This week I've been reading about censorship for my Information in Society paper. A lot of the week's reading has been about legislation and how censorship applies to libraries. However I sometimes get a bit sidetracked and follow links to interesting but not quite relevant topics. For example, today I found a timeline on the history of censorship for use by school students (in the Office of Film & Literature Classification website).
The fascinating fact (i.e. piece of trivia) I learned was this. When the film Ulysses was released in 1967 it was controversial, partly because of its sexual references but mostly because it contained one use of the word 'f**k'. So according to the website this is what happened when it reached New Zealand.
"The Chief Film Censor, screened it to two test audiences, one made up of church representatives (all men) and the other made up of married couples. While the first group recommended an R18 or Restricted to Film Societies classification, the second felt it could only be shown to segregated (split) audiences aged 18 years and over.
The Film Censor followed the second group's recommendation and men and women were separated during screenings. He stated that some of the dialogue in the film would cause embarrassment in 'mixed company'. In smaller theatres this meant a rope was put down the middle of the cinema. In larger theatres the aisle separated men and women, or one group sat upstairs and the other downstairs.
In 1972 the classification was changed to R18. Today the DVD of Ulysses is rated 'M: contains sex scenes'."
Attitudes have certainly changed since then. I wonder what affect this sort of publicity had on box office takings at the time.
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