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On 3/31/95 Doug Simpson wrote with respect to censorhip of PRIEST:
> I think the director hit it correctly (Antonia Bird):
>"Apparently, bare male bottoms are not acceptable in the United
>States of America. So we had to remove them. And this makes me
>laugh, because I come from a country [England] that has no problems
>with that, but banned Natural Born Killers for its violence. You
>know, we don't think violence is acceptable-- but we think sex is
>great. You guys [America] like violence and hate sex!"
> I guess that says that. Doug Simpson
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"...we don't think violence is acceptable..." Right! This from the country
that historically gave us Jacobean tragedy, bear-baiting, flogging,
keel-hauling, drawing-and-quartering, press gangs, Henry VIII and the
persecution of Catholics, Oliver Cromwell, taxation without representation,
the slave trade, transportation to Australia, petty theft as a capital
crime, debtors' prison, the British Empire's sack of the Third World, the
World War I exploitation of Anzacs as cannon fodder... and more recently
gave us the Troubles in Ireland, the Falkland War, mods and rockers, punk
rock, THE LONG GOOD FRIDAY, PINK FLOYD'S THE WALL (the movie), A CLOCKWORK
ORANGE (movie and book), Monty Python (I'm not disparaging them, only
pointing out that their humor is often very violent), the Kray brothers,
and football riots. Just a few items off the top of my head in no
particular order.
"...but we think sex is great." Judging from the British tabloids and the
business cards plastered in the phone booths near the BFI, one could
reasonably add "mainly if it involves the Royals or serious bondage and
discipline." But that perhaps would be rude.
--Richard J. Leskosky (an Anglophile but an objective one)
Richard J. Leskosky office phone: (217) 244-2704
Assistant Director FAX: (217) 244-2223
Unit for Cinema Studies University of Illinois
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