A respected children’s media expert is lamenting that kids have been sacrificed to sleaze under New Zealand’s TV standards system. Ruth Zanker is a lecturer at Christchurch Polytechnic and a researcher who has specialised in children and the media. She has noted a change. “There is a general sexualising that has gone on with tabloidisation of media – sex is the easy way of making a hit and it boosts ratings. Children are being sacrificed on the altar of ratings,” she says. Zanker has noted an increasing level of sexuality creeping into early prime time as the TV networks chase ratings. It is a difficult time and parents are either unwilling or unable to police their kids’ viewing. Zanker says New Zealand’s broadcasting laws have created the problem. The Broadcasting Standards Authority acts on complaints. But few complain and the BSA has steered at freedom of speech rather the protection of children, she says.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10670696

[Article highlighted on website by Family First NZ - A well-respected charity registered with the Charities Commission. See www.familyfirst.org.nz and www.charities.govt.nz ]

Wellington lawyer Dr Mathieson is well qualified for this role. He is Queen’s Counsel and a former lecturer who currently works as a part-time Special Counsel to the Parliamentary Counsel Office.

“Mr Caisley is a founding partner of law firm Kiely Thomson Caisley. He has longstanding experience in theatre and arts organisations having served on the Council of Creative New Zealand, the Silo Theatre Board and as the founding Chair of New Theatre Initiative.

“Dr Simmons is Deputy Head of the Film, Television and Media department at the University of Auckland. He is fluent in Italian and is the author of many books, articles and other publications. Dr Simmons was awarded a Senior Fulbright Fellowship in 2002.

“All new members have been appointed for terms of three years.”

http://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/new+appointments+film+and+literature+board+review

The Board is an independent statutory appeal body with the role of reviewing classifications made by the Office of Film and Literature Classification. This includes films, video recordings, DVDs, books, magazines and computer material. 

More information on the Film and Literature Board of Review is available at www.dia.govt.nz

Source of Media Release:

http://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/new+appointments+film+and+literature+board+review

that films must be refused classification if they contain:

descriptions or depictions of child sexual abuse or any other exploitative or offensive descriptions or depictions involving a person who is, or appears to be, a child under 18 years; gratuitous, exploitative or offensive depictions of: … cruelty or real violence which are very detailed or which have a high impact; sexual violence,”  Richard Egan said. 

“The young captives in Salo who were sexually abused, raped, tortured and forced to eat excrement were portrayed as being under the age of 18.  One of the actors was only 17 when the film was made.”

The Classification Review Board decision to overturn the ban, like the Classification Board decision last month, was not unanimous.   Both boards claimed that the new Salo DVD’s inclusion of additional material explaining the film’s background would mitigate the impact on the viewer.

“This claim doesn’t make sense,” Richard Egan said.  “Even Salo supporters concede that additional material on a DVD usually goes unwatched – so it would not affect the extreme impact on the viewer of certain scenes in the film.”

The Review Board suggested that the consumer advice on the film – that it contains “scenes of torture and degradation, sexual violence and nudity” – would prevent viewers from seeing the DVD if they are likely to be offended by it.

“Offensiveness is not the issue,” Richard Egan said.  “This consumer advice could act as an inducement to paedophiles or others who take pleasure in viewing the extreme degradation of others.  Yesterday’s Review Board ruling has set a very dangerous precedent.”
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FamilyVoice Australia        www.fava.org.au
A Christian voice for families, faith and freedom

The video, for Derty Sesh’s second single, Forever, was pulled from YouTube by Move The Crowd Records this week, at the same time the censor’s office began a classification process for the video.

For more see NZPA Report:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/music/3542326/Derty-Sesh-exhausted-from-backlash

The video for rapper Derty Sesh’s second single, Forever, has been pulled from YouTube by Move The Crowd Records.

Interested parties, including Move the Crowd Records, Rape Prevention Education, the Society for the Promotion of Community Standards and the Department of Internal Affairs, were yesterday invited to make comments on the video.

They would be given two to three weeks to make comments before they were considered by the Censor’s Office and classified.

For more see: http://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/music/3533304/Graphic-hip-hop-video-taken-down

Ministry of Justice and Internal Affairs officials have been meeting key stakeholders and industry and government body officials during the past fortnight to gather submissions for a “tightly targeted review” of the current laws.

However, that scope may widen, given that the present act has been described as “unwieldy and expensive” and badly out of step with technology…

For more see article by James Croot. The Press 30 March 2010. Link below.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/digital-living/3525995/Time-to-reform-NZs-censorship-laws

As the Sunday Star-Times reported in the weekend: “An extended, online version of the video for Nathan King’s second single “Forever” depicts the rapper, who performs under the name “Dirty Sesh”, crouching over a bound woman with a knife to her head, before stabbing her in a frenzy and cutting out her organs. The clip, which features shots of mutilated women’s bodies and body parts, then segues into the television version of the video, which shows the rapper stalking a young couple in a park, dispatching the boyfriend, then driving the woman to a secluded hut. The television version ends with the woman screaming as the hooded rapper appears; in the online version, he assaults her.”

http://www.stuff.co.nz/sunday-star-times/news/3517368/Mike-Kings-son-in-horror-splatter-video-storm

The new American  movie Expelled – No Intelligence Allowed, directed by Nathan Frankowshi and hosted by Ben Stein, currently on its theatrical release in NZ, highlights a fundamental problem that is inherent in the NZ Science curriculum. In the section titled “Making sense of the Living world” careful analysis reveals that Neo Darwinist Theory  (i.e. Molecules-to-Man Evolution via natural selection) is the sole basis allowed for all scientific investigation. The other leading origins theory – Intelligent Design – doesn’t get a mention. Therefore students are being prevented from engaging in the controversial and exciting debate on the competing ideas about the origins of life. What they are receiving in their life sciences education amounts to a large dose of philosophical indoctrination into scientific naturalism – read atheism. God has indeed been “expelled” or censored out of the NZ  Science curriculum. Will our National Anthem of “God Defend New Zealand” be next to be ‘expelled’ from our ‘enlightened’ secular culture?

