Chocolate Jesus + Torture Porn = Censorship

by D.W. Kann

Why is it, I wonder, that the media can plaster a gruesome child rape and murder across the six o’clock nightly news but a production company can’t get away with a billboard depicting torture scenes from a new film entitled “Captivity?” No pun intended, but God forbid artist Cosimo Cavallaro depicts a nude Jesus made out of milk chocolate during Holy Week. He is offending Christians’ delicate sensibilities. Why is it that artists are persecuted for their craft while the rest of us become desensitized to the real atrocities of the world?

I read about the MPAA penalizing After Dark Films over their billboards in an article about “Torture Porn” printed in the online magazine The First Post in March 2007. The billboards were causing outrage among parents as they were driving their kids from school to soccer practice, probably while listening to the current death toll in Iraq over the radio. The MPAA pushed the rating review for “Captivity” one month, in essence deriding their May 18th release date for the film.

What the hell is going on?

We live in a world of instant gratification brought on by the internet. If you wanted to see the horrific decapitation of poor Daniel Pearl, you could find it in mere minutes. The same goes for the hanging of Saddam Hussein. For months on end, we sat in front of our televisions and listened about the prisoner abuse and torture that went on in Abu Ghraib. We were riveted by a cannibalistic serial killer, not to mention a pro-football player on trial for slaying his wife.

As a society, we have been tragically desensitized to the atrocities that take place on a daily basis. We don’t think twice about having the nightly news on while our two year old daughter sits a few feet from the television playing with her dolls. Yet, for some inexplicable reason, we must protest, picket, demonstrate, or moan and groan at the slightest provocation at the sight of a woman’s public hair in a film. It must be lost on the editing room floor or else! Why do we scream bloody murder (again, no pun intended) over a particularly gruesome killing scene that was born in some filmmaker’s imagination? It’s nothing but a concoction. A fantasy.

I am a parent as well as a filmmaker, lest you think I’m one or the other. Or worse, some fanatic who puts a paper bag over his daughter’s head whenever the television is on. Sometimes I wish I could. I plan on sheltering her from the wickedness of the world as long as humanly possible. However, I will never not take accountability for raising my child. It is my decision what she sees and does not see and no one else’s. I take responsibility unlike so many other parents who rely on outside sources to tell them what is suitable.

I have worked in the film industry for 18 years. I do not choose to make films about pink puppies frolicking among the daffodils or butterflies flitting over rainbows. No, my films certainly depict man’s darker side. Horror films have been around since the dawn of film. As long as they are here, so will be the desire to censor them. Such films as Cannibal Holocaust, Dawn of the Dead, Evil Dead, and Last House on Dead End Street were made on micro-budgets. These types of films are still being made today in the straight-to-video market. They aren’t so much as causing a peep. It is only because the major studios have stumbled upon an easy cash cow with the genre, resulting in the outcry of the public. The current watered-down versions of the films of yesteryear leave a bitter taste in my mouth.

Maybe it’s the sad reality that the more exposure a multi-million dollar production gets, the more people will bitch about it. After all, that’s what advertising gets you, I guess. What’s sadder still, is that filmmakers are actually conforming to the masses and the end product does nothing but suffer as a result. It’s a cruel irony.

So the next time you see a billboard that makes your blood boil, maybe you should simply explain to your child that it’s an ad for a movie, a fictitious movie and one that he or she will not be seeing. Take a minute to digest what’s going on in the world and realize that it's a hell of a lot scarier than any billboard or movie will ever be.