When I hear people say that 1984 is happening in 2020 I take it literally.
Not only is George Orwell’s novel replaying in front of our eyes but the actual year of 1984 was when the moral panic regarding the so-called Video Nasties here in the UK occurred. I thought we had learnt from that. Apparently not. Feel free to watch this documentary as a reminder.
Gone With The Wind, Little Britain, The Inbetweeners, Fawlty Towers…in the age of streaming services it’s shocking that content can be withdrawn/deplatformed/erased/censored at the push of a button. How about these companies let viewers decide if something is acceptable or not, whether it is genuinely offensive or not and if it is whether we can learn from it if it is. We could also assess whether certain moral guardians are just being oversensitive. Or maybe if certain streaming services are just withdrawing their products to garner a little extra publicity.
Worrying times.
meathookcinema.com 