Bill Hastings

I found it amusing yesterday to listen on the radio to the SPCS explaining why they thought Bill Hastings should stand down as Chief Censor after ten years in the job. They sounded like they were just concerned for his welfare – how horrible it must be for him etc to have spent ten years having to look at such awful stuff, and how you would get desensitised.

Now I think you can have a legitimate debate about whether censors become desensisited, but this is a red herring. The SPCS have campaigned against Bill Hastings for years, mainly it seems because he is gay.

The silly thing with all of this, is that Hastings is not the final authority. His decisions can and do get appealed to the Film and Literature Board of Review.. And off memory they have actually been more permissive than Hastings, so it is perverse that he is the one who gets targetted so much.