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December 8, 2004
The National Party in Australia meets the Prague Literary Review.the common ground is Pasolini's Salo 120 Days of Sodom.
What caused the banning of this film in 1976 in Australia.
Was it the depiction of fascism-cum-sadism to close too home? Was it the tough anger at capitalism's ever-increasing power? Was it the homosexuality? The abuse of power? Was it the horrible world of de Sade, where there is no place for compassion and an inversion of normal human values and exchanges? Was it the sexual violence? The use of pornographic elements.
Then Salo was unbanned in 1993.
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...then it was banned again in 1998. Don't leave that crucial detail out, as it bespeaks everything that's problematic about the censorship system in this country. So does the OFLC's handling of I Spit On Your Grave.
Interestingly, another attempt was made in March 2003 to have Salo unbanned again. It failed, although given that the then-membership of the OFLC was almost entirely replaced (except for overlord Des Clark) that May (one week after the Ken Park debacle took place), and given that the new board have been decidedly more liberal than the previous one, perhaps whoever tried to get it through should make another attempt. It'd be interesting to see if it made it through this time.
It's a shit film in any case, though.