W RECK: graduate journal of art history, visual art, and theory Volume 2, number 1 (2008)

Freedom, Sex & Power:1 Film/Video Regulation in

By Taryn Sirove, Ph.D. Candidate, Queen’s University P h o t o

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Fig. 1. The Ontario Film and Video Appreciation Society (OFVAS) presenting its brief at public hearings on a new film classification law held at Queen’s Park, , Ontario, December 4-5, 1984. L-R: David Poole (CFMDC), Anna Gronau (The Funnel), Cyndra MacDowell (CARO). Photo by John Porter.

“Ontario is getting out of the film censorship business,” announced the headline of the December 10, 2004 Toronto Star.2 This, after Glad Day Bookshop, a small retailer specializing in queer literature and videotapes, won a decisive legal battle against the Ontario Film Review Board (OFRB).3 Glad Day Bookshop appealed its previous conviction for illegally distributing the sexually-explicit video, Descent, by “renowned” American filmmaker, Steven Scarborough.4 The bookshop called upon the federal Charter of Rights and Freedoms to overturn a provincial regulation—the Theatres Act—which required that all videos and films be either approved by the OFRB, be partially censored, or altogether banned. Despite Glad Day Bookshop’s successful legal challenge to the Act and the OFRB, the Star headline was totally erroneous; as of today, the OFRB has retained its powers for the prior restraint and banning of film and video in Ontario. In this essay, I map a number of interventions and contests around the regulation of video and film from the 1980s until the present. In addition to considering

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provincial legal contests, I examine Film and video screenings in small the changing definitions of art houses had, until then, received pornography in the Criminal Code of little scrutiny, as the Board focused Canada which provide the discursive on monitoring mainstream titles logic informing censorship policy at screened in large, public theatres. the provincial level. Further, I outline Upon Brown’s appointment, n e g o t i a t i o n s t o i m p l e m e n t independent film and video were also exemptions to the OFRB review required to undergo a Board review. process (if a film is deemed ‘art’), to For the first time in Ontario’s history, better understand, by way of contrast, these materials were subject to “prior extant definitions of pornography. restraint”, the legal term denoting a Moreover, I interrogate the extent of ban on publication. t h e O n t a r i o g o v e r n m e n t ’ s This shift in policy prompted many bureaucratic powers to censor. grassroots acts of resistance in the I argue against a notion of the law arts community, including the as a univocal authority by considering Canadian Images Film Festival held the law, instead, as a system of in Peterborough in March of 1981. “governmentality” in the Foucauldian The organizers screened Al Razutis’s sense, in which social agents act out film, A Message From Our Sponsor d i s c u r s i v e c o n t e s t s i n t h e (1979), without submitting it for arrangement of pornography as an review by the Censor Board. Shortly object of knowledge; and, I regard after charges were laid against censorship as a persistent form of festival organizers, the Ontario Film (de)legitimation, thereby troubling a and Video Appreciation Society r i g h t s - b a s e d , l i b e r t a r i a n (OFVAS), a lobby group, took u n d e r s t a n d i n g w h i c h h o l d s advantage of the newly declared censorship to be simply wrong and Constitution Act (1982) to challenge thus eliminable.5 I argue that the Ontario Board of Censors (OCB), censorship, as an omission made by arguing that the Board’s authority those in judicial and executive under the Theatres Act to censor or positions, is an exercise of power as ban films and videos was entirely defined within Foucault’s “art of discretionary and in violation of government,” and that resistances to freedom of expression, under section censorship in both the street and in 2 (b) of the Charter of Rights and the courts can constitute meaningful Freedoms (fig. 1).7 According to social change. OFVAS member David Poole, the Governmental film censorship first society “was formed on the weekend became possible in Ontario in 1911 that the Constitution was declared”, with the drafting of the Theatres and in order to fight one of the first legal Cinematographers Act and the contests based on the guarantee of the appointment of the provincial Board freedom of speech.8 The vague of Censors.6 Surprisingly, however, guidelines under which the OCB the Theatres Act was not enforced administered its operations were until 1981 when the then- clarified as a result of this case and conservative government appointed a written into the Theatres Act. Also new chair, Mary Brown, to the Board. the OCB changed its name to the

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Ontario Film Review Board (OFRB). and capable of resistance so that Unfortunately, however, this only “faced with a relationship of power, a cloaked the powers it retained to cut whole field of responses, reactions, and ban video and film, and the results, and possible inventions may subsequent enabling legislation, Bill open up.”15 82, An Act to Amend the Ontario Even aside from the development of Theatres Act, actually expanded the the Charter, I argue that law possesses Board’s reach to include the an enabling and productive potential, classification of all home video (fig. as it provides the opportunity for the 2).9 declaring of rights by social agents in With the passing of Bill 82, opinion debates that can result in real that was once fragmented quickly discursive changes in law. The unified, and artists, curators, and art “contact point” between the law and institutions across Ontario mobilized social agents who articulate their to organize the “Ontario Open rights is not univocal. Rather, it is a Screenings.” Dissenters screened process that flows back and forth videos in several locations across the between government and social province from April 21-27, 1985, agents. The history of film censorship without pre-approval from the Ontario in Ontario, and the accompanying Film Review Board, thereby debates in academic, artist, and contravening the Theatres Act.10 Law activist circles, supports the argument professor Brenda Cossman referred to that social agents should be these events as the “largest group civil considered vital links in the formation disobedience Ontario history.”11 Since of power, instead of remaining most provinces throughout the rest of external to it. Canada, some with similar censor In a interview, Glad Day Bookstore boards and some without, looked to manager Toshiya Kuwabara declared Ontario’s classifications to inform that the bookstore is planning to their own regulation of video and film, follow the spirit of the appeal court’s Ontario was a crucial site for debate ruling, rather than adhere to the new and contest of existing censorship regulations under the Film laws.12 Classification Act.16 In this way, These sorts of censorship laws nest Kuwabara, as a social agent, is in the larger system of law, itself a exercising a certain amount of agency system of governmentality where to interpret the law and its effects government is a “‘contact point’ where the law is a function of the where techniques of domination—or state, and, as Danny Lacombe power—and techniques of the self describes, the state “is an institutional ‘interact.’”13 For Foucault, subjects complex that conditions and is are shaped and constituted by power conditioned by the balance of social enacted over them.14 He explains that forces in society. Any distinction for power to function, “‘the other’ (the between institutional power and the one over whom power is exercised) power of social agents must be [needs to] be thoroughly recognized rejected.”17 and maintained to the very end as a It seems an obvious point, but it is person who acts,” and is therefore free important to note that citizens,

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including members of the Ontario induction of the Charter of Rights Government who are subject to the and Freedoms into the constitution law, have the option to disobey the has allowed for successful legal law (facing, of course, all the challenges to the law itself based on potential consequences of that in/ fundamental freedoms, as in Glad action).18 Kuwabara has decided to Day’s case. Although rights discourse contravene the new Theatres Act and in law-writing will never eradicate conduct his business in consistency injustice or create a truly egalitarian with what he interprets as the spirit of society, it gives voice to the the law. I do not mean to trivialize the declaration of what groups very real constraining techniques of characterize as their rights, which in the law’s enforcement, but to turn constitutes subjectivities via such investigate the skirmishes between articulations. government and social agents that An example of the use of the law to attest to the incompleteness of the enact a discursive change in legal and law’s ability to regulate action. The popular knowledge occurred in 1988, P h o t o

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Fig. 2. Celebrating the OFVAS’s semi-victory in its court case against the Ontario Censor Board at The Fun- nel, March 25, 1983. L-R: Edie Steiner, David Bennell, Carolyne Wushke, Ross McLaren, Michaelle McLean, Martha Davis, David Poole, Mikki Fontana, Jim Anderson. Photo by John Porter.

