Exorcise The Justice Department, Please

The Age

Friday April 6, 2001

CONSIDER a film in which the hero is a Jesuit priest and the villain a demon who has possessed the body of a teenage girl. The priest dies trying to exorcise the demon, but by the end of the film the girl has been freed from the demon's power. The film's theology is thoroughly orthodox, perhaps because when it was made, in 1973, Jesuit theologians from Georgetown University in Washington, DC, were enlisted as consultants. Many of the scenes in this film, The Exorcist, are shocking and have given it a prominent place in the history of cinematic special effects. But, unlike the gorier scenes of many more recent horror films, their presence is not gratuitous. They are there because William Peter Blatty, who adapted the screenplay from a novel he wrote, based his story on events recorded during the last known Catholic-sanctioned exorcism in the US, which took place in 1949. No one who has seen The Exorcist could doubt that it presents the Catholic Church in a sympathetic light. It takes seriously, for example, the church's teaching that demonic possession is possible and that the church's ritual is efficacious against it - notions that most people in modern societies, including perhaps many Catholics, would probably dismiss as rank superstition. All in all, if public authorities were to ban the screening of a film on Good Friday on the grounds that it might offend Catholics, The Exorcist would be a bizarre choice. That a Catholic Church spokesman has endorsed the ban is even more bizarre. It is all bizarre enough, in fact, to make one's head spin through 360 degrees.

This silly ban was apparently the decision of Justice Department officials, but the State Government initially upheld it, though the ban is now under review. There are several reasons why it should be withdrawn. A spokesman for acting Attorney-General Bob Cameron said the ban had been imposed not because the film is R-rated but because ``the nature of the film might be found to be offensive by some members of the community, given the day". The Victorian community embraces people of many faiths and of none, however, and it is surely unfair to prevent everyone from seeing a film on the grounds that Catholics may be offended by it - if indeed they are offended, which may be doubted. Further, there is the anomaly created by the fact that although the new cinema release of the film will be banned, the earlier version will be available in video shops. Finally, there is the question of what this ban may indicate about the government's plan to legislate against racial and religious vilification. The Age is not opposed in principle to anti-vilification laws, but we are extremely concerned about whether this bill will be drafted with sufficient care to preserve vigorous freedom of expression. The government has promised that the bill will exempt artistic performance and exhibition, so why banThe Exorcist?