‘Violent Pornography’ in Film

Lucrezia Magazine
Written by FCK

I dislike the term ‘violent pornography’, because it suggests sadistic, abusive and brutal imagery that is exploitative and obscene in content. It ignores the fact that stills from a film can be easily misconstrued. Consequently, interpretation of an innocent representation could leave an individual guilty of possession. The government proposal states that “people who come into contact with pornography material by accident” will not be affected. However, it also states that “viewing images”, i.e. “downloading the information on to the computer” will render a user liable, if that information is deemed to be violent pornography.So the main issue here is clarity as to who the proposed law is aimed at, and who it is protecting? An argument for this law is that young children who have access to the internet can come across inappropriate images, but personally I think this simply highlights parents’ obligation to provide supervision. I agree that adult material with sexually explicit content should never be viewed by people under the age of 18, but innocent minds are not the only ones being controlled here. One claim goes: “These forms of violent and abusive pornography go far beyond what we allow to be shown in films or even sold in licensed sex shops in the UK, so they should not be available online either.” I disagree with this statement, as there have been many general release adult films produced for public viewing, including Wolf Creek, Hostel, James Bond: Casino Royale, Devil’s Rejects etc, that contain violent, abusive content of an artificial nature. Certainly these motion pictures are not designed for pornographic purposes; however, they do show extreme bloodshed and torture, with brutality and bondage of some kind. So the question remains, if a single frame was downloaded onto a computer from any of these mainstream films, and incorrectly labeled, would a person go through investigation, media attention, family shame and horrific invasion of privacy due to the misinterpretation of potential ‘violent pornographic material’?Furthermore, the government makes statements such as: “We do feel it necessary to provide some form of protection for the public. There is a responsibility to ‘reduce demand’ for this kind of material, both to protect those who were abused in its making and the public.” – this suggest that we the public need saving from ourselves. Adults are being treated as naïve idiots who need to be told what to look at and what to think. George Orwell’s 1984 comes to mind as a probable future for us.
Additionally, the terms ‘sexual violence’ and ‘extreme perversion’ are used regularly to justify the creation of the law, but I question this terminology. A dramatization or fantasy mock-up could be created with actors depicting a scene of rape, but the actors involved are playing a part and completely in control of the situation. If an image is captured from this sequence and then shown on the internet, we have another situation where misunderstanding could lead to investigation and prosecution. The problem when using the term ‘sexual violence’ in reference to a clip or image seen on the internet is that an investigation would have to prove that the people shown in the material were non-consenting.