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when the Theatres Act was amended believed A Message contained “undue to allow exemptions for public art exploitation of sex” and thus did not galleries and film festivals. Under have artistic merit.24 Importantly, A the new provision, those agencies Message is composed entirely of were no longer required to submit appropriated images, juxtaposing film or video to the OFRB for prior clips from popular media and approval.19 Lisa Steele, a video artist pornographic images in an ironic and anti-censorship activist, was part critique of the commodification of of a group who mobilized to protest sex in advertising (fig. 4).25 One such these new exemptions.20 Even before strategic juxtaposition intersplices an the 1988 amendment, however, the ad of a woman brushing her teeth secret practice of granting exemptions with an image of a woman giving for certain films had become head. Razutis, now a film professor at widespread. Negotiations for arts Simon Fraser University, recalled that exemptions began before the trial Officer Petrozeles of the ‘P Squad’ concerning Al Razutis’s 1979 film, A “informed me that the Censor Board Message From Our Sponsor. In concerns about my work(s) also September, 1980, a film package included concerns about my from the National Gallery, including ‘anarchist politics’ while I was A Message, traveled to the Funnel ‘ m a s q u e r a d i n g a s a f i l m Experimental Film Theatre in professor’”.26 Razutis accepted his Toronto, which was then subject to invitation to show the banned A OCB Chair Mary Brown’s scrutiny. A Message at the Canadian Images Message, which had screened in Festival in Peterborough on March Ottawa without incident, received 13, 1981; and, although he asked that unfavourable OCB attention in a warning be posted alerting Toronto and was promptly banned.21 audiences to scenes of explicit sex, he In early 1981, the National Gallery was told that “the Board [of Images] and the Funnel theatre sought special had decided to take this action to permits for single screenings of indict [him and his] film as a political specific films that were banned, statement.”27 A month after the including Rameau’s Nephew… and screening, charges were laid against Presents by Michael Snow, as well as the “Peterborough Four”: Razutis The Art of Worldy Wisdom by Bruce (though he was acquitted because Elder.22 The Board approved special there was no proof that he turned on permits for films that exhibited the projector which technically meant “artistic merit” by filmmakers with an he was not involved); David Bierk, “international reputation”, after Elder executive director of Artspace; Susan and Snow met personally with Chair Ditta, executive director of the Mary Brown. Razutis argues that C a n a d i a n I ma g e s ; a n d I a n “these discussions (and I think ‘secret McLachlan, board member of negotiations’ is appropriate) directly Canadian Images and Artspace (fig. contradicted a public stance…that 5). Their decision to exhibit A portrayed a categorical opposition to Message was a political act of civil censorship” (fig.3).23 disobedience in support of the The OCB and provincial police freedom of expression, and,

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according to Razutis, “brought out critics have argued that into the open the ideological art, knowledge, and differences between a more ‘fine- sexuality are political, arts’ (read bourgeois) film practice often criticizing modern that sought special exemption and a liberal institutions and more socially oriented practice that values as modes of sought to participate in social and domination, and while legal change.”28 many have attacked Beyond creating a high/low binary specifically modernist of “fine-arts” and “not-art,” video- a s s u m p t i o n s a b o u t maker Richard Fung asserts that the a e s t h e t i c s a n d elitism of legitimation based on the subjectivity such as self- criterion of artistic merit is a expression, genius, historical privilege for the colonizing originality, and individual West. Fung asks creativity, they invoke Is it opportunistic to p r e c i s e l y t h e s e invoke the defense of assumptions when they artistic merit, which is defend freedom of artistic available to certain types e x p r e s s i o n f r o m of censored material, or censorship.30 for galleries and festivals Exemption from censorship based to advocate (or accept) on artistic expression sets art in e x e m p t i o n f r o m opposition to politics, and erotica in submission to film and opposition to pornography in a way video censor review? that normalizes and institutionalizes This discussion has value judgements about both evident implications with pornography and art. Granting art regard to the cultural exemption from censorship created products of minoritized knowledges not just about what was communities.29 given exemption, but also about what I argue, further, that providing was not, in this case, pornography. exemption to institutions that According to the Glad Day propagate “high” art, despite their Bookshop’s manager Toshiya function as public spaces, sets up a Kuwabara, the OFRB has a secret list familiar distinction between art and that does not circulate publicly.31 In everyday life, where certain kinds of the absence of access to the OCB/ transgressions are permitted as OFRB’s criteria for censorship, we exceptional and easily explained can look to the Criminal Code’s away as alternative. In this way, obscenity law. As enforcement of alternative images are depoliticized film and video imagery played out at and reduced to tropes for the provincial level in Ontario, “artfulness,” impeding their use in discursive battles over what active discourses and debates. constitutes degradation and undue Cultural studies theorist, Richard harm were debated at the federal Burt, argues that level, both in Canada and in the While many artists and United States. The crucial difference

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Fig. 3. The OFVAS press conference at The Funnel, April 29, 1982, announcing its court case aginast the Ontario Censor Board. L-R: Bruce Elder and Michael Snow (filmmakers); Cyndra MacDowell (CARO); Anna Gronau (The Funnel); David Poole (CFMDC); Ross McLaren (The Funnel). Photo by John Porter.

between obscenity law and the obscenity law.34 The most popular Theatres Act lies in the sequence of representatives of the anti-porn application: whereas the criminal groups were, Andrea Dworkin and code charges people with offences Catherine MacKinnon, in the United after the fact, the OFRB enacts the States, and in Canada, Maude Barlow prior restraint of materials.32 A and Susan Cole. Their basic premise consideration of the changes to this was that “porn is the theory, rape is law over the last two decades will the practice.”35 They saw women’s enable a study of truth-claims made sexuality as the cause of their of pornography (and sexuality), oppression and pornography as informing positions for or against the eroticizing women’s sexual OCB/OFRB.33 subordination, and thus, the cause of A feminist campaign for the legal women’s oppression.36 This position regulation of pornography culminated divided feminists on the political in front of the Supreme Court of right and left.37 Although the Court Canada in 1992 with Regina v. found that the law was within the Butler, a challenge to the legal limit of freedom of expression constitutionality of the existing under the equality rights guarantees

