rec.arts.movies.past-films

The issue which motivated me to start this thread-- ., a right-wing
Christian group lobbying the Canadian government (currently controlled by
the equally right-wing Conservative Party, which is currently governing with
a parliamentary minority) to restrict or cut off funding to products of the
Canadian cultural industries deemed offensive-to-right-wing-Christians--
has, not surprisingly, engendered a good deal of media coverage in Canada
over the past few days. There was a great letter-to-the-editor in the
Toronto Globe and Mail (arguably the most influential paper in the country)
on Friday which read, in its entirety:

"In the old days, the Fascists burned books. The Tories will go one better
and see they're never published."

Following on that was a good editorial in Globe's Saturday's Globe and Mail,
a paper not noted for being a hotbed of liberalism (not by Canadian
standards, at any rate). It nicely summarizes the unease any free-thinking
consumer of culture must feel when confronted by these attempts to legislate
repression of artistic expression. It also appears that things have moved
much farther and faster in that direction than I feared. Perhaps those of
you have posted in this thread wondering what all the fuss is about will now
understand why the blood of people like me is running cold this week.

Anyway, here's that editorial, transcribed, and entitled:

"A Blinkered Tory Values Inspection"

"If the Canadian governemnt wished to turn Canadian televsion, film and
video productions into a safe and stagnant backwater, how would it go about
it? It would restrict its tax credits to those productions that meet some
vague notion of the public good, as perceived by the Canadian Heritage
Minister and a bunch of federal bureaucrats.

Yet that is just what the government is doing. The tax credits meant to
invigorate this country's slow-to-blossom television and film sectors will
soon bear this stamp: Content has been government-approved.

The Conservatives say they aren't censoring anyone with their changes to the
Income Tax Act, soon to be passed by the Senate. Artists will be free to
express themselves as they wish without government funding. That misses the
point. Those artists who have something to say that Heritage Minster Josee
Verner and some unaccountable bureaucrats in [the Ministry of] Justice and
[the Ministry of] Heritage find 'contrary to public policy' (as the new law
puts it, without elaboration) will be placed at a disadvantage by
government. Of course it's censorship. The government is sending artists it
doesn't like to the back of the bus.

Charles Mc Vety, an evangelist who heads the Canada Family Action Coalition,
claims he helped persuade the government to adopt this idea. 'It's fitting
with conservative values, and I think that's why Canadians voted for a
Conservative government'. Funny, the Conservatives he says he lobbied,
Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day (NB: Very scary, extremely conservative
born-again evangelical Christian who used to head the party before they were
elected to power--GMW), and Justice Minister Rob Nicholson (NB: Another
hardcore conservative-- GMW), don't seem to recall his raising the issue.
The new law may appeal to core Conservative voters, but it will alienate
potential Conservative voters who don't want the country led by social
dinosaurs.

Giving government censors power over tax credits has two major problems.
First, it works against the purpose of the tax credits, which is to support
the development of a vibrant television, film and video sector. New
productions may now either dry up or be designed to be politically correct.
Second, art is by its nature subversive, challenging, provoking,
aggravating, questioning. It's discomfiting to find that the government in
2008 thinks Canadians need to be protected from all that.

Would the committee have approved a Canadian version of 'Borat', the vicious
satire on anti-Semitism? Would someone decide that 'Juno', a movie about
teen pregnancy, might give teenagers ideas? Oh, to be a fly on the wall when
the bureaucrats discussed the public-policy ramifications of 'Young People
Fucking'.

The tax-credit regulations already require that the productions not be
pornographic. The government has not spelled out why more public-policy
vetting is needed. It was the Soviets who required that art serve the public
good. Democracies don't do that."
GMW