Libertarian, my arse.

I was going to rip into the dribblings of a tedious little censor happy prick writing for The Daily Wail who not only wants a film banned because it's depraved, a film he's not actually watched before playing moral arbiter, but has the shameless audacity to claim that he's "strongly libertarian in tendency". My two cents is that anyone who supports banning a film, let alone one the content of which they've not even experienced at first hand, is no more libertarian than a book burning religious nutjob and is raping the word if they say they are. Not only that but The Daily Wail have done their level best to promote the film by including in this article decrying its hedonistic and sexually depraved content a couple of photos. Fucking tools.

A more thorough fisking of this fuckwit has been made unnecessary because there's nothing I can add to what Leg-Iron has already written on Old Holborn.

Can a film critic claim to be libertarian while calling for the banning of a film he hasn't watched?

This (oxy)moron thinks so.

There's a new film out filled with sex and violence. Sounds like fun. I know there are those who think Libertarians would have infant-school day trips to watch it, but not so. It would be the parents' responsibility to decide whether their child can watch it and once they're old enough to join the Army, they're old enough to make their own decisions. Joining the Army can be a life or death decision. No bigger decision is possible so if they're judged old enough for that, they're old enough for anything. Currently the Army takes recruits at 16 and a half years old and they could be killed defending the country before they're old enough to go into the booze aisle of a supermarket. If you think that makes sense, I have a very nice bridge for sale.

Back to our authoritarian libertarian, Christopher Hart.

A film which plumbs new depths of sexual explicitness, excruciating violence and degradation has just been passed as fit for general consumption by the British Board of Film Classification.

General consumption? You mean they'll shelve it with Disney films?

They have given the film an 18 certificate.

Aha, this is the restricted general consumption that goes along with compulsory volunteering, killing in the name of peace and A* grades without knowing the subject - also known as 'freedom is slavery, war is peace, ignorance is strength' in that order. I see.

As we all know, this is meaningless nowadays in the age of the DVD because sooner or later, thanks to the gross irresponsibility of some parents, any film that is given general release will be seen by children.

Ah, but Libertarianism is all about responsibility. Corrupting children harms them, and the central tenet of Libertarianism, 'cause no harm to others', is therefore violated and the parents will be held responsible for their actions. As it is, they aren't allowed to take responsibility, so many of them don't. Besides, films like A Clockwork Orange, The Exorcist, Hellraiser and much stronger stuff is all on DVD now. If parents are likely to let their kids watch this one (which I doubt many would) then those kids have already seen some blood and boobs. I'm not saying it's right, I'm saying it's happened already.

You do not need to see Lars von Trier's Antichrist (which is released later this week) to know how revolting it is.

Actually, I would need to see it to know how revolting it is. There's no other way to judge. I'm not going to take your word for it just because you didn't like it.

I haven't seen it myself, nor shall I

Huh? So you're telling me I shouldn't be allowed to watch a film you have decided is utterly without merit, and you haven't even watched it yourself? How did you come to this conclusion, pray tell?

and I speak as a broad-minded arts critic, strongly libertarian in tendency.

You're not sounding very libertarian here. You're sounding New Labour to the core, I'm afraid. Are you trying to give the impression that libertarianism is the same as Labour, Tories, Lib Dems etc? It's an interesting new approach but it's not working.

But merely reading about Antichrist is stomach-turning, and enough to form a judgment.

Is it? Depends who wrote what you're reading, wouldn't you say? Someone who didn't like it, wrote a review and exaggerated? Someone in PR thought it might be a good idea to hype it up? The British Board of Film Censors actually watched it and let it through. They didn't rely on second-hand reports. Neither will I. As a 'libertarian critic', neither should you. At this point I'd like to ask - isn't watching films your, ah, job?

...

It seems 'Libertarian' has become a 'cool tag' now, and is used here by one of the most ferocious Righteous I've come across. He clearly has no idea what 'libertarian' means.

Here's a clue for the clueless, Righteous Hart. It does not mean 'total control'.

Read the rest, and if you agree why not pop along to and leave a comment on this authoritarian knobber's not-actually-a-review. The film doesn't sound like my thing, and I've troubled myself to read reviews by people who watched it (or so I assume - they certainly don't mention with self important pride that they haven't done their fucking jobs as film reviewers), but that's because it sounds like a piece of pretentious arty wank and with the price of cinema tickets here I'd much rather see something either funny or exploding. I certainly don't object to other people going to see it if they think they'll find it thought provoking or whatever. I certainly don't think it should be banned simply on the grounds of some prudish twats objecting to the sex, violence and genital mutilation when there have been plenty of films with sex and/or violence before. As for the genital mutilation, a couple of months back there was a British documentary on SBS called The Perfect Vagina which discussed - and the title kind of gives it away - women getting cosmetic surgery on their vaginas (and sometimes on the NHS to the outrage of the Exile household), and actually showed an actual young woman's actual twat before an actual doctor sliced her actual piss flaps off...

... because she thought it'd look better that way ...

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And she was awake throughout because it's done under a local anaesthetic. 

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So don't fucking tell me that a film can't be shown because the main female character is as mad as a box of frogs and takes a knife to what the audience know is really rubber special effects fanny made by the props department when network TV has already shown a real life cosmetic surgeon waving around the severed lips of some poor deluded girl's battered box.