This is a controversial story and the details are sketchy, but so far it seems like the Australian government has quite the bias against Zombies:

Bruce La Bruce’s gay Zombie porn film L.A. Zombie was set to feature as part of the Melbourne International Film Festival’s (MIFF) Night Shift program. That is until the Australian Classification board got the opportunity to view it and deemed it unsuitable for Exemption status, or ‘banned’ as it has been called by MIFF.

More details followed from the Australian press:

Festival director Richard Moore told the paper ‘’Bruce LaBruce’s blend of sex and violence can be confronting, but I would argue that within the context of the festival, it is nonsensical and patronising to not allow people to decide what they want to see.”

Crikey.com reported on the issue, saying that it believed it was a case of homophobia on the part of the classification Board who choose to censor gay porn horror films, but let the straight porn horror (such as Suicide Girls Must Die) to continue screening.

“Australia, you’re standing in it (it being a quagmire of hypocrisy and puritanical censorship laced with subtle homophobia),” said a Crikey.com writer.

Essentially, the way they ‘banned’ the film is this: a film can be shown with a formal rating, or with an exemption from the rating process. The rating process is complicated and time-consuming, thus if you deny the exemption close enough to a festival, you effectively ban it. It’s abuse of a legal loophole for censorship.

Censorship against ZOMBIES.

Everyone seems to be looking at this issue as an example of homophobia, but we at the ZRC suspect that, in fact, it is not hatred of gay people that drove this decision but distaste for Zombies, and in particular the taboos against even mentioning Zombie sexuality.

However, no matter how much Australia seeks to censor Zombies on film, the news and the facts will continue to get out. The ZRC officially calls upon the Australian Classification Board to reconsider this hateful decision and allow films depicting Zombies in non-traditional manner, ie not as victims of gun-toting rednecks and military commandoes, to be shown in their country immediately. Do it for justice, do it for artistic freedom.

Most of all, do it for the Zombies.

Tags: Movies, Social Justice

This entry was posted by John Sears on Sunday, July 25th, 2010 at 11:43 pm and is filed under Zombie Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.