Censorship is fun and Borders makes me feel like aHillbilly

Monday was a pretty fantastic teaching day. I took my first sole-charge field trip. I ventured out with 20 senior Media Studies students into the Wellington Censor’s office for the Censorship day event. It was exceedingly fun and educational. Fun-ucational? (Not as good a neologism as edutainment). We had a talk/lesson from Bill Hastings (one of the best speakers I have heard in a long time) about current censorship law. The students were briefed pretty thoroughly on the Films Videos and Publications Classification Act 1993 and then watched ‘the notorious Betty Page’. After a quick lunch break, they had to discuss and rate the film. Happily, my students came across as highly intelligent and dominated a large amount of the discussion (they got Chocolate fish for insightful answers – chocolate is a strong motivator it seems). The film was pretty good but it made for a fascinating discussion as it dealt with some nasty content delicately (implied but never actually shown child abuse and rape) and also had a lot of nudity and posing in bondage gear etc. Betty was so naïve that she didn’t view her posing as sexual, let alone sexually deviant, so much as harmless fun. The hypocrisy of the era with regard to censorship was also interesting. There was a brilliant quote about how pornography might be almost as big a threat to the nation as communism. The movie also went into a great deal of the fear that was had in those days about the effect of pornography on young, impressionable minds. It led to a lot of interesting issues about porn. The different perspectives based on the makers versus the audience, and female and male perceptions of pornography as well. It was fascinating to see how many issues have to be weighed up in giving a film a rating. Too many to go into in a brief post but we came out of the event with a 90% agreement that it should be an R16 which was what the censors gave it. Apparently, in more rural areas, they tend to be more conservative and the average ratings were more like R18. Bill Hastings referred to the Wellington session as a ‘hotbed of urban liberalism’. The day finished a little earlier than expected and we had about 30 minutes before our train left. I unleashed the kids on Lambton Quay and told them to meet me back at the train station. This left them free to hit McDonalds and BK, and me free to check out Borders. I’ve been to Borders in Christchurch and Auckland, so I had pretty high expectations. I was happy to see that Borders was suitably huge and packed full of lovely books. I question some of their categorising (Jilly Cooper in the Literature section? Really?) but drooled over several books that previously I had only found in Arty Bees and similar. I had interestingly been a part of a conversation up here about when you live in Kapiti, every time to visit Wellington it seems to have changed (a new bar, shop, restaurant or a place you like has closed down) and it can give you small-town syndrome by making you feel out of touch. STS also happens when someone talks about a new club/bar/restaurant and you don’t know it or even the place next to it. Sample dialogue Hip Urbanite: Have you been to ‘Swanky trendy place’ yet? Kapiti Hick: No, is it good? Hip Urbanite: Oh, it’s OK. Not as cheap/cool/random adjective as ‘other trendy place you have not heard of’ but it is better than ‘mystery bar x’. It is right next to ‘yet another cool hip place that you probably won’t ever get to before it closes down’ on Cuba St/Courtney place etc. Kapiti Hick: Oh. Sounds nice. (Or similar inane response) We joked about how we should fill up a mini-van of Kapiti Hicks and drive down and just be really loud and hillbillyish. We came up with hillbilly names. Matt was Matty-Lee-Dean and I was Debbie-Sue. However, this was meant to be a joke. I didn’t actually think I was at the stage of being impressed by inside toilets and running water. Borders, however, made me feel like a hillbilly. How was I to know that the large desk with computers and a Borders staff member standing behind it wasn’t a counter but an information desk. What the…? Why does a book shop need an information desk? Anyway, Debbie-Sue wandered over with her purdy book to pay for it with her money which she done earned with hard sweat and such, and then they done told her that they ain’t no counter but an in-foe-may-shon desk. Well, shucks, she had to scamper off to their big counter at the front of the store like a bobbycat with its tail done stuck between it legs.