Chief Censor hardly fussed if “his kids” were caught watching hard-core gay porn.
October 15, 2007 by SPCS
Filed under Censor, Family, Homosexuality, Pornography
“MR CLEAN: Chief Censor Bill Hastings on freedom, family and the filthiest thing he’s ever seen”.
This was the front page headline of Canvas Magazine, an insert in this weekend’s NZ Herald Herald (13/10/07), advertising a three page Cover Story entitled “The Taste Master” by Derek Cheng on “a man who daily wades through horrific scenes of [hard-core] pornography and violence – for the public good”.
The Society believes that most decent New Zealand parents who care for the moral well-being of their children and young persons would be appalled that our “openly gay” [see ref. 1] Chief Censor has admitted that “he can’t see himself kicking up much of a fuss” if he catches “his kids” with hard-core porn or hardcore gay porn “so long as the material is legal.” (Canvas, pp. 13-14. i.e. not banned. Note: illegal material has been banned).
Most parents with a sincere and informed concern for their child’s moral welfare are aware of the morally corrupting impact, and addictive nature of hardcore pornography classified R18 as well as other porn classified R16. They would be outraged, deeply grieved and offended to have their children socialising in another family’s home (like that of Hasting’s) where the supervising adults took the same lassez-faire attitude towards hardcore porn, as he has expressed. Most want their children to have nothing whatsoever to do with porn for good reason and want their children growing up with a healthy view of sex, not the morally corrosive garbage promoted in hardcore sex videos featuring promiscuity and unhealthy sexual practices (e.g. sodomy), regularly passed by Hastings for teenagers and young adults to watch.
Hastings first began censoring hardcore porn in New Zealand in 1988, about three years after he had emigrated here from Canada with his new wife of just over one week (he worked part-time for the Video Recordings Authority in 1988 and later became a member of the Indecent Publications Tribunal [1990-1994]). Cheng reports that Hastings left his wife, Loretta deSourdy, the mother of his three young children, after 12 years of marriage and after “coming out of the closet” as a gay man in 1997. Within six months of separation he moved in with Jeremy Baker his partner now of some ten years. They live together in a central Wellington apartment (ref. 4).
His many critics argue that after almost two decades of watching hard core porn – including seven and a half years as Chief Censor – he has become “desensitised” to the corrupting, and toxic impact of such degrading sexual material especially sexual violence. The evidence is based on the corrosive filth being disseminated for public home and cinema viewing, as a result of the liberal and seriously flawed decisions made by the Office of Film and Literature Classification that Hastings heads. The law is clear. Publications containing high levels of sexually degrading, demeaning and dehumanising content, must be banned or cut. Those that tend to promote or support activities such as necrophilia, child-porn, bestiality, sexual violence etc. must also be banned. Hastings agrees, but only in word – NOT practice. He always exploits what he calls the “wiggle room” in the law to clear sexually degrading films like Baise-Moi for cinema screening. He is almost always backed up by an even more liberal nine member Film and Literature Board of Review, when his Office’s classifications are challenged in a review process.
Hastings states “for the record” that he’s “not a fan of porn. That includes gay porn”. However, and for the record too, he gets plenty of opportunity to watch heaps of hard core gay porn in private or with colleagues as Chief Censor, at his work site, as his Office classifies numerous videos and DVDs for R18 releases – containing explicit, sordid and gratuitous scenes of sodomy, homosexual orgies and sexual fetishes that demean, degrade and dehumanise paid participants.
Hasting’s “openly lesbian” Deputy, Ms Nicola McCully, who has been viewing hardcore porn as a censor since 1994, also has wide access through her job to a similar range of explicit lesbian material that is regularly classified as R18 for home viewing. Both Hastings and McCully have expressed great enthusiasm to retain their jobs each time they come up for renewal every three years. Is there any wonder? They each command a salary of over $160,000 and $180,000 respectively and love the “dirty job”. McCully “estimates that about 80% of her team’s work is classifying the kind of sexually explicit DVDs that will end up in sex shops and the “adult” section of video stores from North Cape to Bluff” (see ref. 2). Hastings says: “My staff get a diet of the worst, which is not healthy! The vast majority of commercial submissions that come into this office are sexually explicit videos and DVDs. We also get lots of child porn…” (ref. 3)
Hasting’s gay partner Jeremy Barker, executive director of the Industry Training Federation, who appears in a large colour photo of “Home Life” in Canvas alongside Hasting’s “kids”, including 13-year old son Toby, is not quoted in the article in reference to his or Bill’s use of, or attitude to “gay porn”. Rather, Hastings – “Mr Clean” is the central focus of the Cheng’s article.
