Idiots Anonymous

Are you in the mood to watch a truly surreal moment in Australian television? Then visit the ABC’s Q and A website and watch the episode dated July 24. If you’re too lazy to do that, then I may as well describe it, since any subsequent references would fly right over your head: few things are lazier than a dedicated internet user, and I should never be so stupid as to forget my readership.

Q and A is a fantastic new panel show hosted by the Golden God himself, Tony Jones. Politicians — lowly enough to be free of genuine accountability but lofty enough to be cross-referenced by puerile politicians looking for cheap laughs and raucous “awwww”s from the backbench — and industry big wigs sit down for a good old pow-wow about whatever is asked of them by the audience. It would be a tired concept, if not for the fact that commercial programs throw balls softer than Nerf, and ask questions slightly less pertinent than “scruncher or folder?”: so a genuinely confronting, live environment is a welcome change from the ego stroking that is free to air TV.

The most corrupting influence on your children since Vanessa Hudgens flashed her vag.

So, anyway — preface done. On to the fun stuff. Well into the program, the ever-so-handsome Tony Jones diverts from the current topic of conversation and motions to a guy in the audience, with a sickly skin tone, greasy, unkempt hair and a Fallout t-shirt (Speech Perk, for those playing at home), asking a question about videogame censorship. The following dissection of the game’s plot by Tony Jones, swift comparison to snuff films (which is not an overreaction at all) by Nationals senator Barnaby Joyce, and deflated hand-raising by the audience member had me glued to the television. For once, our country’s politicians were addressing their most important constituency: the nerds.

Why ask about it now? Because Australia, unbelievably, does not have an equivalent ratings system for videogames. Fallout 3, the upcoming sequel to the creatively titled Fallout 2, was refused classification and subsequently banned, due to a lack of an R18+ rating.

“Why not just create an R18+ rating then?” you ask. Well dog gone it, you stumped me. It seems that while we’ve gotten over the concept that music and movies are corrupting our children, the argument that videogames do the same still holds firm, and so the draconian laws which govern media distribution in this country hold firm with it.

I’ve played the first two Fallout games. I doubt anyone reading this hasn’t, in the very least, heard of them. They’re great games. Violent? Sure. Vulgar? Sometimes. Smart? You bet. See, it makes me giggle that the kneejerk reaction from the Q&A panel was that “videogame violence is the worst!” when the actual reason the OFLC censored the game was the following:

“Realistic visual representations of drugs and their delivery method [bringing] the ’science-fiction’ drugs in line with ‘real-world’ drugs.“

Apparently, despite the extensive protestations of the panel, it’s fine for anyone over the age of 15 to view (and partake in!) acts of digital violence, obscenity or sex, but the minute drugs fall into the picture, it’s put in the same barrel as child pornography and cast into the aether as if it had never existed. That seems rational!

Now, I know this might be a zany idea for the OFLC to digest, but I am an adult and as such, have a right, under Australian law, to consume any piece of media I please, no matter how explicit or offensive it may be — unless it is explicitly illegal on the grounds of victimisation. The fact that their iron grip hath not extended the golden palm of benevolence to videogames is, to me, lacking in that even-handedness that we’ve come to expect from our surrogate parents, and ultimately just makes me wonder: do they even bother to look at what they’re classifying, or do they just ham-fistedly delegate ratings on the basis that they “don’t know how to turn that darn box on”? Here’s a hint: get your 56 year old grandson to do it for you.

I know this might just sound like an angry nerd tirade but believe me, my computer isn’t hefty enough to handle Fallout 3, and I don’t intend to buy a Playstation 3 or an Xbox 360. I simply don’t like it when these bodies use children as a crutch to defend their seemingly indefensible stances. Surprisingly, we have a section of the population willing to act as guardians for these weak, innocent children, protecting them from the harms of “realistic visual representations of drugs” and exposing them to clean-cut, painfully wholesome media like Hannah Montana and The Diet Coke Hour of Power. Last time I checked, those people were called parents. To the OFLC: do your job, so they can do theirs. Also, give me your consoles, since you obviously have no use for them.