/ 18 October 1996

Appeal against banning of `depraved’ film

Max Gebhardt

AN appeal was lodged on Thursday with the Publications Appeal Board in Pretoria against the controversial banning of the movie Kids.

In his submission to the Appeal Board, Anant Singh, whose Videovision Entertainment owns the South African distribution rights to the film, stated that the banning by the censor board is unconstitutional and in conflict with the right to freedom of expression contained in the new Constitution.

But, so strongly did the censor board feel about the movie, that it even considered slapping an illegal possession rap on anyone found in possession of the movie.

According to the director of publications, the movie’s moral depravity and “lack of merit” resulted in the film being banned under the old (1974) Censorship Act. The new Act may have been more lenient, but has yet to be approved by Parliament.

The movie is about a day in the life of a gang of white teenagers in the Upper East Side of New York. It follows the life of Jenny who, having had one sexual encounter with an adolescent named Matelli, discovers that she is HIV-positive. Jenny spends a day desperately searching for Matelli in order to tell him about their condition. But Matelli is out taking the virginity of teenage girls, taking drugs, stealing alcohol and the like.

The censor board said the movie was just a vehicle for the portrayal of highly undesirable, immoral and harmful material. The board felt reasonable South Africans would demand the banning of the movie, as it portrayed decadent and immoral lives revolving around promiscuous sex, crude language, dirty talk and drugs. They felt the movie contained no redeeming features, moral message or remorse.

But reaction to the banning has been widespread, with many claiming that it represents a return to “apartheid-style censorship”. In addition, Singh has found an unlikely ally in the Society for Family Health (SFH), a non-governmental organisation dedicated to improving reproductive health in South Africa, which has written to the director of publications, Dr A Coetzee, urging him to reconsider the decision.

Director of SFH Mitchell Warren says in his letter that the film can do no harm. The only harm that can be done, he feels, is by not showing it.

“In Belgium, in fact, this film was used as part of a government Aids programme. Far from being without merit, it is vital that we expose realities and consequences [of teenage sex] and together search for a solution. Banning this film sets this process back,” he wrote.

“In fact, Kids’ greatest attribute is that it exposes the consequences of alcohol, drugs and sex,” Warren said.

In his submission to the Appeal Board, Singh asked it to overturn the banning and pass the movie with an age limit of 12.

Rather than being immoral, Singh said, the film is an “unremitting form of social realism and one of its central aims is, precisely, to expose and depict contemporary urban youth in confrontational terms by foregrounding issues such as Aids, adolescent sexuality, substance abuse and juvenile delinquency.”