BUTT OUT!

Last week I was talking to my 3AW Hollywood correspondent, Kristin Martin, about the latest Californian plans to curb smoking and cigarette advertising.

A number of American states are trying to stop actors smoking in movies.

And that’s rubbish.

Now, I banned smoking in my house in 1968. I loathe the habit. Haven’t personally smoked since I was fifteen. But how can you ban smoking in movies?

In this newfangled politically correct world shouldn’t you first ban murder in movies? Rape in movies? Police car crashes in movies?

And what next? I wrote about an awful rape in my first novel Death At Newport. Should that be banned? Should Nabikov’s Lolita be burned because of an ageing pervert’s lust for a child?

Last week a Brett Whiteley painting of his longhaired daughter’s naked bum in the shower was sold for nearly a million dollars. Should that have been banned?

Especially when one art critic likened the gushing water to an ejaculation.

I applaud the Australian Government’s latest moves to put graphic coloured health warnings on cigarette packets. Warnings showing the proof that cigarettes cause mouth diseases like oral cancer and loss of teeth and gum diseases.

Anything that turns teenagers off an addiction must be applauded. But to target books and movies and TV shows is nudging towards whacko-land. And a government intrusion into freedom of speech and freedom of expression.

It would be political correctness to the nth degree. And I believe that is wrong and the government should butt out.

Monday, September 1, 2003

©Copyright Derryn Hinch 2002