“His [Bill’s] own mind has been exposed to utter filth – mass orgies, limbs being severed, mass orgies while limbs are being severed, extremes most of us would never even imagine, let alone watch”, writes Cheng. “There was this necrophilia [sex with dead people]” Bill informs Cheng with “a kind of embarrassed cringe”, that he watched as part of his job as “Mr Clean” Censor – “it [the corpse] was actually fresh, before rigor mortis had set in, and that was quite disturbing”, said Hastings [emphasis added].
It might be fascinating to some that Bill can discern from the screen layout between “fresh” corpses and those that are more rigor mortisosed! Having watched the Japanese film Visitor Q which he passed for adult (R18) cinema viewing, complete with its lengthy scene of necrophilia, he has no doubt developed great skill in teasing out fine sexual nuances involving necrophilia and expressing them in forensic and legal minutiae. Such skill is required to justify such moral filth being sanctioned for public screening.
Canvas refers to a critic’s comment that videos aimed at heterosexual viewers that Hastings regularly passes, “involve multiple sexual penetration. There might be two men going at it flat out anally with a woman, and one from the front entry and another from the oral entry … They just pass by the censor’s office with hardly a blink.” Others passed by the censors for viewing depict violent acts of “oral sex” where women are “gagged” to a point where they pass into unconsciousness. Bill, having watched many snuff movies in the job, has skill in distinguishing such lapses by participants, from “real death”. “Good sex”, involving “consenting adults”, may well involve participants falling into unconsciousness following sex acts – that’s OK says Bill’s Office long as no coercion is detected.
Hastings claims he just seeks to apply the law correctly in the classification case and achieves this in almost every case. He insists that films containing “sexual violence or coercion, extreme violence, bestiality, necrophilia, urophilia (sex with urine) and coprophilia (sex with faces)” trigger an “automatic ban”. This is absolute rubbish says the Society. Hastings cleared the Japanese rape film Visitor Q for release at a Film Festival a few years ago, classifying it R18, despite the fact it contained a lengthy and gratuitous depictions of necrophilia, coprophilia and a brutal rape. The Society prevented the film from ever being screened in New Zealand by successfully seeking an interim restriction order and winning an appeal in the Court of Appeal dealing with its classification.
Hastings classified as R18 the French rape film Baise-Moi – banned in Australia – as suitable for a film festival in New Zealand, despite the fact it contained the most shockingly explicit depiction of rape and sodomy ever shown on film up to that time, in New Zealand. The Society was forced to appeal the classification all the way to the Court of Appeal, winning that appeal in a majority decision. Hastings cleared the way for more sexual violence to saturate NZ cinema by classifying the French rape film Irreversible as R18. His Office insisted in its classification decision that Victims of Rape who viewed the film have easy access in cinemas screening the film to the toll free numbers of Rape Crisis centres. The numbers of reported rapes and serious sexual offences against women continued to increase at an alarming rate following the screening of these rape films, Baise-Moi and Irreversible, both shown in all the main centres around the country.
The Society believes that Hastings has had his ability to continue to function in his statutory role as Chief Censor, seriously impaired through desensitisation to years of watching hardcore pornography and graphic sexual violence. He should have been asked by the Minister of Internal Affairs to find another job, a long time ago. On the 15th October 2003 Deputy First Leader Peter Brown, outraged at the decision by Hasting’s Office to sanction the public release of a number of gratuitous rape films for cinema screening, called in parliament for the Chief Censor and/or his deputy to be replaced by the Minister of Justice “in order to better reflect New Zealand Society” (ref. 5).
References
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“For me, the best thing about being gay is more about being out than being gay. Being out allows me to show everyone who wants to see that being openly gay will not stop you being the Chief Censor….” Bill Hastings GayNZ.com website News. AUG 2003.
