There is a new computer game called ‘Halloween: The Game’ that builds on the hyper-real and brutal violence of the film. In the online version, gruesome killings are the hallmark, and you can execute victims by repeatedly head stomping another player through a toilet, or frying their brain by thrusting them through a television screen. If that’s not enough there is a visceral cinematic coat-hanger impalement, a refrigerator-door-slam head bludgeon, and a rapid knife stabbing or Trotskyite pickaxe slay.
Hopefully, that would have gained the game an R18 classification in the (perhaps forlorn) hope that it protects some young people from delving. But no, it has been banned completely Australia-wide, but not because of the violence. The censor’s wrath was excited because, wait for it… the game depicts cannabis use. It is just fine to show slasher ferocity with realistic sadism but god forbid the game actually shows people engaging in something that about half the people in the country have chosen to enjoy.
In more bizarre scenes Waverley Library in Sydney removed a book titled How to Sell a Genocide – The Media’s Complicity in the Destruction of Gaza’ after a complaint by J-Wire – a Jewish media organisation. Alex Ryvchin, CEO of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry thundered ‘a book of this sort has no place on the shelves of a library… in large part due to the dehumanisation of Jews precisely through this sort of libel.’ According to J-Wire, the word ‘genocide’ is an ‘inflammatory inversion of Jewish trauma’.
Obviously, learning the lessons of history are not high on the agenda of the complainants. Perhaps they’ve forgotten that in the 1930s the Nazis held mass book burnings of Jewish authors among others, (including the writings of Helen Keller – go figure). It is staggering that mainstream Jewish organisations in Australia believe that censorship and book removal are going to help their cause. If they can’t learn from last century, they might have considered Bendigo, Adelaide, Antoinette Lattouf, and banning protests in NSW. Besides, as 40 per cent of American Jews (and 90 per cent of my Jewish friends) believe Israel has committed genocide and 60 per cent believe war crimes – how is it possible to call the G-word antisemitic?
One of the writers who had his books burnt by the Nazis was Heinrich Heine, who had written in 1923, ‘Where they burn books they ultimately burn people too’. Prescient. And relevant to all genocides.
I’ve read the library book now – although everywhere has sold out of course, a combination of the forbidden fruit and Streisand affect – and it is not remotely antisemitic. Staggeringly, at shelf spot 943.086 HIT, Waverly Library has multiple copies of Mein Kampf, the most historically significant, virulently antisemitic book ever written. No one calling for its removal? Clearly, censorship by some has nothing to do with antisemitism really. Just as the video game policy actually isn’t about community harm or the focus would be on violence, not spliff rolling.
Phrase banning?
And where are we with phrase banning in Australia? Nothing like the UK where you can and do go to prison for sporting a sign saying ‘I Support Palestine Action’. Although we do have our own mini-me ban in Queensland with outlawing ‘from the river to the sea’ which will survive challenge about as long as a morning tea break in the High Court. They’ll again to ban The Little Red Schoolbook next.
I am not in favour of banning Nazi symbols and flags either (only Australia, Austria, Germany and Brazil do). But if people can wrap themselves in the flag of one genocidal regime they should be able to fly the flag of another. Elon Musk can give the Nazi salute as often as he wants. I don’t want Nazis, actual antisemites, and racists hiding under a bush. I want to know who they are.
I am not anti-censorship in all circumstances, particularly when it comes to protecting people from real harm. For example, I reckon there is a pretty strong argument for following the United Kingdom in banning porn depicting strangulation or suffocation. In Australia, 61 per cent of 18 to 35-year-old women have experienced strangulation. So, yep let’s ban that. And also gambling ads of any type anywhere. And posts opposing rail trails in favour of trains.
At this point, I know what you are thinking. Where do we draw the line? You can’t just ban the things David doesn’t like or cause him offence.
Maybe. Sometimes with these dilemmas it is worth ignoring the grey just for now and starting with the black and white. Banning books from libraries because you want to protect the rep of a foreign nation, and outlawing a violent game because it depicts cannabis smoking, and censoring political phrases with threat of imprisonment are beyond the fuzzy line wherever it is drawn.
Meanwhile, I am kind of glad no one in Australia can play Halloween – The Game. I’d rather they read banned books, with or without a joint.
♦ Professor David Heilpern is SCU Dean of Law and Chair of Discipline, Faculty of Business, Law and Arts.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