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in the Charter, the Court proposed a pleasures, and desires, producing new test for determining obscenity.38 official knowledge of the other,” Previously, obscenity was defined knowledge that values different simply as “undue exploitation of sexual social identities differently.42 sex,” “undue” being the difficult Whereas anti-porn feminists see texts concept to determine. After Regina v. as univocal, Cossman understands Butler, the definition was focused meaning as something that cannot be more specifically on harm against determined “objectively without women’s equality, based on the reference to the specific communities presence of violence in explicit within which these representations sexual imagery.39 are produced, exchanged, and In opposition to the anti-porn feminists, anti-censorship feminists, such as those represented the in

anthologies Women Against I m a

Censorship and Pleasure and g e

Danger: Exploring Female Sexuality, C o

argue against the regulatory u r t

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censorship of pornography. The s y

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anti-censorship feminists on the left f

A

do not argue with the sexism that l

R

anti-porn feminists see in some a z u

heterosexual pornography, but do t i s . critique the anti-pornography feminist position for two reasons. First, regulatory censorship of any kind Fig. 4. Al Razutis, A Message From Our Sponsor, 1979. thwarts freedom of expression and, second, the anti-pornography feminist position is not feminist because it consumed.”43 In this way, the anti- does not account for difference.41 censorship feminists insist that sexual They argue that the anti-porn position practices are neither inherently is heteronormative in its lack of liberatory nor subordinating; instead, lesbian or gay image theorization, knowledge of sexuality is always and without this, the anti- constructed within discourses on pornography feminists leave no space sexuality. for plural sexualities, which in turn In her testimony at the criminal makes pornography a truth rather hearings for the 1992 Bad Attitude than, as the anti-censorship feminists case, University of feel it should be, a contest of Professor Becki Ross analyzed the sexualities. ways in which pornography was Brenda Cossman draws on produced, exchanged, and consumed Foucault as she insists that debates in the lesbian community.44 Ross produce knowledges about sexual insisted that lesbian imagery found in identities as “power is exercised in Bad Attitude did not exploit the the very naming of sexual acts: it unequal power relations that the law categorizes and codifies bodies, had thus far deemed harmful in

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heterosexual porn. By engaging in a s s u m e s t h a t h e t e r o s e x u a l campy reversals of the dominant/ pornographic representation is indeed s u b mi s s i v e r o l e s fo u n d i n harmful. Ross testified that there heterosexual material, the images in existed no conclusive research Bad Attitude subvert the naturalness proving harm to consumers of images of these roles.45 For Neil Malamuth, of lesbian s/m, but she did not make an American psychologist called as the same claim for heterosexual s/m an expert witness for the prosecution, and, thus, inadvertently over- the images taken by photographer determined the meaning of Jennifer Gillmor look similar to some h e t e r o s e x u a l p o r n o g r a p h i c in the heterosexual genre, especially representation. those that depicted sexual violence. I am not suggesting that Ross is, by One of Gillmor’s photos shows a contrasting lesbian pornography to model bound submissively to a tomb hetero-pornography, arguing that stone with rope, while another depicts heterosexual representation is the model posed defiantly wearing univocal or has a causal relationship motorcycle regalia and combat boots with behavior. Rather, in this instance and carrying what appears to be a definitions and meanings of porn and whip. Gillmor countered Malamuth’s of sexuality are contested and stance by pointing out that the same confirmed, even unintentionally, in model was used in both pictures; the crossfire of legal debate.48 Gillmor testified that her model “likes The court’s hegemonic tendency, to switch roles”, from submissive to demonstrated by Malamuth’s dominant, as a play on and reversal of testimony which was “a clever heterosexual norms.46 In her incantation of Butler’s internal logic explanation, Gillmor demonstrated and coherence”, illustrates what the role-playing in the images by Lacombe, calling upon Foucault, emphasizing that the whip the model views as a conception of power as is carrying in the second photograph productive, where there is also a is not real but is part of a costume. space for resistance.49 Here, law is no However, during the cross- longer a function of prohibitive state- examination, despite her repetitive power, but is rather a function of insistence that the whip was a fake, normalization.50 For instance, it was Gillmore was pushed by the Crown public debate of obscenity laws that Attorney to admit that she was established and unsettled truth-claims uncomfortable with whipping. This about pornography. By considering was a “tactic that succeeded in the transformative potential between bolstering his anti-s/m agenda and in the law and social actors who interact deflecting attention away from the with it, even when change is not more germane issues of fantasy, entirely successful at the discursive representation, and consent.”47 level, we can move beyond Nevertheless, the defense that “conventional conceptions of law, l e s b i a n p o r n o g r a p h y w o r k s typically defined, as rules differently from heterosexual commanding behavior backed by the pornography—under the Butler threat of coercive sanction.”51 decision which is based on harm— In Male, Gay, Pornography: An

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Fig. 5. Peterborough 4.

Issue of Sex Discrimination, pornography feminists and is subject Christopher N. Kendall considers the to the anti-censorship feminist often overlooked distinctions between critique that “harm to equality” is a hetero and gay pornography and its value judgment rather than an appeal relevance to anti-censorship for the protection of women (or of arguments.52 Kendall argues that to men) from harm through sexual treat male, gay porn differently from violence.55 heterosexual porn is to discriminate, Anti-censorship feminists like Lisa and it should be similarly censored Steele, writing in Women Against under the Butler decision. Kendall Censorship, also argue that the fact of argues that “far from being a threat to explicitness alone does not make gay male identity, any judicial representations of women any more decision that recognizes the feminist problematic than, for example, a TV call for sex equality does much to commercial for cleaning supplies.56 ensure the breaking down of those In general, Steele considers gender hierarchies that allow censorship or any kind of obstruction homophobia to exist in the first to the freedom of expression a place.”53 Kendall argues further that slippery slope: “I’m an old school men in gay male pornography are civil libertarian in that respect,” she encouraged to mimic traditionally explains.57 Steele’s rights-based masculine roles.54 libertarian argument that censorship Here, Kendall assumes that can never be an option invites a authentically gay roles do exist, but discussion of censorship as a political they are occluded by traditionally concept, which underwent radical heterosexual practices as inherently reformulation during the 1990s by subordinating. Therefore, Kendall’s several political and cultural argument is aligned with anti- theorists.58

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I argue that the libertarian position as a criterion of inclusion and espoused by Steele and others exclusion.”63 Here, the censor is just coincides with a politically liberal one of many voices of legitimation.64 position that regards censorship as The liberal-political and libertarian unenlightened, as though post- positions understand that all Enlightenment society has moved censorship as abhorrent; however, if beyond censorship.59 According to diffuse relations of power always this line of reasoning, liberal exist, then it follows that democratic democracy abolished the censorship systems housing these positions are powers of Church and state. Thus, not excluded from producing unequal present-day examples of censorship, power relations. Burt’s aim is to like that practiced by the OFRB/ avoid the problem of, in the name of OCB, signal a return to pre- progressive politics, reproducing the Enlightenment oppression. pitfalls of censorship and simplifying Cultural studies theorist Richard modes of repression, so that we may Burt argues against the liberal free open up discussion and debate of speech position that censorship contemporary formulations of power (defined as state power) can ever be and control.65 Once we acknowledge eliminated. Instead he contends that that techniques of coercion or “less visible kinds of domination and constraint are necessarily always control”—such as the manufacture of components of democratic systems consent, market censorship, or and not just characteristics of prohibitive distribution costs and totalitarianism, we see that Burt’s other structural operations—will concept of censorship—as a discourse always pervade the public sphere.60 of legitimation—allows us to treat its Burt troubles the belief that regulation (in its overt forms or censorship can be eliminated by covert forms) as a technology of pointing out the problematic of power. monitoring its elimination—who To consider censorship as a draws the line? technology of power necessitates a An either/or argument that opposes consideration of the law as a diversity (the freedom of many technology of government. For voices) to censorship (the repression criminologist Dany Lacombe, the of certain voices) misleads, according indeterminacy of the social body and to Burt, because every discourse, lack of a unitary source of power even a discourse of diversity, works within it make transformation to marginalize, exclude, or possible within the law based on the “deligitimatize” other discourses.61 In politics of rights.66 Once the social this way, the argument to eliminate body is no longer organized by a censorship is in itself a form of what condensed source of power which Burt terms “delegitimation”.62 In his instills in it “virtues deriving from words, “opposition to censorship transcendent reason and justice, law serves not to guarantee diversity free and knowledge assert themselves as of censorship, but to regulate separate from and irreducible to membership in the critical community power.”67 And once power and law by appealing to the notion of diversity are separated, rights and their