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Watching the Defectives by Grant Smithies Sunday Star-Times August 13, 2006. “It’s a dirty job but someone’s got to do it”.
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Chief Censor Bill Hastings Feature Interview. Gay Express10 May 2006, pp. 12-13.
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“A decent proposal” by Chris Barton. NZ Herald October 7, 2006.
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Peter Brown MP also met with the Hon. George Hawkins in May 2002 to seek the Chief Censor’s removal on the grounds that he had “failed dismally to uphold the required standards of decency on behalf of the community”. Brown said that as former Mayor, Mr Hawkins would be aware of the dangers to communities of the “unchecked dissemination of unadulterated violence, sex and wanton destruction which has become the hallmark of the current censor’s approvals in recent times”.
[...] Chief Censor hardly fussed if “his kids” were caught watching hard-core gay porn. [...]
I totally disaggree with this article, I feel that if a parent feels that it is alright for his children to watch material of this standard, he should be allowed to without the condemnation of a group like yours. As long as he is not trying to influence the descisions made to uptight people such as yourselves, it is not right for you to make such hurtful remarks towards him. I firmly believe that Bill Hastings is one of the best Chief Censors this country has ever had, and I find people like you to be most upsetting. Furthermore, I do not aggree that the fact that Bill Hastings is gay means that his descisions will be biased. The liberty that he puts into his descisions towards censorship matters is something to be admired. If anything, the only descisions made by him I disaggree with are the heavy restrictions on movies such as Boise Moi, Visitor Q, and Irreversible, which I believe should be freely accessible to the public. Please stop slandering him, and stop trying to take away our liberty.
hae.. i think that hes the chief censor and so his word should be final yeh i dont really agree with the rating and not really into that kinda thing myself i feel that, that is no reason to sack him.. and as for the comment on his children i dont think any parent would let their children watch that kinda stuff anyways and its really no care to the society because if they dont want to watch it then dont and if they dont want their children to, then dont let them..
The Society states: ” He insists that films containing “sexual violence or coercion, extreme violence, bestiality, necrophilia, urophilia (sex with urine) and coprophilia (sex with faeces)” trigger an “automatic ban”. This is absolute rubbish says the Society. ”
For a group of people that seem to have a wealth of various impressive qualifications, you all seem awfully dim. I apologize if I sound insulting, but Mr Hastings is referring to actual events of bestiality, necrophilia etc. not fictional depictions. This is why a censor exists – to discern whether or not a publication is acceptable for public viewing. If you wish to view it go head. Likewise if you d not. Any of the above listed acts occurring for real is always, always, always automatically banned. There are no films featuring real sexual coercion, extreme violence, bestiality, necrophilia, urophilia (sex with urine) and coprophilia (sex with faeces ) for legal sale in NZ. Base-Moi, Irreversible and Visitor Q are FICTIONAL. Based on you train of logic, we would have to ban The Passion of the Christ. I believe the Society was directly responsible for Base-Moi getting a wider release than intended. It was a poorly made film and should have stayed as a festival screener only, as per the Censors original ruling. Well done.
Also snuff films are definitely not okay. You can’t kill people for real and expect to make a profit from it. You state: “Bill, having watched many snuff movies in the job, has skill in distinguishing such lapses by participants, from “real death” “. What a completely ridiculous statement. There is still no documentation that snuff films exist at all. Al Goldstein of Screw Magazine is still offering one million dollars to anyone with evidence of a real snuff film – no one has come forward yet. Bill Hastings has definitely never viewed a snuff film. I doubt that anyone in NZ has seen a snuff film. As far as anyone knows, snuff films are still an urban myth.
Rajeev, it appears that you clearly do not understand the censorship law, have misunderstood or deliberately misconstrued our statements, and your reasoning is very flawed.
The Films, Videos and Publications Classification Act (1993) ["the Act'] states: in s. 3(2):
“A publication shall be deemed to be objectionable for the purposes of the Act if the publication promotes or supports or tends to promote or support, – (a) the exploitation of children, …. (e) bestiality … etc.” [Six banned categories of activities are listed].
The Act DOES NOT state that an ACTUAL ACT of bestiality or real-life ACTUAL torture etc has to be contained in the content matter of the film before it can be banned. The publication only has to promote or support or tend to promote or support such activity, before it “shall be deemed to be objectionable”. The depiction can be merely a simulated presentation involving actors.
