Sunday, January 17, 2010

Michael Atkinson: Removing Our Freedom Of Choice

Well, it seems like Michael Atkinson won't stop banning our media. Recently, Atknison decided to slip in a law for South Australia that states that a video purchase or rent place cannot advertise R18+ movies, or have flyers and posters. Films bearing the R18+ rating will have their DVD covers replaced with blank covers that just state the movie's title. This could possibly lead to the end of informed choices about critically acclaimed films such as Three Kings and Fight Club.


Michael Atkinson is best known for his opinions on censorship and ratings, and his most famous fight is against the R18+ rating for video games. And with any new law comes the punishments, and this one has really stupid ones. If you show a poster or a flyer for an R18+ rated movie, you could get fined up to $5000! But take Fight Club for example, it's cover is a bar of soap! Offensive, no! Also, if you do show the cover, it has to be in a closed off area like the adult sections we're used to seeing for pornography. Michael Atkinson doesn't seem to understand that FREEDOM OF CHOICE is a something that we all have. Cutting out the covers of R18+ films is chopping away our freedom of choice.

Movie places are saying that they only just heard about the law.

SUBJECT CHANGE!
As I mentioned earlier in the article, Michael Atkinson has fought a battle against an R18+ rating for video games. He says that interactive games media is more dangerous than films or TV because the player is actually doing the violent act rather than watching it. But little does he know that more adults are playing than children. In a study done by Bond University, results showed that the average age of gamers was 30. And that having that rating would stop less games getting banned and children not able to play them. But Michael Douchebag Atkinson thinks "Oh no! Children could get damaged! We can't have the rating!". But by not having the rating, you're allowing less games to come across our shores and thus RESTRICTING OUR FREEDOM OF CHOICE!

But, luckily, there are like-minded people who care. A group of gamers called 'Gamers 4 Croydon' are planning to run against Atkinson and hopefully eliminate him. I hope that this group accomplishes their goals and I wish them the best of luck.