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contents can never be determined. As “obscene.”72 Cossman argues that the Claude Lefort puts it, “…rights are Butler decision is still predicated on not simply the object of a declaration, value judgements and moralizing it is their essence to be declared.”68 In discourse that lacks specificity to this way, political subjecthood is define what “harm” is; however, in enacted through the repetitive the long run, Cossman would agree declaration of indeterminable rights.69 with Lacombe’s characterization of With the inclusion of the Charter of the law in general: “I think the law is Rights and Freedoms in the Canadian an important site of discursive Constitution in 1982, social agents struggle and potential change. I just have more readily been able to call didn’t think that Butler accomplished upon the now fundamental freedom much in that direction – it was still of expression in legal challenges doing the same old thing with a new against the OFRB, such as in the justificatory rhetoric.”73 Glad Day case. Even aside from the The Glad Day Bookshop won its development of the Charter, I argue, appeal based on a declaration of the after Lacombe, for the “enabling” right to the freedom of expression, potential of the law, as it allows but there were also less overt, social agents to declare and thus structural delegitimations at work that constitute their political subjectivity Glad Day’s appeal did not succeed in and play out debates that result in overturning. Glad Day’s position held changes in the discursive spirit of the that the Theatres Act “expressly law.70 Lacombe frames the Butler restricts the distribution of expressive decision as an occasion of discursive materials, and thus violates s. 2(b) of regulatory change enacted by the Charter;” the fundamental feminists (of the anti-pornography freedom of expression; moreover, camp) and uses this example to reject “the Theatres Act film censorship the “conventional wisdom concerning scheme…trenches on the federal law reform [as] incapable of government’s exclusive jurisdiction accounting for resistance, for the over criminal law;” and that the “fee emergence of unconventional structure…trenches on the federal subjectivities, values, and beliefs, government’s exclusive jurisdiction because it assumes the existence of a over the regulation of international single dominant ideology.”71 trade.”74 Lacombe insists on replacing this Justice Russell Juriansz threw out view with a theory that accounts for the latter arguments, and Frank the organization of power in law as a Addario, Glad Day’s lawyer, was process that occurs within—not pleased that the critical argument— outside of—the social relations that that the powers of the OFRB violated produce knowledge. For instance, the freedom of expression under the anti-pornography feminists developed Charter— succeeded.75 However, the language and concept that the last two arguments, which have changed the obscenity law to been downplayed in the media, recognize pornography specifically as deserve consideration.76 Firstly, the harmful to women’s equality rather federal Criminal Code already covers than simply (and vaguely) as criminal acts of obscenity, so the

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question is, why does the Ontario pay hundreds of dollars of reviewing Government have power to supersede charges per video to serve its this form of security with its own relatively-small customer base, that regulations? Secondly, distributors serving minority interests is a profit- are required to pay for a license from less endeavor.”81 Gallant further the Ontario government to be in comments that “content doesn’t business. Then, although “no fee is matter [when one is] picking on charged to screen films ‘wholly certain channels of distribution,” produced in Canada,’… for films suggesting that by targeting produced outside Canada with distribution, the OFRB manages to English or French dialogue, the fee is avoid publishing value judgments $4.20 per minute. For films produced about gay/lesbian sexualities, while outside Canada with dialogue in a limiting the de facto distribution of language other than English or gay/lesbian images. French, the fee is $78.85 per film.”77 Carlyle Jansen, owner of Good For Addario puts it thus: “the province is Her, another small Toronto treating films like a cash cow. They bookstore, confirms this argument: charge sellers and distributors for the Videos made for our privilege of having their films community tend to come reviewed. If you strip away all of the from small producers and fancy language in the law, this is just distributors. Mainstream a tax on the freedom of expression.”78 distributors don’t carry Glad Day manager, Toshiya marginal videos, and so Kuwabara, explains that since foreign small businesses must distributors don’t care about an pay for stickers [the Ontario law, they are often unwilling OFRB product marker] to pay for licensing and screening which makes the system costs, which are higher for films in discriminative against the foreign languages.79 To Kuwabara, LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, since this regulation inevitably Bisexual, Transgender, discourages material from entering and Queer) community.82 the province or inhibits small The OFRB can remain uninvolved in independent producers from the contentious issue of minority distributing material, this is in itself a sexualities in obscenity because its form of omission, of censorship.80 fee structure allows the restriction of I contend that this non- both distribution and retail sales. constitutional argument in Glad Gay and lesbian groups, as well as Day’s case is most obviously a r t i s t s d e a l i ng w i t h q u e e r discriminatory towards minority representation in Canada, had (and representations of sex. Referring to still have) a tremendous investment in the tax on speech—the fees the the outcome of pornography and OFRB charge for its mandatory censorship debates. Though lesbian screenings of videos—Paul Gallant feminists like Susan Cole and gay comments that “the lesson the OFRB authors such as Christopher N. wants to teach Glad Day is to play the Kendall campaigned for the sticker game…that it should expect to regulation of all pornography, a large

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cohort of artists dealing with queer include John Greyson, Colin representation were aligned with the Campbell, Andy Fabo and Michael anti-censorship feminists. As Lisa Balser, Rodney Werden, Richard Steele explains, for these artists, Fung, and Wendy Geller.84 Richard access to sexually explicit imagery Fung’s Chinese Characters (1986) was essential to their practices: illustrates how crucial access to Artists dealing with queer pornography is for many artists. In representation tended to this work, which he describes as “an contextualize their work intervention,” Fung exposes the ways around representations in which Asians are constructed to from the porn films of cater to the pleasure of white male that day in order to make actors and viewers in gay male a point of bringing that pornography.85 The video, screened into the public eye. in April 1986 without prior approval There is no other place to by the Censor Board, juxtaposes a look at it because it’s revisionist version of an ancient forbidden.83 Chinese parable of a man on a Video artists using explicit images mystical journey with contemporary of gay sex during the early 1980s staged interviews in which Fung I m a g e

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Fig. 6. Richard Fung, Chinese Characters, 1986.

