Third age
August 2012
Censorship as a debating question is as popular as ever I see, whether it is about not mentioning a person’s race or not promoting fats and sugars. I have my own targets, of course, and mostly I can understand those who want to control the rage in their lives by shutting the mouths of others.
Third Agers are pretty keen on banning stuff, but they are perhaps not to the forefront of those taking action. This is because over the years we have learnt how easy it is to get caught up in a cause and how hard it is to make change; above all, how LONG it takes.
Wishing to ban things on TV is a great outlet for annoyance. A frequent complaint I hear from my peers is about close-ups of tongue-kissing on TV. “Unnecessary,” is the word used to describe it. “They didn’t do it in films in our day.” So they get up and make a cup of tea.
There are of course many worse things on TV and the depiction of women in ads is one of those that has barely changed for the better over the years. Making a cup of tea won’t change that, so dashing off a complaint is a good thing to do. As it is when anyone is demeaned.
If you’ve lived for six, seven or more decades you have seen great changes in what people get upset about in the media and the action taken. I was, into my teens, forbidden to read advertisements called Personal and Missing Friends, and appeals for mates from the lovelorn. Looking for love by means of advertisements had word-fascination for me when I was young. Typical was something like this: “I am 33 and vivacious and my friends tell me I am good looking.” I suppose I hoped my friends would tell me something like that – they never did – and “vivacious” was a great buzz word in the 50s. It was as sought-after as a 19 inch waist, stiff petticoats and a Maidenform bra. I haven’t heard that it is important to internet dating CVs, although “good sense of humor”, I am told, is still a general requirement.
I was also forbidden to read the columns of “Dr Wickham Terrace” in some magazine, lest I encounter some of the normal human functions that my mother preferred me not to know about until they surprised me by happening to me. Her copy of The Sheik, by Edith Maude Hull, was hidden, as was a terrible, 19th century book on childbirth. All five of us found the books I think; certainly the girls, and went forward into adult life with the belief that ginger ale and not hearing bad news shouted by the newsboys in the street below would help us through birthing. The Sheik is on my shelves to this day, well thumbed, but still with the sheen of the forbidden: testimony to the innocence of those years before the 50s and 60s.
My mother would have loved the “parental lock”; though how it would have worked on radio I am not sure. As it was she had to shoo me outside to play even on wet days when she was ironing and listening to an agony gent called Frank Sturge Harty on the radio. He spoke about family problems in slow and honeyed tones. I wonder if my mother ever took his advice. I have since learned that he was promoted along with his program on 2UE Sydney as “The Man Who Knows the Confidences of TEN THOUSAND WOMEN”. I am sure my mother didn’t confide anything. People did not share confidences easily in those days. My mother addressed friends she saw frequently as Mrs. Hopper, Mrs. Hobbs, Mrs. Wilson. I certainly never knew their first names.
Between those times when I bowed to parental dicta and now, I have been on both sides of the censorship battle. We all now laugh with delicious, self-righteous horror at the banning of a Patrick White play, of Lady Chatterley, Portnoy, a few films and works of art, and wonder at the folly of those times and the power we gave people over us and what we encountered.
But I do not regret for a moment wanting to conceal demeaning images of women in newsagents’ displays in the 80s. And I am all for putting a bit of stick about in the cause of recognising the dignity of the disabled. Creating awareness is the benign face of attempting to ban stuff. A bit of rage at what human beings are capable of can be a good thing.
These days in the ageless battle between censorship and revealing all, banning and persecuting are still ahead – otherwise Julian Assange would not be in such a sticky spot. But the internet’s freedom tends to make fools of those who want to control us and our thoughts. Just the same, when I see politicians stranded by internet allegations that cannot be tested, I wonder where this is heading. It makes me want to stick around to maintain the rage – or just have a cup of tea.
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