploitation for what’s happening on our city streets. It’s pathetic and it just won’t wash anymore as a viable argument. Julian Brazier – Conservative MP for Canterbury - and Keith Vaz - Commons home affairs committee MP - the main voices of this latest moral panic (so note them well), should actually be looking at the sleaze and corruption in their own parties we keep reading about on a daily basis rather than a trashy and hilariously unconvincing Night Porter knock-off. What was the last film either of these two saw? Carry on Screaming? As usual those in high office have no idea what’s going on in the real world. Thanks to them SS Experiment Camp has now been given all the publicity it needs to sell well to people who would never heard about it otherwise. They never learn do they?
Until next time…
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