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T a p e .

Fig. 7. Richard Fung, Chinese Characters, 1986.

poses as a porn star (fig. 6).86 In these white porn. scenes, he talks about his first Fung explains that in 1988 most discovery of a gay magazine and the gay porn actors were white, while way the images of whiteness therein tapes that included minority actors caused him to wonder, “how much were marketed through specialty Asianness [he was] denying…by outlets, as if ethnicity outside of moving closer and closer to the whiteness constitutes an unusual image.”87 Inter-cut with these sexual interest that falls outside a interview scenes, scenes of the man stable norm: “this visual apartheid on his mystical journey depict the stems, I assume, from an erroneous traveller walking into a forested area perception that the sexual appetites of looking for anonymous sex. There he gay men are exclusive and finds an attractive, white man and unchangeable.”89 Here Fung is approaches him, but once both men pointing to the way desire is enter the same shot, we realize that sometimes treated as naturalized and they are not in the same space at all, essential, which is also exemplified in but that the white hunk is part of an D w o r k i n ’ s a n d C o l e ’ s appropriated image of a Joe Gage characterization of (straight) male porn video over which the Chinese desire as essentially dominating and traveller is superimposed (fig. 7).88 brutal.90 Here, the Asian man is constructed by Fung agrees with defenders of gay Fung as forever outside this image of porn that, in contrast to typical

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straight porn, “‘the spectator’s their constructedness. He illustrates a positions in relation to the form of racialized sexuality that representations [of queer sexuality] otherwise is excluded from are open and in flux.’”91 However, mainstream pornography. And he Fung points out that this is only the introduces the element of race into case when the actors and viewers are the censorship/porn debates through all white.92 To introduce race means this street-level mode of resistance, to shore up the potential for agonism aided by the illegal positional mobility. At the same time, screening of Chinese Characters. Fung realizes that gay porn is not As discussed earlier, these social inherently oppressive; “as with the agents were forced to react to the vast majority of North American heteronormative legislative results of tapes featuring Asians, the problem is the anti-pornography (sometimes not the representation of anal pleasure lesbian) feminists.95 There were per se, but rather that the narratives many legal challenges focusing on privilege the penis, while always queer representation. It is difficult to assigning the Asian the role of the allege discrimination on this basis bottom.”93 alone, however, for there were also At one level, the implication in the legal challenges that dealt primarily censorship debate here is that without with representations of heterosexual unregulated access to these sex in pornography, such as in Regina appropriated images from so-called v. Butler. Although it is difficult to non-art house pornography, Fung catalogue exact statistics on queer cannot make his critique. At another censorship versus hetero-sex level, Fung exposes a bias on the part censorship, video artist and anti- of both the anti-pornography and censorship activist Lisa Steele relates anti-censorship camps; as Fung a revealing incident that occurred at explains, A Space in Toronto. In May 1984, What struck me was that during the British/Canadian Video they assumed that both Exchange ’84, A Space presented a the consumers and the program of tapes that were not pre- practitioners – the objects screened by the Censor Board. and the subjects in this During several screenings on several debate were white. Once separate nights, inspectors from the one introduced race as a Censor Board were present. Steele c a t e g o r y o r a s a explains that, “not coincidently, the perspective in this debate evening that the censor board decided it became much more to confiscate the videotapes and complicated. So one of playback equipment was during the the things I was trying to program with gay video. Nothing do in Chinese Characters explicit whatsoever was shown in the w a s t o r e p r e s e n t program. There was something like a s o m e t h i n g o f t h a t music video, and some sort of complexity.94 identity pieces and such, but at the Fung intervenes in official end, they stood up and confiscated knowledges of sexuality by exposing the tapes and they took the playback

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equipment out.”96 self.103 The Ontario government, After Glad Day won its appeal on enacting its own bureaucratic its constitutional arguments, the regulation based on laws, can be, and Ontario government decided to was, resisted through various amend the law, changing the Theatres channels. These channels include the Act to the Film Classification Act.97 law itself, specifically the Charter, As of December 10, 2004, when the which facilitates rights-based Toronto Star reported the end of film challenges to government regulations. censorship in Ontario, the new act And this, in turn, encourages the had passed two out of three readings. constitution and contestation of The reporter quoted the Consumer political subjectivities. Minister as saying, “The film review Publicly funded art institutions and board's role will no longer be l a r g e - s c a l e d i s t r i b u t o r s o f censorship; it will be a classification pornography are now exempt from board.”98 Since this initial hopeful review and prior restraint by the report, Glad Day’s lawyer was able to OFRB. Thus, the issue of censorship analyze the proposed legislation and is no longer in mainstream media as it reveal that the OFRB has maintained was during the Six Days of its power to approve or disapprove Resistance. However, to ask if overt films and videos, to cut parts out of censorship provides the conditions for films and videos and, in fact, has resistance, where constitutive expanded its powers to cover video censorship veils issues and thereby games and digital files.99 The Film inhibits resistance, assumes that only Classification Act has since received unitary, overt power has the potential approval.100 Given that the Ontario for resistance. The liberalist hope that government did not appeal but acted censorship can be abolished is as though it was going along with the irrelevant, and Richard Burt is right court ruling, the debate is no longer in in renaming censorship a “discourse the courts.101 The burden now rests of legitimation.” Once such a upon those who oppose censorship to definition is adopted, we can bring the issue back to court and, approach contemporary issues related even then, the challenge would enter to but beyond overt censorship. The the lower court; again, the onus for ramifications of the current change rests with social agents classification system that alerts operating on the margins of the legal audiences to potentially offensive and judicial system.102 scenes have not been considered. The relationships between struggles Kerri Kwinter recalls that as she occurring in the street, in the law, and watched the previously banned and in formal, legal debates about censored films at Six Days of pornography in Ontario testify to the Resistance, she “found [her]self complex inter-relationship between periodically wondering if the board resistances and structures of would find this part seditious, that constraint, between discursive change part obscene or gratuitous. I felt like I and semantic/superficial change that was wearing someone else’s morality. p r o d u c e k n o w l e d g e s a b o u t This is a sign of a truly colonized pornography, sexuality, art, and the mind.”104