For example, the activity may involve a realistic model of an animal and an actor expressing sexual gratification as he performs acts of bestiality. The film may involve actors simulating acts of sexual violence against an adult realistically posing as a young person in a manner that tends to promote sexual expolitation of children. If so it “shall be demed objectionable” under s. 3(2) of the Act.
Under s 3(3) of the Act, a publication can be classified objectionable after consideration of, and “particular weight” .. “given to the extent and degree to which, and the manner in which, the publication – decribes, depicts, or otherwise deals with – ” [a range of listed activites including acts of torture, sexual violence etc.] Again the depiction(s) does not have to be of ACTUAL real events before a ban can be issued.
Unlike s. 3(2) where the presence of at least a tendency to promote or support the activity is a prerequisite for any ban, here in s. 3(3) this criterion is NOT a prerequisite except in the case of s. 3(3)(d) an activitt that “promotes or encourages criminal acts of terorism”.
We repeat and defend our statent you disagree with: “It is absolute rubbish” for the Chief Censor to assert that the presence [per se] of extreme violence… etc. (and other activities listed under s. 3(2), “trigger” an “AUTOMATIC ban” [Emphasis added]. Even if it is true, as you assert, that Mr Hatings was referring ONLY to “actual events of bestiality, necrophilia … not fictional depictions”, why did he not say so and furthermore, given that he meant it like this, he is still wrong.
Mere depiction of an event of torture or the infliction of extreme violence, DOES NOT “trigger an automatic ban”. There have been documentaries shown on television including footage from adult rated films, where blind-folded prisoners of war (eg. Vietnam War) have been executed by being shot in the head and others subjected to extreme suffering in concentration camps. Generally such depictions do not tend to promote or support such activities, but rather seek to expose the moral bankrupt nature of certain totalitarian regimes that carry out such dehumanising and degrading acts.
Only an “awfully dim” person (to use your words) and/or one morally bankrupt, would fail to understand why a film like Baise-Moi should have been banned under the Act. The Australian Censorship Board banned the film. According to you, Rajeev, they must all be dim-wits. In the UK the rape scene was cut as it was in a number of other jurisdictions.
How could a person be so dim-witted as to defend a lengthy SIMULATED and realistic depiction of sexual violence against a woman (rape and strangulation and sodomy), followed by simulated act of necrophilia by the rapist involving the human excrement of the victim, as depicted in the film Visitor Q, and argue that it should NOT constitute the publication “objectionable”? This is exactly the position taken by Bill Hastings and every member of our Film and Literature Board of Review and yourself!
The Chief Censor was delighted to clear Irreversible for adult viewing in the Incredible Film Festival. However, due to the Society’s Court appeals and successful injunction against the scheduled Festival film, it has never publicly screened in New Zealand.
You claim that the Chief Censor’s job is “to discern whether or not a publication is acceptable for public viewing”. Why have you not recognised that the job of his Office is to properly apply the censorship legislation as it was intended to be applied by parliament and act to ban publications that are “likely to be injurious to the public good” – e.g. ones that tend to promote or support sexual violence against women, the exploitation of young people, etc?
Rajeev, your claim that the Society’s “train of logic”, when applied to Mel Gibson’s highly successful film “Passion of the Christ” would necessitate it being banned, is manifestly bizarre and stupid (to put it bluntly). The depictions in the film of the infliction of “acts of torture, the infliction of serious physical harm, or acts of signifcant cruelty” – see s. 3[3][a][i] of the Act – , which we assume you are alluding to as problematic; were considered by neither our Chief Censor’s Office or Review Board to NOT be at a sufficiently high level, to necessitate or trigger a high rating (R18), let alone a ban.
The film was eventually classified, by the Board as R15, following a review initiated by the film’s NZ distributor. It had originally been classified R16 by the Chief Censor’s Office.
Considerations of the same content in The Passion under s. 3(2) of the Act – the deeming provisions – did NOT trigger a ban because censors found no content that promoted or supported extreme violence etc. On the contrary, they found that the Christian message of love, forgiveness and mercy, counterbalanced the depiction of historical violence an the element of “promotion and support” was absent.
