Nuts in Labour
Until now I haven’t said anything about Blairite MP Claire Curtis-Thomas‘ rather transparent attempt to raise her profile by campaigning for magazines such as FHM, Zoo, Nuts and Loaded to be moved to the top shelf by law.
As as with most bills of this type, the MP’s Regulation of Sale and Display of Sexually Explicit Material Bill is unlikely to to become law due to lack of Parlaimentary time, which is a large part of why I have ignored it up to now, but given some of the moral panic and sheer nonsense being generated around the subject, I thought I might as well chuck my two cents in.
Curtis-Thomas claims that lads mags, the adverts in the Sunday Sport and hardcore porn are all indistinguishable, that they objectify the women who appear in them and that the Government should take it upon itself to decide what can be read and by whom.
I have several problems with this line of argument. Firstly, it’s more than a little dishonest to try and pretend that all explicit material - regardless of how explict - is hard core porn and it would help no end if Claire Curtis-Thomas bothered to learn the difference between titillation, soft porn and hard porn.
Next is the ‘objectify women’ argument. There is some truth in this - although the extent to which anyone actually accepts these attitudes is very debateable. The same argument can also be applied to much of the advertising industry as well as many other forms of media - all of which are more prevalent than a set of magazines aimed at a limited demographic and none of which Curtis-Thomas has seen fit to complain about. It’s almost as if she has targetted the one group that isn’t funding New Labour, but I’m sure she couldn’t really be that cynical…
It’s also worth noting, of course, that the photos in these magazines are not paparazzi shots. They are photos legally taken by professional photographers of professional models. Do we really want the government to step in and arbitrarily decide who can and who cannot decide how they want to make a living.
Trying to suppress a view that you find objectionable is rank political cowardice and, ultimately self defeating. If people dislike these magazines they are, of course, fully entitled to criticise them and challenge their underlying assumptions - but this is something that can only be achieved through debate, not through censorship.
Wednesday 28 Jun 2006 | Paul | UK
Interesting. Most people think of censorship as something that is either-or, but in real life, there are varying degrees of censorship: After 11 pm, top shelf, not on public tv, etc. Something to think about, since I guess the slippery slope slips both ways.