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Society v. Ontario Board of Censors resulted after the OFVAS submitted four films for approval and Amerika by Al Razutis “was rejected on the basis of explicit portrayal of Notes: certain sexual activity” (Cossman, Censorship, 75). 1. “Freedom, Sex & Power” was the title of the January/February 1983 issue of Fuse 8. David Poole (Head of Media Arts, Canada Magazine, an issue dedicated largely to Council of the Arts), interview with author, sexuality, pornography, and censorship November 8, 2006. Although OFVAS is debates. often pronounced “oh-fav-as,” Poole pointed out that with a slight shift in emphasis, the 2. Robert Benzie, “Film Board Cut Out as acronym denotes, “off-of-us.” Poole light- Censor; Ontario Responds to Court Ruling heartedly reminisced that the name of the on Classification Law 'We're not in the society was chosen hastily in order to quickly Business of Censoring Films,’” Toronto Star, guarantee its availability for registration so December 10, 2004, A.04. that the group could move forward in their legal challenge as soon as the constitution 3. R. v. Glad Day Bookshops Inc., (2004) was declared. 239 D.L.R. (4th) 119 (Ont. S.C.J.). 9. Cossman, Censorship, 76. Bill 82 was 4. Nancy Irwin, “Video Censorship: Glad passed on December 14, 1984. Day Goes to Court to ‘Fight for Survival,’” Xtra! November 30, 2000, http:// 10. Kerri Kwinter, “Ontario Open www.xtra.ca/site/toronto2/arch/ Screenings, Six Days of Resistance Against body702.shtm. the Censor Board, April 21-27, 1985,” in Issues of Censorship, A Space Exhibition 5. This essay considers certain social agents Committee (Toronto: A Space, 1985), 47. engaging with the law as a form of “legal mobilization,” which is a larger armature of 11. Cossman, Censorship, 122. social and cultural activism that includes labour, feminist, queer, student, ecology, and 12. Susan Ditta (writer and curator), other such movements: “the most distinctive interview with author, November 6, 2006. contribution of the legal mobilization approach [is] that of shifting the focus of 13. Graham Burchell, “Liberal Government legal analysis away from the initiative of and Techniques of the Self,” in Foucault and judges and state officials towards that of Political Reason, eds. Andrew Barry, politically active citizens, and away from the Thomas Osborne, and Nikolas Rose 'law in books' to law as a resource in (London: UCL Press, 1996), 20. practical social struggle.” See Michael McCann and Helena Silverstein, “Social 14. Michel Foucault, “The Subject and movements and The American State: Legal Power,” Critical Inquiry 8, no.4 (Summer mobilization as a strategy for 1982), 781. Democratization,” A Different Kind of State? Popular Power and Democratic 15. Foucault, 789. Administration, eds. Gregory Albo, David Lamgille, and Leo Panitch (Oxford: Oxford 16. Toshiya Kuwabara (Manager of Glad University Press, 1993), 133. Day Bookstore), interview with author, March 4, 2005. 6. Brenda Cossman, Censorship and the Arts: Law, Controversy, Debate, Facts 17. Dany Lacombe, Blue Politics: (Toronto: Ontario Association of Art Pornography and the Law in the Age of Galleries, 1995), 20. Feminism (Toronto: University of Toronto Press Incorporated, 1994), 139. 7. Ontario Film and Video Appreciation

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18. For a discussion of the characteristic of incompleteness that necessitates a conception 27. Razutis, e-mail message to author, April of the law as governance see Alan Hunt and 8, 2007. Gary Wickham, Foucault and Law: Towards a Sociology of Law as Governance (London, 28. Razutis, “Regina v. Ian McLachlan, Sterling, VA: Pluto Press, 1994), 102-3. Susan Ditta, Al Razutis, David Bierk”.

19. Cossman, Censorship, 25. 29. Richard Fung, “Uncompromising Positions: Anti-censorship, Anti-racism, and 20. In 1982, Lisa Steele, Kim Tomczak, the Visual Arts,” in Suggestive Poses: Artists Colin Campbell, Kate Craig, Clive and Critics Respond to Censorship , ed. Robertson, and Rodney Werden refused to Lorraine Johnson (Toronto: Toronto show their work at the Festival of Festivals Photographers Workshop and The Riverbank “Video/Video” program in protest of the Press, 1997), 141. organizers’ compliance with the censor board’s regulations and “by invitation only” 30. Richard Burt, “Introduction,” in The advertising (Cossman, Censorship, 111). Administration of Aesthetics: Censorship, Political Criticism, and the Public Sphere, ed. 21. Al Razutis, “Regina v. Ian McLachlan, Richard Burt (Minneapolis and London: Susan Ditta, Al Razutis, David Bierk: The University of Minnesota Press, 1994), xiv. Theatres Act, Provincial Court, Criminal Division, Peterborough, Ontario; June 22nd to 31. Kuwabara, interview with author, March June 25th, 1982,” Opsis: The Canadian 4, 2005. Journal of Avant-Garde and Political Cinema 1, no.1 (1984), eds. Michael Eliot- 32. A second meaningful difference is that Hurst, Al Razutis, Tony Reif, http:// the criminal code applies to obscenity www.alchemists.com/visual_alchemy/opsis/ offences committed in various forms of Censorship.html. visual as well as non-visual material, whereas the Theatres Act (now the Film Classification 22. Razutis, “Regina v. Ian McLachlan, Act) only applies to film and video. Susan Ditta, Al Razutis, David Bierk”. The NFB's Not A Love Story is also banned. 33. There is an intimate connection between the logic of the OFRB and that found in the 23. Razutis, “Regina v. Ian McLachlan, criminal code. In fact, the OFRB’s Susan Ditta, Al Razutis, David Bierk”. functional overlap with the Criminal Code has been a point of contention in several legal 24. A Message is a nine minute section of a challenges. One of the arguments Glad Day larger project called Amerika. presented in its 2001 legal challenge was that the OFRB had initiated its own criteria and 25. Razutis, “Regina v. Ian McLachlan, procedures for defining obscenity. Glad Day Susan Ditta, Al Razutis, David Bierk”. argued that in doing so, the OFRB was Razutis recalls that “[t]he entire three-hour overriding the authority of the existing film ‘Amerika’ was screened in the court obscenity provision in the provincial room, one reel at a time, on a rickety 16mm Criminal Code. projector, stand up screen, Venetian blinds closed, and since this film is 'trying in 34. Donald Butler was charged for selling patience' in the first place, the look on the “hard core” pornography from his Manitoban Judge certainly confirmed that was indeed a video store selling “hard core” pornography. 'trying' task of viewership for 'My Lord' and The case went to the Supreme Court of the Barristers.” Al Razutis (Filmmaker and Canada. This was the “first constitutional professor, Simon Fraser University), e-mail challenge to the obscenity law, s.163, of message to author, April 8, 2007. Canada’s Criminal Code”, as Brenda Cossman and Shannon Bell observe in their 26. Razutis, e-mail message to author, April introduction to Brenda Cossman et al, Bad 8, 2007. Attitude/s on Trial: Pornography, Feminism, and