You may choose to believe that the Society “was directly responsible for Baise-Moi getting a wider release than intended”. So what? The facts are ………
1. The Incredible Film Festival Organiser, Anthony Talbot Timpson, had very large cinemas booked out in Auckland for the film Baise-Moi and he pitched it as a festival highlight due to its “shock” factor.
2. The Society’s successful injunction issued by the Board and later by the High Court, prevented this offensive film ever being screened at the Incredible Film Festival.
3. If it had gone ahead, the sensation caused by its grossly offensive content would have created a gratuitous media firestorm, and been milked for all it was worth as a publicity stunt by the incredible Mr Timpson; even if the Society had not become involved in opposing it, highlighting its concerns, or eeking to ban it.
4. We have no doubts that if an application to the Chief Censor for a later mainline Cinema release of Baise-Moi by its distributor had been lodged, following its launching at the film festival, it would have been approved. What’s the evidence? Just examine how Bill Hastings dealt with the application for the rape film “Irreversible” to go into mainstream cinema, after its initial classification as a strictly limited to film festival event. After its restival run it was promptly reclassified by Hastings for mainstream cinema release. The rape film went nationwide and was promoted by Hastings in he media as an antidote against rape.
5. Ultimately, it was the action of the Board of Review that was directly responsible for Baise-Moi being available to a mainstrean (non-festival) a NZ-wide cinema chain. It proved to be a commercial flop compared to a film like The Passion which broke box office records world-wide for this category of flm.
6. The lucid NZ Herald film reviewer Peter Calder described Baise-Moi in very negative terms and felt it was somewhat ironical that the Society’s objections and stance against it, could well be vindicated once film-goers saw what he described as a putrid and crap film.
7. Calder was right. Many NZ film-goers expressed disgust at the “almost unwatchable” rape scene which they felt was “so realistic” that they felt they had been forced to watch an undergound hard-core porn/snuff movie.
8. Chief Censor Bill Hastings was advised by a number of Rape Crisis groups and the Director of STOP (Wellington) – an agency that seeks to rehabilitate male sex offenders – to either ban the film or make excisions to the rape scene including the prolonged depiction of actual penetration. He refused to heed their genuine concerns.
9. It is noteworthy that incidents of rape have gone up significantly over the years in NZ since Baise-Moi, its close relative Irreversible, and other sick movies in the same genre have screened throughout New Zealand.
Finally ….
The FVPC Act 1993 does not make a distinction between publications containing depictions of snuff film scenarios using actors simulating sexual offences, and publications containing depictions of ACTUAL real-time offences. The question as to whether the publication is objectionable under s 3(2) of the Act, turns of whether or not the depiction promotes or supports, or tends to promote or support the activity.
Of course, if the censors know as a fact, that the extreme sexual violence perpetrated against a woman, as depicted, is a record of ACTUAL violence rather than staged violence involving acting and consensual activity, then the matter would never be handed over to the police for investigation and charges may be laid under the Crimes Act.
Snuff films are being produced commercially world wide and there is a market for them, just as there is a lucrative market films and images involving the sexual abuse and torture of young children and infants. The police and Censorship compliance officers at the Department of Internal Affairs in New Zealand devote much of their work to prosecuting offenders who produce, trade and view such material involving children.
Well-documented media reports, many detailing trial evidence and successful convictions, show how young childen have been kidnapped by sexual preditors and paedophiles for the production of objectionable films involving torture, and sexual abuse and then disposed of (eg. the Belguim paedophile ring).
Bill Hastings has publicly stated he has once viewed a few of these computer images made by paedophiles as part of his job and was so traumatised that he refuses to look at any further images of this kind. In the light of such facts it is understandable why he may well have chosen to never view snuff movie type content but he has never stated this to be so. He has repeatedly told the media that he has to watch the very worst of the worst objectonable content from time to time, including all material that is banned (including snuff movies).
The Society has reported the magazine article you highlight, and its author, to Censorship Compliance (Welllington) for its offering one million dollars for evidence of a snuff movie. Such an irresponsible offer is tantamount to inciting a serious crime.
With respect, we suggest you, Rajeev, take the time to get properly informed about section 3 of the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification Act 1993.
Wow, you sure have an enthusiastic communications team. Well done.
