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Increased censorship of violent films

ARGUMENTS FOR:

Cho Seung-hui, who shot 32 people at Virginia Tech, may have acted out a fantasy inspired partly by the violent South Korean film Oldboy. The Columbine High School killers re-enacted scenes from two other films - The Matrix and The Basketball Diaries. There is sufficient evidence that the imagination can be perverted, and that disturbed people are led to commit hideous crimes as a result.

Films featuring violence and sadistic pornography give people ideas they might not otherwise have.

Some film-makers recognise the danger themselves. Stanley Kubrick was persuaded that his 1971 film A Clockwork Orange might provoke copy-cat crime and withdrew it

The peculiar ability of film to inspire imitation is usually harmless, but in extreme circumstances is dangerous. Film-makers should have a sense of social responsibility.

The State has a duty to protect us from criminal violence, and this duty requires that it censors films which may provoke it.
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ARGUMENTS AGAINST:

There were violent killers and serial murderers long before cinema was invented. Religious maniacs draw inspiration from the Bible, Islamic terrorists from the Koran. Are these books to be censored or banned?

A few individual examples prove nothing. Vast numbers watch violent films without being harmfully affected.

It is society which has become more violent. Film reflects this reality. It does not create it.

The right to free expression is essential in a free country.

Censorship, once imposed, spreads insidiously. It is a short step from censoring films on account of violence to censoring opinions disapproved of by those in power. This is a dangerous path to embark on.

FIRST POSTED APRIL 20, 2007

News & Comment: News & Politics