Tuesday, July 26, 2011

It's the Board that's bad not the teacher

On its website the Classification Board offers the following advice if you have a complaint about a trailer you have seen at the cinema: “Please contact the cinema where you saw the trailer first to address your concerns. If you are not happy with their response, please contact us in writing”.
Having actually followed that advice, let me add some advice of my own: “Don’t bother”.
In a response to my complaint about the Bad Teacher trailer in a screening of Harry Potter 7.2, the Board’s classification branch advises “it is up to the cinema which trailers they screen with certain films” and “the board does not have any involvement in the content contained in trailers”. As long as it meets the “commensurate audience rule”, which the board defines as the classification of the advertised film must be the same or lower as the feature film, there are no restrictions on the content of the trailer.
Viewers actually have a right to complain to the Australian Communication Media Authority if promotions in television programs do not match the classification of classification of the program being viewed. There is the power to issue breaches and it is a power that the ACMA do exercise. Why aren’t cinema patrons offered the same rights?
A submission to the ACMA review seems appropriate.

Here is the Classification Board's full response:

Friday, July 15, 2011

Bad Teacher


Below is a letter I have sent to the Classification Board about the Bad Teacher trailer. Watch this space
I wish to draw your attention to the trailer for Bad Teacher which I saw during a screening of Harry Potter 7.2 in a cinema packed with young, some very young, people.
View trailer here
In two minutes 35 seconds they use the F word five times, plus the word cock, a teacher smokes a joint and says she wants to sit on the face of another teacher.
I contend that over the 92 minutes of the film this type of content might meet the meet the M classification which demands that “The content is moderate in impact” .
However, condensing what is probably the “worst” of the content into two and a half minutes has the result of a trailer that is simply not within the M guidelines. If that level of language was repeated over the full 90 minutes, viewers would hear the F word 180 times. Would that fit the “moderate impact” demanded of an M Classification? Clearly not. The content is strong and that by your own definition is MA.
I fully appreciate that the cinema complied with the regulations regarding trailers – Harry Potter is classified M as is Bad Teacher so there in nothing to stop the cinema from screening the trailer in question.
Surely, however, the Classification Board must ensure that the trailer, not just the film, meets the standards of the classification system. It seems to me that just as comedies often use the best of their jokes in their trailers, violent or rude movies also indulge in a selective use of content that results in the level of impact that is higher than the film viewed in its entirety.
The Classification Board is repeatedly issuing warnings to parents to consider not just the classification but the consumer advice when deciding on whether to take their children to see a particular film. Indeed Director of the Classification Board, Lesley O’Brien on July 4 issued a release reminding parents and advising that the consumer advice for Harry Potter 7.2 was Violence and Fantasy themes. I was comfortable with that for my teenage son. I was not comfortable with the content of the trailer which was neither violent nor fantasy.
Trailers need advertising prior to the classification of the movie but after classification is there any means of ensuring that the content of the trailer and that of the movie match? If there isn’t there should be. I consider this to be a loophole in the classification system that needs to be addressed.
I would appreciate a response