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the Butler Decision (Toronto, Buffalo, London: Scythes and Tom Ivison, were charged at University of Toronto Press, 1997), 3-4. Canada Customs for distributing obscene material in the form of the lesbian erotica 35. Varda Burstyn, “Porn Again: Feeling the magazine, Bad Attitude. The case is filed as Heat of Censorship,” Fuse (Spring 1987): 12. Regina v. Scythes. See Becki L. Ross, “‘It’s Merely Designed for Sexual Arousal’: 36. Cossman and Bell, “Introduction,” 21. Interrogating the Indefensibility of Lesbian Smut,” in Bad Attitude/s on Trial: 37. While the moral conservatives of the Pornography, Feminism, and the Butler Regan-Bush era regarded pornography as Decision, eds. Brenda Cossman et al. inherently immoral, the anti-porn feminists (Toronto, Buffalo, London: University of argued that it should be censored for the Toronto Press 1997), 152. specific reason that it causes harm to women. Despite this difference of opinion on the 45. Ross, 160. effect of pornography, the leaders of both movements supported legislation to censor it. 46. Quoted in Ross, 162. See Burstyn, “Porn Again”, 12. 47. Ross, 164. 38. Cossman and Bell, “Introduction,” 4. 48. See Ross, 164. Later in the article, Ross 39. Lacombe, 136. With the Butler does make the claim that heterosexual s/m is decision, the court defined obscenity as: “(1) not always harmful; however, according to the portrayal of explicit sex with violence her account, the argument wasn’t made in will nearly always be obscene; (2) the court. I do not want to suggest that she is portrayal of explicit non-violent sex that is arguing for the idea that representation is degrading or dehumanizing is obscene if the univocal or has a causal relationship with risk of harm is substantial; and, (3) the behavior, but the maneuver of contrasting portrayal of explicit non-violent sex that is lesbian pornography with hetero- neither degrading nor dehumanizing will not pornography as a means of assigning it be obscene unless it uses children in its special legal treatment has its own production” (Lacombe, 136). consequences. My project here is to trace the changing knowledge-claims about 40. Burstyn, “Porn Again,” 12. The full pornography as they were developed, even if citations for these publications are Varda inadvertently, by the major voices in public Burstyn, ed., Women Against Censorship debate. This necessarily includes default (: Douglas & McIntyre Ltd., 1985) positions that appear in a forced juxtaposition and Carole S. Vance, ed., Pleasure and of arguments and are not necessarily Danger: Exploring Female Sexuality intended. This phenomenon may say (Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1984). something about the hegemonic tendency of For an extensive review of Pleasure and the law to constrain discourses; however, this Danger, see Sue Golding, “Pleasure and is precisely the reason for studying truth- Danger,” The Body Politic (March 1985): 26- claims that develop in debates within and 27. And for an interview with Carole Vance adjacent to legal proceedings. by Lee Waldorf, see “Letting Experience Come Out,” The Body Politic (March 1985): 49. Ross, 175. Foucault deals with the law 27-28. illustratively in order to contrast older notions of power embodied by the King’s 41. Burstyn, “Porn Again,” 12. body and his concept of power as capillary and diffuse. The only reason Foucault did 42. Cossman and Bell, “Introduction,” 24. not apply his diffuse conception of power to state law is because he only treated the law 43. Cossman and Bell, “Introduction,” 25. illustratively and never took it up as an object for study. See Hunt and Wickham, 41. 44. In April of 1992, the then-owners and managers of Glad Day Bookshop, John 50. Hunt and Wickham, 49.

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51. Hunt and Wickham, 41. Cossman and 59. Jansen, 181; Burt, xv. Bell petition feminists to “push forward the understanding of the role of law in social 60. Burt, xii. change. Early anti-censorship feminists did not, by and large, develop their analysis of 61. Burt, xv. Burt argues that the term the role of law, but rather tended to adopt a “censorship” should be replaced with the more instrumentalist conception of the state phrase “discourse of legitimation.” as serving capitalist and patriarchal interests. This has lead some anti-pornography 62. Burt claims that his proposal is no more feminists to suggest that anti-censorship progressive than the left or the right. Rather, feminists abandon law altogether as a site of he is attempting to replace the left/ right and feminist engagement. We believe that this for/ against censorship binaries with a more view not only misrepresents the position of ambivalent position (xx). anti-censorship feminists, but moreover unduly simplifies the role of law in social 63. Burt, xvii. Burt cites the video change.” Cossman and Bell, “Introduction,” distribution facility V/tape of Toronto as a 28. good example of diversity used as a criterion to determine inclusion and exclusion. In 52. The full citation for this work is, 1986, Steele, along with other members of V/ Christopher N. Kendall, Male Gay tape and the arts community at-large, Pornography: An Issue of Sex Discrimination committed to equity initiatives in the effort to (Vancouver, Toronto: UBC Press, 2004). promote diversity.

53. Kendall, xiii. 64. Of course there are different levels of enforcement and methods of de-legitimation 54. Kendall, xiii. and I don’t want to minimize the moments when coercion is used. Whether it is through 55. Since there has never been any proof that outright banning of materials, or through pornographic imagery has a causal instituting a tax on speech in the form of connection to rape, supporters of both screening fees, information is regulated, positions argued that the “harm” was “harm legitimated and de-legitimated. against equality.” 65. Burt, xxi. 56. See Lisa Steele, “A Capital Idea: Gendering in the Mass Media,” in Women 66. Lacombe, 147. Against Censorship, ed. Varda Burstyn, 58- 78 (Vancouver & Toronto: Douglas & 67. Lefort quoted in Lacombe, Blue Politics, McIntyre Ltd., 1985). 147.

57. Lisa Steele (Video Artist, Faculty of 68. Quoted in Lacombe, Blue Politics, 147. Fine Arts, University of Toronto), interview with author, April 4, 2005. 69. Since multiple and diverse subject- positions do not spontaneously align 58. See Jim McGuigan, “Censorship and themselves, Chantal Mouffe asks for a “new Moral Regulation,” 154-175, in his Culture common sense” in which “democratic and the Pubic Sphere (London: Routledge, equivalences” can be made. After Mouffe, 1996); Sue Curry Jansen, Censorship: The Lacombe suggests that such a common good Knot That Binds Power and Knowledge “does not assume already constituted (Oxford, New York: Oxford University identities…[but] would attend to the fluidity Press, 1988); Richard Burt, ed. The of political identities, and their continual Administration of Aesthetics: Censorship, development…[and] cannot be legitimized in Political Criticism, and the Public Sphere some absolute or spontaneous desire or in (Minneapolis and London: University of abstract principles, because… it comes out of Minnesota Press, 1994). the forms of existence in which we find