You have obviously taken offense at being called dim. For this I sincerely apologize profusely. I was angered at your linking of Bill Hastings sexuality with his ability to do his job and I let it get the better of me. However, to infer that I am dim is not really acceptable as you are purporting to be an organization of some moral standing. Surely insulting someone who comments on your boards goes against these principles.
I will go and read section 3 of the Films, Videos and Publications Classifiacation Act 1993. Hopefully I will become as enlightened as all of you.
I still stand by all my statements.
I still do not understand what it is you regard as a “snuff” film. Is any film that depicts a person being killed? Wouldn’t that about 90 percent of all films? There is still not a shred of evidence that people have ever been killed on film for the sake of making profits. Documentaries and current affairs are not included in the category “snuff” film. If you have direct evidence of snuff films please let the police know immediately.
Rajeev, no such “offense” [sic] was taken at your comment that we seem to you to be “awfully dim” because we maintain that the rape film Baise-Moi should have been banned and call into question the application of the censorship Act by the Chief Censor’s Office and our Film Board.
It was obvious to us that you have not even read, let alone carefully studied s. 3 of the Act, and we are pleased that you say that you intend to now make an effort to read it. However, how on earth can you state that you “stand by all my statements” BEFORE you have even read the law? Surely an open-minded person, seeking the truth, would avoid such dogmatism and reserve a final judgment until you have at least read the law that applies to the matters you have passed judgment on!
‘Enlightenment’ is a wonderful thing. It enables liberals to call black white and white black. It empowers them to call films that are gorged full of sexually explicit and sadistic rape scenes, gratuitous violence, extended depictions of simulated necrophilia involving human excrement and sodomy etc etc…. as works of art – worthy of public screenings in mainline cinemas. It allows one to do massive flip flops without any explanation – as did the Chief Censor Bill Hastings, who declared Baise-Moi to be a film that broke EVERY prohibition in the Act, when interviewed live on Radio 95bFM in Auckland, and therefore had to be banned as he put it; and then six months later passed the film for viewing at a film festival. Does this qualify in your books as “awfully dim”? If not, please explain why you support his decision.
The definiton of a “snuff film” is well understood. Censorship compliance officers at the Department of Internal Affairs in Wellington will explain it to you if you ring them. One lengthy scene in Visitor Q which we have alluded to contains the vital elements a ’snuff movie’. with necrophilia and human excrement thrown in as a bonus. However, because it involves actors and not a real rape and subsequent murder, it cannot be a true snuff film which always involves ACTUAL rape/sexual abuse followed by ACTUAL murder.
Obviously a snuff movie is not “any film that depicts a person being killed”! This is a silly suggestion. A number of historical documentaries involve footage of people being burnt alive (Japanese in WW2), bodies ravaged by maggots, war prisoners being executed.
Despite your assertions to the contrary, there is irrefutable evidence that people – young children and women – have been killed on film for the sake of making profits. Have you not followed the reputable media reports on the activities of the Belgium paedophile rings in Europe and elsewhere who supply a lucrative market seeking such sexually exploitative material? WE wish your assertion was true that no such market exists, but sadly it does. Are you even interested in evidence? Or just in making unfounded assertions? We hope it is the former.
We have no intention to insult but rather to provoke CLEAR informed thinking that leads to the truth in such a vitally important area – involving the preservation of the “public good”.
Irrefutable evidence that snuff films exist? Why don’t you provide this evidence to the many sources that say they don’t exist then like snopes http://www.snopes.com/horrors/madmen/snuff.asp wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snuff_film straightdope http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1170/is-there-such-a-thing-as-a-snuff-film skeptical inquirer http://www.csicop.org/si/9905/snuff.html
Better yet, why not contact someone who can do something about it like the Belgium police or INTERPOL?
You won’t of course. People like you are always yelling they exist. When asked to prove it, you shrink in to the corner.
One thing is for sure, the chance that Bill Hastings has ever been asked to look at something no one else appears to have seen, not the FBI, not the NZ police nor any police force that has ever reported it, is slim to none
BTW, if you’d actually read the Act yourself, you’d know it doesn’t mention sodomy anywhere and ’sodomy’ (by which I presume you mean anal sex) is a perfectly legal sexual act, practiced by many people who don’t care about your judgement on their private lives