It’s time to get serious about censorship

By Tim Nicholls

There’s a strong force at work within our society. Its stealth has managed to sneak it into nearly every nook and cranny of our lives. It is cloaked in benevolence, but its effects are pernicious. It’s time to get serious about censorship.

Liberal-minded as I might be about this subject, I recognise that the most extreme examples of shocking art and programming are worthy of genuine debate (indeed, that’s what they are designed to do) and that children should be protected from high levels of violence. But that is not what I want to talk about here. What I want to address and highlight is the other extreme: the ridiculous examples of censorship that shield our eyes from ‘indecent’ visions, but as a consequence leave society less able to deal with the reality of life.

Censorship employs many guises. From official censorship boards and courts, to retailers and pressure groups preventing dissemination: each one has its role to play in this sorry saga. It also extends to outcry after the event (e.g. Jonathan Ross and Sachs-gate). They seek to protect society from immorality and, for this, they serve some purpose. But their reach has extended too far, insofar as far as it shields society from immorality that is simply not there. In doing so, it treats society as an unthinking child that cannot itself determine whether what it is seeing is ‘acceptable’ behaviour and leaves us even more exposed to the ‘evils’ it seeks to vanquish.

There are thousands of examples out there, but these few might go some way to highlighting the ridiculousness of modern censorship.

When David Cameron swore on radio, aside from being an unashamed attempt at appearing cool, there was some uproar. But by far the most idiotic of all the comments was from his assistant who, at first, tried to argue over the comparative severity of ‘twat’ and ‘pissed off’. A society that concentrates on this has clearly lost sight of the big picture.

Then the release of Lesbian Vampire Killers saw the word ‘lesbian’ blanked out on DVD cases in many retailers, for fear it might offend. A quick read of the blurb should have been more than enough to convince someone not buy this shameful piece of hackery, but I fail see the offence to be derived from the word ‘lesbian’.

And in the middle of the night, when Trafalgar Square was relatively empty, I fail to see the societal harm to be done by a man stripping off. Sure, I may not want to see it, but in a liberal and free society, that is not a good enough reason to stop something.

Further examples abound: airbrushing cigarettes from pictures of old celebrities; refusing to air an advert which showed a woman’s nipple; and refusing another that showed a second-long peck on the lips between two men. All of these, censored for fear they may corrupt our morals.

But what, I’m sure you are asking, is my real point?

It’s this: if these acts of censorship were actually doing anything to protect us they could be viewed more sympathetically, but they do not. Instead, they leave us unprepared for life, and they deepen the shock when something out of the ordinary does happen. Such trivial examples of censorship may seem relatively harmless, but when we accept them as the norm, we give licence to the censorship lobby and the courts to go further and ‘protect’ us from more, which will lead to a society scared of its own shadow.

Society does not need shielding from reality; in fact it cannot afford to be closeted away. And rebelling against these small examples is the first step that we, as a society, can serve to show those that seek to molly-coddle us that we choose to be tuned-in to life, to accept difference and to take diversity and change in our stride, to keep going forward.

And the Government’s first step? Reform our ridiculous indecency laws.

Man came out of the cave: don’t let us be dragged back in by people who are scared of life.