Obviously its been a week to ban things Zombie

Most of you know Australians, at least on line. You’ve met some of us. Do we come across as a bunch on wowsers? I hope not. However this is the impression you get from our news. Our proposed internet filter, police seizure
photographic exhibitions or outrage at some overseas films.

An adventure in cinema's most unmarketable subgenre - gay zombie porn

Once again its Melbourne International Film Festival MIFF time and some how every year MIFF manages to stir up controversy, and I suspect sales, by hosting a ‘controversial’ film. You know the sort of film: foreign, extreme , probably only would have been seen by six people, often involving an erect naked penis. Normally I would ignore this but this year the controversy film they have is Bruce LaBruce’s gay zombie porn film L.A. Zombie. This week the Australian Film Classification Board (AFCB) director Donald McDonald sent a letter refusing classification for the film, effectively banning it.

The film follows an alien zombie who roams the streets of Los Angeles in search of dead bodies and gay sex - an activity that reveals a gift of ''shagging'' the deceased back to life.

So even with Zombies, I probably wasn’t going to see this one. But just because I don’t want to see full-frontal nude scenes and erect penises or zombies with cucumber-shaped penises which are clearly prosthetic, doesn’t mean I think adults who want to shouldn’t be allowed.

Bad show Australian Film Classification Board, bad show.

Zombie Queen Mary

When I was in the UK I saw a tourist place called the London Dungeon – it advertises itself as “1000 years of dark history, 13 Shows, live actors and 2 scary rides” – an obvious destination for a seven year old who loves reading the Horrible History books. It seems the latest show ‘Bloody Mary’ was being advertised with digital billboards on the London Underground.



Four people complained that the zombie Queen Mary - complete with bloody gashes on her face, rotting teeth and red eyes - had terrified their children. As a result the UK Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) ruled that the poster should not be used again as it had 'terrified' children and breached fear and distress guidelines

Terrifying Children?

Isn’t that what the stories we tell them are meant to do, cautionary tales so that they can be prepared to face the dangers of the world. Have any of these people actually read a traditional European children’s fairy tale? Read the stories in their religious texts? Or even a half way accurate account of Queen Mary’s reign? How else can we prepare them to face the wandering mutant zombies hordes in the ravaged wasteland of the apocalypse if we don’t tell them the right stories with startling moving images, preferably in 3-D.