The urge to purge the culture of questionable content seems to be baked into Australia’s DNA. It’s sad that we in this country today have got to a stage where adults can’t choose whether or not to see a film like this.” A screening at the Balmain Town Hall was stopped by police as the opening credits rolled, prompting critic David Stratton to observe: “It is an explicit film, and it is a confronting film, but it’s a film that certainly deserves to be seen by an adult audience. Ken Park was originally scheduled as part of the 2003 Sydney Film Festival, but the Office of Film and Literature Classification (now known as the Australian Classification Board) handed down a ban, citing the work’s prolonged scenes of unsimulated sex. Meanwhile no less a critical light than Margaret Pomeranz championed a protest screening of director Larry Clark and writer Harmony Korine’s film Ken Park in 2003. New Zealand Oscar winner Peter Jackson’s first film, the 1987 homemade horror comedy Bad Taste, was only released uncut on DVD in 2005.
With hindsight, that youthful indiscretion is now a pretty funny story, but it’s also a useful yardstick for how Australia’s attitude to censorship has changed.Īustralia has form for banning the works of some quite notable filmmakers. When he surrendered his single, much-loved issue of Playboy, the cops realised that he was perhaps not the monstrous purveyor of horror and pornography they had expected to find. The tape never arrived, but two AFP officers did, and proceeded to grill him in front of his horrified mother as to what other disgusting media he might own. But then and now, both the Board and the Australian Federal Police took the importing of contraband media very seriously.Īn acquaintance of mine discovered just that when he tried to mail order a bootleg copy of the film on video back in 1988. In the cool, calm light of 2019 it seems ludicrous that a film like this, a gory but broad black comedy starring Dennis Hopper, a sequel to Hooper’s 1974 film of the same name, could be deemed unfit for the delicate sensibilities of Australian audiences. But for 20 years the film wasn’t even allowed in the country: it was banned by the Australian Classification Board, with the ban only being lifted in 2006. T obe Hooper’s 1986 film, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, was made available to stream on Stan on 9 February.
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