Completely barking
Martin Doyle
MY eyes were opened on election day.
Like many others, I elected to vote on Saturday and trudged down to the local scout hall and stuck my own humble deposit into the colour-coded carton of New Zealand democracy. I’d done it before many times and, to its credit, the whole process was predictable enough. The workers and the voters all had an air of sleepy calm about them. But the right to vote, the right to think, the right to share ideas, is almost worth shouting out loud for. And, in fact, one voice was raised very loudly, defiantly even, at the polling booth while I was there.
I had exchanged giddays with a fine young couple standing on the footpath with their dog. When I say “dog” I’m referring to a beast that on a dark night could easily be mistaken for a rhino or something. It was huge [a mastiff-cross, I understand]. Its jaws seemed designed for clamping round the outside of legs or thighs. Fortunately, its minders had reduced the chance of mass slaughter by binding its gob in thick leather strapping that effectively muzzled it. At first sight, I actually felt sorry for it: it couldn’t open its mouth to bite [good] but neither could the poor thing bark [bad]. I jokingly said to owners, “Has it voted?” We then laughed about who it might or might not have voted for. Perhaps it was something I said, because the dumb animal lunged at me and managed to force its mouth open enough to heave out four enormous barks. Deep, reverberant, of colossal power, like someone pumping a V8 engine. I can’t stop running the memory of this incident through my mind. It was truly an image of free expression in spite of restraints.
In total contrast to the mastiff is the Wellington-based Office of Film and Literature Classification. Last week it pounced on a mouldy old book called Bloody Mama in a Newtown second-hand bookshop. It was banned 40 years ago and, obviously, the ban remains. I agree that some censorship is needed in any society, but Puritan New Zealand has a long history of killing new ideas and suppressing challenging perspectives. Think only of Wellington’s own Jean Devanny whose novels were banned in the 1920s (right through to recent years) due to her views on marriage and women’s independence from men.
Bloody Mama is about a badass woman who gets her kids into crime. She’s like a sinister version of Cheryl West in Outrageous Fortune. Why ban us from reading it? And why oh why do our bans last so long? Even when our Wellington-based muzzlers of culture banned it in 1971, they ought to have taken note that it had already been made into a low-budget [but classy] film featuring Robert De Niro enjoyed elsewhere in the Free World.
By nature, and intellectually, Wellingtonians are like pure-bred Mastiffs. But pusillanimous fiddling with books makes us into tongue-tied, jittering Chihuahuas.
Like many others, I elected to vote on Saturday and trudged down to the local scout hall and stuck my own humble deposit into the colour-coded carton of New Zealand democracy. I’d done it before many times and, to its credit, the whole process was predictable enough. The workers and the voters all had an air of sleepy calm about them. But the right to vote, the right to think, the right to share ideas, is almost worth shouting out loud for. And, in fact, one voice was raised very loudly, defiantly even, at the polling booth while I was there.
I had exchanged giddays with a fine young couple standing on the footpath with their dog. When I say “dog” I’m referring to a beast that on a dark night could easily be mistaken for a rhino or something. It was huge [a mastiff-cross, I understand]. Its jaws seemed designed for clamping round the outside of legs or thighs. Fortunately, its minders had reduced the chance of mass slaughter by binding its gob in thick leather strapping that effectively muzzled it. At first sight, I actually felt sorry for it: it couldn’t open its mouth to bite [good] but neither could the poor thing bark [bad]. I jokingly said to owners, “Has it voted?” We then laughed about who it might or might not have voted for. Perhaps it was something I said, because the dumb animal lunged at me and managed to force its mouth open enough to heave out four enormous barks. Deep, reverberant, of colossal power, like someone pumping a V8 engine. I can’t stop running the memory of this incident through my mind. It was truly an image of free expression in spite of restraints.
In total contrast to the mastiff is the Wellington-based Office of Film and Literature Classification. Last week it pounced on a mouldy old book called Bloody Mama in a Newtown second-hand bookshop. It was banned 40 years ago and, obviously, the ban remains. I agree that some censorship is needed in any society, but Puritan New Zealand has a long history of killing new ideas and suppressing challenging perspectives. Think only of Wellington’s own Jean Devanny whose novels were banned in the 1920s (right through to recent years) due to her views on marriage and women’s independence from men.
Bloody Mama is about a badass woman who gets her kids into crime. She’s like a sinister version of Cheryl West in Outrageous Fortune. Why ban us from reading it? And why oh why do our bans last so long? Even when our Wellington-based muzzlers of culture banned it in 1971, they ought to have taken note that it had already been made into a low-budget [but classy] film featuring Robert De Niro enjoyed elsewhere in the Free World.
By nature, and intellectually, Wellingtonians are like pure-bred Mastiffs. But pusillanimous fiddling with books makes us into tongue-tied, jittering Chihuahuas.
Have Your Say
0 Comments
No comments.