Queer Cuts

Abstract

This article explores the new conservatism in Australia's censorship climate, specifically in relation to 'queer' cinema and film festivals. There is a distinct definitional clash between trends in 'queer' cinema and the Office of Film and Literature Classification's current understanding of 'the reasonable person'. After the controversy in 1993 over the unbanning of Pier Paolo Pasolini's Sato, the OFLC has privileged a preoccupation with 'community standards' (concerns about sexual violence and child abuse) over mitigating considerations about audience and artistic merit. This new conservatism has thrived in an atmosphere of growing complacency (in industry, media and politics) about censorship issues; in this way the 1980s can be seen to be a better decade for film culture than the 1990s. The circumstances of the banning of Tras El Cristal at the Mardi Gras Film Festival 1995 is contrasted with the banning and unbanning of Pixote at the Sydney Film Festival 1982. With the new censorship legislation to become law in 1996, there is a very real threat for 'queer' cinema and festivals in general.