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Just How Nasty Were the Video Nasties? Identifying Contributors of the Video Nasty Moral Panic

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Just How Nasty Were the Video Nasties? Identifying Contributors of the Video Nasty Moral Panic Stephen Gerard Doheny Just how nasty were the video nasties? Identifying contributors of the video nasty moral panic in the 1980s DIPLOMA THESIS submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Magister der Philosophie Programme: Teacher Training Programme Subject: English Subject: Geography and Economics Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt Evaluator Univ.-Prof. Dr. Jörg Helbig, M.A. Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik Klagenfurt, May 2019 i Affidavit I hereby declare in lieu of an oath that - the submitted academic paper is entirely my own work and that no auxiliary materials have been used other than those indicated, - I have fully disclosed all assistance received from third parties during the process of writing the thesis, including any significant advice from supervisors, - any contents taken from the works of third parties or my own works that have been included either literally or in spirit have been appropriately marked and the respective source of the information has been clearly identified with precise bibliographical references (e.g. in footnotes), - to date, I have not submitted this paper to an examining authority either in Austria or abroad and that - when passing on copies of the academic thesis (e.g. in bound, printed or digital form), I will ensure that each copy is fully consistent with the submitted digital version. I understand that the digital version of the academic thesis submitted will be used for the purpose of conducting a plagiarism assessment. I am aware that a declaration contrary to the facts will have legal consequences. Stephen G. Doheny “m.p.” Köttmannsdorf: 1st May 2019 Dedication I I would like to dedicate this work to my wife and children, for their support and understanding over the last six years. I would like to extend special thanks to Professor Jörg Helbig for allowing me to pursue my research interests, and for evaluating this work. I would also like to thank the professors and tutors from the faculties of English, Geography and the School of Education for guiding me through my teacher training studies. ii Table of Contents: Affidavit / Dedication ii List of Abbreviations iv 1) Introduction………………………………………………………………………….…...…1 What is a video nasty? ........................................................... ..………...….. …1 2) The video nasty as moral panic: a theoretical approach ................................... …..2 3) British Censorship: Historical repitition ............................................................. …..6 3.1 The troubled birth of cinema…..…………………………………....………………..8 3.2 Lady Chatterley’s Lover ………………..…………………………………………..10 3.3 The same rules don’t apply …………………………………....………………18 4) Video Violence and Children Report 1983...................................................... …..21 5) Marketing the video nasties ........................................................................... …..31 5.1 SS EXPERIMENT CAMP (1976) Synopsis …………………………………………..33 5.2 CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST (1979) Synopsis …………………………………………..34 5.3 Go Video & Des Dolan ……………………………………………………………..35 5.4 The stunt that started it all………………………...……………………..………….41 5.5 The media gets nasty ……………………………………………………………..43 6) Mary Whitehouse ........................................................................................... …..44 7) Video cover artwork: The AIDA rental experience .......................................... …..52 8) I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE (1978) Case study & Defense……………………………………..67 8.1 Synopsis ……………………………………..…..…………………………..………... 67 8.2 History …..………………………………………………………………….….. 70 8.3 Reception ........................................................................................... ….. 73 8.4 Analysis .............................................................................................. ….. 75 8.5 No means No!: Destroying the myths of male sexual violence ................... ….. 77 8.6 Headless women ................................................................................. ….. 78 8.7 Accusing THE ACCUSED (1988) ............................................................... ….. 82 8.8 North, not South: DELIVERANCE (1972) .................................................... ….. 84 8.9 I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE as Anti-cinema ..................................................... ….. 84 8.10 Remakes and Sequels ........................................................................ ….. 87 9) Conclusion ..................................................................................................... ….. 90 Bibliography .......................................................................................................... 91 iii List of Abbreviations AIDA Attention, Interest, Desire, Action (marketing model) ASA Advertising Standards Authority BBFC British Board of Film Classification (after 1984) BVA British Video Association CARE Christian Action Research Education DPP Director of Public Prosecutions GLC Greater London Council MP Member of Parliament NVALA National Viewer’s and Listener’s Association OPA Obscene Publications Act 1959 PGVE Parliamentary Group Video Enquiry TRU Television Research Unit VCR Video Cassette Recorder VRA Video Recordings Act iv 1. Introduction Home video came onto the market in the late 1970s, and quickly became very popular. It was treated with the same disdain and abhorrence as literature, cinema and comics when they were first made widely available to working class audiences. The Video Recordings Act of 1984 demanded all video content be submitted to the BBFC for classification and censorship. Those who did not comply faced hefty fines and or custodial sentences. The VRA was the result of the video nasty moral panic, a panic that was nurtured by moralists and amplified by tabloid newspapers. This paper focuses its attention on the chain of events and contributors that manufactured the video nasty moral panic. It also examines historical panics in attempting to identify recurring themes and investigate why moral panics are quite common in Britain. After first defining the term video nasty, Chapter 2 considers moral panics from a theoretical perspective and identifies the video nasty era as a moral panic. Chapter 3 examines historical panics and censorship, and identifies the notion of class, and its role in moral panic production. Chapter 4 presents the people and events that contributed to the release of the Video Violence and Children report in 1983; the document that paved the way for censorship legislation to pass through the House of Commons uncontested. Chapter 5 examines how the video nasties were marketed and chronicles the exploits of Des Dolan of Go Video and the stunt that started it all. Chapter 6 is devoted to Mary Whitehouse, who was a powerhouse of British moralism in the 1970s and 80s. She campaigned relentlessly to see distributors prosecuted and video nasty titles banned. Chapter 7 applies the AIDA model of marketing to the video rental experience, which analyses the video cover artwork used to promote the video nasties, artwork that moralists found so abhorrent and depraved. Chapter 8 presents a detailed analysis and defense of I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE (1978), perhaps the most notorious of all the video nasties. The analysis shows that some of the nasties were misunderstood and unfairly treated by critics when compared with more polished Hollywood releases. I begin by defining the term video nasty. What is a video nasty? I shall adopt the definition of a video nasty as defined in 2010 by Phelim O’Neill. The definition appeared in the Guardian newspaper and suggests that “In a nutshell, [a video nasty] was most likely to be a low-budget horror film, produced in the US or Italy, that exploited the lack of a rigorous regulatory system for how rental video cassettes were circulated in the UK… They were everywhere, 1 and the most popular (thanks to some incredibly lurid and wonderfully provocative cover artwork), and conspicuous were the horror films” (O'Neill 2010). Describing the home entertainment market in 1980 O’Neill continues, “The home video market had just exploded, almost everyone, in the space of a few years, had a video recorder in their home and as far as retailers and distributors were concerned, it was frontier territory. There was no censorship, classification or regulation. Videos could be bought or rented from almost anywhere: newsagents, garages, even butchers and barbers” (Ibid). Video recorders went on sale in Britain in 1978 (Walker 2017, 631), and video content remained unregulated until the passing of the VRA six years later (Walker 2017, 630). Cinema releases were obliged to be submitted to the BBFC for censoring and classification, but no such requirements were in place to police video content (Ibid). This allowed distributors to release uncut versions of films that had previously been heavily edited or even rejected by the censors. It also meant that a wave of violent sexploitation and horror films that had not previously been submitted to the (BBFC) could be rented from video rental stores up and down the UK. 72 of these titles were listed by the DPP for obscenity and would become the infamous video nasties. 2. The Video Nasty era as moral panic: A theoretical approach. This section applies a theoretical approach to the phenomenon of the video nasty scare of the early 1980s and identifies it as a moral panic. Indeed, this entire paper works towards identifying the major contributors and their motivations. This section also serves as a brief chronology
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