For more information on the film see: www.expelledthemovie.com

The position of Chief Censor of Film and Literature held currently by Bill Hastings, expires on 19 October 2009. He was appointed Deputy Chief Censor in December 1998, then became Acting Chief Censor and then Chief Censor on 18 October 1999. The Annual Report for 2008 (ending 30 June 2008) show that his annual gross salary for 2007/08 was between $210,000 and $220,000 while his deputy received between $160,000 and $170,000 (Combined $370,00 to $390,000). The Annual Report for 2007 (ending 30 June 2007) shows that McCully received between $180,000 and $190,000 and Hasting between $200,000 and $210,000 (Total combined remuneration of between $380,000 and $410,000). [See Sources listed below]. $420,000 (see headline) is obviously only an estimated (projected ) combined remunueration for both Censors for 2009/10, based on documented incremental increases.

The Minister of Internal Affairs. Hon. Nathan Guy, announced on 4 August 2009 that the Deputy Chief Censor of Film and Literature, Nicola J. McCully, had been reappointed to the role for a further three years commencing 1 August 2009. Her statutory position expired on 16 September 2008. The Deputy Chief Censor is appointed by the Governor-General on the recommendation of the Minister of Internal Affairs.  

“The reappointment of Ms McCully will retain her significant expertise in the area of censorship and will ensure the continued solid performance of the Office of Film and Literature Classification,” said Mr Guy.

Ms McCully was originally appointed as Deputy Chief Censor on 17th September 2002 on the recommendation of the former Minister of Internal Affairs, Hon. George Hawkins, with the concurrence of the Minister of Justice, Hon. Phil Goff, and the Minister of Womens Affairs, Hon. Laila Harre. The latest reappointment means she has been given a third three year term of office, one which expire on 2 August 2012. 

Prior to Ms McCully’s appointment, she had worked in the Classification Office for eight years which included her role as Classification Unit Manager and Senior Classification Officer. She was also previously an examiner for the Video Recordings Authority in 1994. Prior to that the only employment experience she had was working for one year with special needs children as a teacher aide, a job she got without any teacher qualifications (e.g. Dip. Tchg.) or specialist training certificate.

The “dirty job” commanding a gross salary of about $200,000 she and Bill appear to enjoy so much is described in an article available published on line by Sex Shops in New Zealand On Line (see below):

 http://www.sexshops.co.nz/

In a typical working week, Nicola McCully might watch a couple of dozen people having sex. Sometimes they might be doing this in twos or threes; other times, there’ll be a roomful, going at it like rabbits. Sometimes they might be going at it with rabbits. And if it’s not sex, it’s violence. McCuly looks on as people are murdered, tortured and maimed. Soft human bodies are set on fire, exploded by bombs, cut up and eaten. McCully might crunch her way through a tangy apple as a young man is slowly and gleefully decapitated. Other times a cup of tea might wet the whistle during a gruelling group rape scene. A gingernut with that? Sure, why not? It’s all in a day’s work for McCully, as New Zealand’s deputy chief censor.

For the last 10 years or so, she has spent her working week viewing all manner of distressing and depraved things to decide whether we can watch them as well.

Censorship. It’s a dirty job, and somebody has to do it. But who? What could possibly drive someone to be a censor? Not the money, that’s for sure. The salary for an experienced classification officer is less than $60,000. So why would someone voluntarily sit in a darkened room for days, months, years of their life, watching acts of extreme cruelty, harrowing sexual violence and the more repulsive ends of the porn spectrum?

McCully began her censorship career in 1994. After working in special education in Christchurch, she applied for a job at the Video Recordings Authority, an organisation that was amalgamated into the Classification Office that same year. A compact, quick-witted woman with a habit of getting straight to the point, McCully’s career choice means she has seen things no-one should have to see. She acknowledges that some aspects of her job have taken their toll emotionally. Certainly, her ready laugh is at odds with her sad eyes.

“Some days this work really is the pits. You see some incredibly horrible things. If there’s a court case concerning the sexual exploitation of young children, we spend weeks dealing with images that are genuinely grotesque. We’ve had computer hard drives submitted to us containing entire libraries of child pornography, with thousands of images and movie files that have been indexed and arranged like photo albums.”

Fortunately, cases as grim as this are relatively rare. 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” sections of video stores from North Cape to Bluff.

“Those tapes really are tedious,” she sighs. “You might have six hours of sex DVDs to classify, and you have to watch them from beginning to end. There’s no fast-forwarding, in case you miss a section where things are verbally or physically rough. The misogyny in these sex tapes is very depressing. There’s the underlying idea that women are only on this earth to satisfy men in whatever way those men want to be satisfied, no matter how painful or humiliating.”

Other Sources:

1. Nathan Guy’s Media Release: http://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/deputy+chief+censor+reappointed

2. Briefing for Incoming Minister Internal Affairs. Department of Internal Affairs June 2009, p. 58.

“An appointment process for the Deputy Chief Censor is underway and is in the final stages.”

3. Report of the Office of Film and Literature Classification for year ending 30 June 2008

Employee Remuneration p. 55. Also see Annual Report 2007, p. 70.

http://www.censorship.govt.nz/pdfword/Annual%20Report%202008.pdf