Hacker Cinema
Ken Park
2003 · Film · 97 min
Directed by Larry Clark, Edward Lachman
Teen skater Ken Park (nicknamed Krap Nek; his name spelled and pronounced backward) kills himself at a Visalia skate park; his death bookends the lives of four other young people who knew him: Shawn, the most conventional; Tate brims with psychotic rage; Claude is habitually harassed by his brutish father and coddled, rather uncomfortably, by his enormously pregnant mother; and Peaches looks after her devoutly religious father, but yearns for freedom. They're all rather tight, or so they claim.
2 negativefrom 2 commenters
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2 comments on Hacker News
> So, Aussies... is it working for you that child sexual abuse is being lumped together with "gratuitous (by whose standards?) ... or offensive (to whom?) sexual fetishes?
For the most part I have few problems with our classification scheme. If you're genuinely interested in what goes in to a rating, the guidelines are quite easily available. (1)
It's interesting the attitude I find many foreigners, in particular North Americans have of a repulsion to any kind of censorship whilst simultaniously being ignorant of what our classification scheme actually does. The previous sentence was directed at your idea that the prohibition against the promotion of violence or illegal drugs would cause a hollywood film to be banned from Australian cinemas. It doesn't because context is a mitigating factor. Ignoring the issue of no 18+ rating for video games, the only thing that comes to mind that I wish hadn't been refused classification is 2002's Ken Park.
Forgive me if my attitude comes off as hostile, but I am increasingly annoyed at foreigners decrying our classification scheme as uniformly bad. I guess it's just different people having different values.
(1) http://www.comlaw.gov.au/Details/F2008C00126
I think the problems are overstated. There really isn't a web filter debate. It's really a bunch of people yelling at a rogue Labour minister who has too much power as leader of the right faction. There are very few people arguing in favour of the plan, and it looks like it will be impossible to pass through parliament.
The lack of an R18+ rating is more a reflection of the problems with the constitution. The federal parliament is unable to make censorship laws that apply to the entire country, and we are therefore dependent upon all six states to agree. The situation now is that 5 states support an 18+ rating, one doesn't.
The serious censorship problems are really that several films, such as Ken Park, have been banned even though there exists an 18+ rating for cinema. Also, the banning of one of Philip Nitschke's books is troubling.