"Won't Somebody Think of the Children?"

I wrote in the introduction for our Childhood Memories Project (Nostalgia and Spectatorship) about my personal experiences of video in it's infancy. I included within that text a preliminary memory of the video nasties 'debacle' that occurred around the same time. This became the basis for another project whereby we will endeavour (and it really is going to be a hardship where many of the films are concerned) to review all of the 39 nasties that were successfully prosecuted under the obscene publications act. So here, I want to both give a more detailed version of my personal experiences growing up with a wonderful list of horror films to view, and to also give a history of it's incredibly interesting framework of social and political change.

During the late 1960's and throughout the 1970's there was a social change that created a small window in which attitudes seemed to be progressive when concerning the portrayal and display of violence and sexuality. This meant that many popular art forms were able to show things that were previously censored, frowned upon, and even outright banned to the general at large. This however, was soon to change. A wind of change was to come in politics that would move social attitudes towards a more right-thinking attitude towards these very aspects of, particularly, cinema and television. In 1979 in Britain, Margaret Thatcher was elected as Conservative prime minister. This was soon followed in America with the election of right-wing dunder-head Ronald Reagan. And so began a political partnership that brought massive social and political reform on both sides of the Atlantic. In the UK, brewing around the same time, was a little old lady, Christian activist against anything that she deemed harmful to the social fabric of the country. This of course was Mary Whitehouse. (If anyone remembers the '80's they may recall a porn magazine that was published in reaction to Whitehouse's campaigns: The magazine was brilliantly titled 'Whitehouse').

So, within this climate of right-wing activism against sex and violence in the media, we fall into the brand new technology of video. Initially video was not regulated in any way, and even the BBFC did not have any involvement. Therefore, this pre-certificate era bred unclassified videos of films that would largely not even get a cinema release, or would be released with heavy cuts made by the BBFC. However, this was soon brought to the attention of each previously mentioned parties, but particularly, the always level-headed, competent British print media. This is where a wide-eyed Ivamy came to be aware of a bunch of brilliantly titled horror films fell into my consciousness. Wonderfully, the papers would indulge themselves with graphic descriptions of "what happened" within these "nasty" videos. Of course, this just made the pieces more desirable. Most descriptions were, of course exaggerated, and were often (incredibly naively) described as actual snuff films.

Wonderful headlines adorned the Sunday papers announcing such hyperbolic statements as: 'Ban the Sadist Videos' et al. Because the new technology was not regulated, and because these video were accessible to the young (or so they claimed), this was obviously a threat to the youth of the day. Outcries of misguided folk proclaiming that these would damage young minds. As this moral panic progressed, Whitehouse brought the issue to conservative MP Graham Bright, who in a interview stated: "research is being carried out, and it WILL show (how did he know this when the research was only just underway?) that it effects children, but that I believe it also effects dogs too (????)". Well, many key titles were paraded around on UK news, along with breakfast shows, where it is quite clear that no one knew what the hell to make of this, and their ill informed diatribes were laughable.

Along with the media and political interference, the main body involved in the process of demonising certain titles with the DPP (Director of Public Prosecutions) which had the duty of seizing and prosecuting videos. This did lead to some utterly farcical seizures of titles such as the Dolly Parton/Burt Reynolds musical The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1981), and Samuel Fullers WWII movie, The Big Red One (1980). But farce aside, the middle-class sector of the British public were confused by what was going on. The audible astonishment of newsreaders who are informed that even established companies were involved in distributing such "perverse filth" was confusing to the liberal left! Surely you don't believe that most companies could not give a shit about the content of product, when it makes money!! The astonishment was mainly focused on Thorn-EMI who distributed The Burning (1980) - which incidentally was passed by the BBFC with minimal cuts for cinema release.

There were reports of surveys being conducted in schools to discover the extent to which children had access and were viewing the nasties. This survey consisted of the kids being given a list of films and asking them if they had seem them! Well, come on!!! With those titles, I would want to see them, and would (at the age of 6) probably say "yeah, why not, I've seen all of those!!". This fault in the process was highlighted, when later an independent body conducted the same experiment, but this time using made up film titles. Obviously, the results were very similar.

Well, as for my personal memories of this period. They mainly fit within the remembrances of the newspaper reports, and the news/discussion programmes aired at the time. But, more fundamentally, it is the pre-cert video covers that stick in my memory (which is why I'm exclusively using these covers in this article). The only video nasties that I actually saw at the time (between 1980 and 1984), was The Evil Dead. Many others were not viewed until my tens and teens; and some not even until my twenties. Some I've not even seen, and some I never want to see again, just because they are so god-damned awful. But, Tom wanted to do this, so I guess I'm just going to have to bite the bullet and view again, some of this utter trash - many films that had it not been for the British media et al, would never have even been heard of, let alone actually seen by anyone not involved in the making of them.

Marc Ivamy