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ourselves” (Lacombe, 153). These forms of taxes the freedom of expression. Liberalists existence are the postmodern conditions that contend that the privitization agendas pushed characterize a multiplicity of struggles for by the conservative Reagan and Bush equality, the very relations of subordination administrations fostered a form of marketized that Mouffe brings to the political project of censorship in Canada, whereby distributors liberalism. often monopolize the market, and government censors cater to the largest 70. The concept of “enabling” when used to distributors See McGuigan’s chapter “From describe the productivity of the law is taken State to Market,” 51-73, in Culture and the from Lacombe’s Blue Politics. Pubic Sphere, for a discussion of the Bush/ Reagan agenda to privatize what used to be 71. Lacombe, Blue Politics, 11. state-controlled endeavors. Also, see Burt for a discussion of the liberalist view of the 72. Lacombe, Blue Politics, 137. way privatization causes new forms of censorship, such as the inability to 73. Brenda Cossman (Faculty of Law, appropriate cultural material that has been University of Toronto), e-mail message to copy-righted or patented. author, April 14, 2005. 81. “If You’re Over 21, Click Here to Enter: 74. Glad Day Bookshop Inc, Factum, May Censorship Isn't Just Outrageous, It's Futile,” 29, 2001, http://www.gladday.com/ofrb/ Xtra! November 30, 2000, http:// Charter_factum.pdf. www.xtra.ca/site/toronto2/arch/ body701.shtm. 75. Darren Cooney, “Big Win for Glad Day,” Xtra! May 13, 2004, www.xtra.ca/site/ 82. Quoted in Irwin, “Video censorship.” toronto2/arch/archives.shtm. 83. Steele, interview with author, April 4, 76. See such articles as Tracey Tyler’s “Film 2005. Board Powers Cut By Ruling on Censorship,” Toronto Star, May 1, 2004, 84. As Steele recalled, in the 1980s only a http://www.fradical.com/ handful of women artists were involved in Court_strikes_down_OFRB_powers.htm. producing pornography: “So that was a Joseph Couture, “Keep on Censorin,'” Eye strategy all throughout the eighties, to Weekly, July 29, 2004, http://www.eye.net/ appropriate gay male pornography, bring it eye/issue/issue_07.29.04/city/gladday.html, into the art gallery and thus bring it into Joseph Couture, “Papers Swallow discussion. It was a highly politicized speech Government Doublespeak,” Eye Weekly, 23 that doesn’t have a parallel even with people December 2004, http://www.eye.net/eye/ like myself who are feminists actively issue/issue_12.23.04/city/ofrb.html, and engaged in anti-censorship activist activity. Robert Benzie, “Film Board Cut Out as There wasn’t a parallel of us taking hard-core Censor”, A.04. porn and hetero porn and using it as context. That’s because of the difference in the means 77. Glad Day Factum. of production. Certainly at that point, there were very few women directors of explicit 78. Quoted in Toshiya Kuwabara, “Glad pornography. There are a few now, like Day Bookshop Press Release,” November18, Blush Productions and a few others that have 2004, http://www.gladdaybookshop.com/ become well-known, but mostly, ofrb/press%20release11_17.pdf. heterosexual pornography was produced by men.” Steele, interview with author, April 4, 79. Kuwabara, interview with author, March 2005. 4, 2005. 85. Richard Fung (Video Artist, Faculty of 80. Kuwabara, interview with author, March Art, OCAD), interview with author, June 3, 4, 2005. Political liberalists argue that this 2005. state-sponsored regulatory system in effect

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86. “Habits” was held April 8-12, 1986 at that freedom of imagination is not entirely YYZ, and artist-run centre in Toronto, free insofar as it is affected by societal norms Ontario. and values (278). She goes so far as to say, “in Canada, that wider context is, in fact, 87. Video tape transcript of Richard Fung’s very narrowly drawn around the artistic Chinese Characters, 1986. freedom of white writers” (284).

88. Phil Van Steenburgh, “‘Habits’ by YYZ, 95. For example, The Body Politic was the Toronto,” Cinema Canada (July 1986): 26. first gay newspaper made in Canada. In the late 1970s, the paper faced several charges 89. Richard Fung, “Looking for My Penis: for distributing obscene material in the mail. The Eroticized Asian in Gay Video Porn,” in Little Sister’s Book and Art Emporium of How Do I Look?, eds. Bad Object-Choices Vancouver was also subjected to repeated (Seattle: Bay Press, 1991), 151. seizure by Canada Customs in the 1980s. Little Sister’s initiated a legal challenge 90. Varda Burstyn explains that “Dworkin against Canada Customs in 1994, alleging does not speak of ‘masculine,’ that is of that the Customs Act, which grants inspectors learned, sexual behavior, but of ‘male,’ that broad powers of exclusion, violated section 2 is of ascribed sexual behavior, clearly of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The implying that misogyny and brutality are case Little Sisters Book and Art Emporium v. biologically coded into men’s sexual Canada (Minister of Justice) was heard by response.” “Anatomy of a Moral Panic,” the in 2000. The Fuse (Summer 1984): 29-38. Furthermore, Court ruled that while the Customs Act did “to use censorship to inhibit misogynist violate section 2 of the Charter, it was feelings in men is to imply that there is no justified under section 1. See Janine Fuller way that individuals or society can change – and Stuart Blackley, Restricted Entry: either at a deep unconscious level, or through Censorship on Trial (Vancouver: Press conscious choice and work. Censorship Gang Publishers, 1995). enshrines the present inequality of the sexes in the law” as Anna Gronau contends in 96. Steele, interview with author, April 4, “Censorship: Caught in the Crossfire,” 2005. Parallelogramme 9, no. 3 (Feb/March 1984): 42-44. 97. Film Classification Act, 2005, S.O. 2005, c.17. 91. Waugh quoted in Fung, “Looking for My Penis,” 154. Becki Ross’s analyses of 98. Benzie, “Film Board Cut Out as homosexual pornography also reveals the Censor”, A.04. Film classification as an potential for slippage in identity construction issue in itself is beyond the scope of this (see note 44). paper, but it is worth contemplating briefly. Films that receive approval after their pre- 92. Fung, “Looking for My Penis,” 154. screenings are rated and the corresponding warnings are applied. More than neutral 93. Fung, “Looking for My Penis,” 153. safeguards, these warnings can signal audiences to be offended. 94. Fung, interview with author, June 3, 2005. Nourbese Philip argues that censorship 99. Joseph Couture, “Papers Swallow can overshadow the issue of race for writers Government Doublespeak,” Eye Weekly, in Canada. In her book, Frontiers: Essays December 23, 2004, http://www.eye.net/eye/ and Writings on Racism and Culture issue/issue_12.23.04/city/ofrb.html. (Stratford: The Mercury Press, 1992), she comments on the way censorship becomes a 100. The Ministry of Government Website central issue in dominant liberal democracies published these words in their information because it is a “talismanic cultural icon bulletin: “These changes modify the powers around which all debates about the of the Ontario Film Review Board (OFRB) ‘individual freedom of man’ swirl,” meaning with respect to approval of film, and narrow

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the criteria the OFRB uses to review and approve film. These changes are intended to be consistent with the direction given by the court.” However, for the OFRB to narrow the criteria for approval, or rather, for banning, means that the OFRB still maintains the power to ban video and film. The OFRB also maintains the authority to require the pre-screening of all video/film material. Furthermore, the criteria for approval is still based on the obscenity law, which is itself debatable for its ambiguity. Ontario Ministry of Government Services Website, “Information Bulletin: Regulatory Changes to the Theatres Act Now in Effect,” July 5, 2005, http://www.cbs.gov.on.ca/mcbs/ english/62LJ73.htm.

101. Alexi Wood (Policy Analyst, Canadian Civil Liberties Association), interview with author, March 29, 2005.

102. Wood, interview with author, March 29, 2005.

103. Examples of these knowledge-claims include the position that pornography is not art and that explicit sexuality means something different in art than it does in pornography or, alternatively, that representations of explicit sexuality are just as constitutive of political meanings in all their forms. Another set of knowledges include arguments that women share a characteristic sexuality and are subjected to harm to equality when men exploit this sexuality in pornography, or, that there exists a multiplicity of sexualities constituted within discourse that should thus be available for discursive contest. Still others include the position that images causally motivate action, or that they don’t; that minority sexualities depicted in pornography mimic the same unequal power relations that are found in hetero-sex pornography or that these depictions, in avoiding discriminating alternative readings, are themselves discriminated against. Of course there are many more knowledge-claims in addition to these.

104. Kwinter, 28.

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