Talk:Censorship in Australia
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During the great Sydney Film Festival debate on Ken Park of 2003, I heard on Radio National (I think) that Denmark has no censorship guidelines. I haven't been able to verify this (apart from noting the broad sale of pornographic material in unlikely places) but that would make the opening sentence incorrect! Anyone know this to be true??? I suspect they still must have some form of classification, and I find it odd they wouldn't restrict the sale of material that shows acts that would be illegal, such as paedophilea...
The article is mistaken in assuming that censorship has uniformly lessened in Australia. Censorship has actually increased significantly since the 1970's and many programs that would have been shown on broadcast television now could not be shown. It might be worth pointing out that of the five movies mentioned as being banned, at least two (Baise Moi and I Spit on Your Grave) were previously not banned - censorship is increasing.
It's a bit before my time, but I know Australia used to have another classification level — I think it was called AO? And I think it was instead of R? — which meant "restricted to over 21". It'd be good to see some info about that in the article. — Danc 11:59, 19 Jun 2004 (UTC)
- IIRC, AO was simply the old version of M, although it actually encompassed both M and MA. MA was introduced as a separate classification sometime in the Keating era. At any rate, it's really more of a change of name than a radically different scheme. Lacrimosus 23:48, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- Lacrimosus is right. I don't know what rating movies received that would now be rated R (I was only a kiddy when the system changed), but AO was roughly equivalent to M now. Ambivalenthysteria 13:47, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- If I recall correctly, AO (Adults Only) was a rating specific to television broadcasts. At that time there was also a 'C' rating for children's programming, and PG was PGR (Parental Guidance Recommended). Sometime in the late 80s/early 90s (?) the classification system for TV was adjusted to closer match the film guidelines. La hapalo 04:28, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)
- (on reflection, it's possible that AO was a historical film classification level; if so it was well before my time) La hapalo 04:28, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)
There was also an AO-Mod (Modified for TV). And a Spy V Spy song too, A.O. Mod. TV. Ver. or something like that. --Paul 30 June 2005 09:47 (UTC)
OFLC redirect
Just a note on the edit I made (bolding Office of Film and Literature Classification): Strictly speaking, Office of Film and Literature Classification doesn't redirect here. It is a disambig, between Office of Film and Literature Classification (Australia) (which DOES redirect here) and its NZ counterpart. I have seen Australian Office of Film and Literature Classification linked from other sites so I will create that as a redirect to here as well. -- Chuq 02:26, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Cutting
Under little Johnny Howard censorship is skyrocketing. Australia is getting highly censored versions of films which is in many ways more evil than completely banning a film as people are generally ignorant to the fact that what they are seeing has been censored. I saw Kill Bill at a cinema in Japan, a country notorious for their censorship, and there were atleast three parts taken out of the Australian version. Also, I recently bought the Australian version of Commando on DVD and found that massive chunks had been taken out from the version released on VHS some 20 odd years ago. It's only getting worse.
- The differences between the Japanese version of Kill Bill and the US/International cut are actually more to do with the American rating system, and the fact that Japanese audiences (in the director's opinion) would be more receptive to violence. Although I don't have any proof (or knowledge of the film), I think it's likely that similar issues affected the Commando DVD release (I don't think many companies would bother to re-author a DVD for the Australian market, either to cut things out for us, or put them back in) La hapalo 04:40, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)
- Many companies do edit their films for australian audiences, as do computer game manufacturers.
Needs work
I tried to fix up the page but it still needs work, it incorrectly stated that the OFLC was responsible for Television, and had a horrible mishmash of OFLC ratings up against TV timezones and television shows against OFLC guidelines.
Bleeped words?
Does anyone know if there is an official reference to which words are "bleeped" on television? Or otherwise know which words are currently bleeped? -- Barrylb 15:05, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
Choice of examples
The examples of the M rating are all american pg-13 movies, but the M rating extends into the lower end of R and even 1 NC-17 movie (Henry and June). This means that the examples are potentially misleading as to the breadth of the M rating.