Bill C-10 would give the Heritage Department the power to deny government funding for films that aren't "in the public interest," even if federal agencies such as Telefilm and the Canadian Television Fund have invested.Is it in the "public interest" to have the government tell us what kind of art we can make? After visiting their website, do you really believe that they want to rid the world of hate and propaganda?
Taking their cue from Conservative evangelicals, the heritage department says the new criteria would deny tax credits to films that feature "gratuitous violence, significant sexual content that lacks an educational purpose, or denigration of an identifiable group."
Do we really trust the judgment of a group of artless, soulless pro-market government bureaucrats to "get it" when they watch an independent film? People like Conservative MP Dave Batters, who said yesterday that offensive films should be made with private money. The Globe quotes him as saying, "if there's a market for that, let people pay the $11."
Batters swung and missed there, failing to grasp that these films are being made outside the mainstream precisely because they offend. Good art should rightly offend us, make us as upset, angry, disgusted or elated as necessary to show us how imperfect we are.
Perhaps Batters and Harper should sit down and watch a Canadian film sometime. They would find out that they're less perfect than they thought, or, god forbid, that these films aren't as horrible as they suggest.
New Conservative NFB logo care of creative revolution
Labels: arts and culture, censorship, dictatorial tendencies
1 Comments:
I was absolutely shocked when I saw this story the other day. This cannot happen, it will absolutely cripple our film industry.
This is absolutely too far.
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