Self-Classifications & ‘R’ Ratings in Video Games
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
140.41783
Summary
In this episode, we are joined by the wonderful Ms. Kelly, who is a classifier for film and games and has been fighting for years to have sex instruction books classified as R-rated. We discuss the difference between pornography and sex education in schools across the country, and how we need to push back.
Transcript
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For the past few years I've been challenging the sexually explicit books as a mum
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and then the window of opportunity came where I got to become a classifier
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So I've been trying to challenge these books from a classification point of view
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because books do not get classified like film and games.
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And after going through the training process, you think of video games.
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Okay, so when you see these pornographic books or these sexually explicit books,
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even if they have educational merit or they think they have educational merit,
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many of them would never be allowed unrestricted.
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So that means they would be MA, 15 plus or R rated if they appeared in video games.
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especially on those real sex instruction books under nudity.
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So, you know, there's and then there's other themes that would normally get classified.
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So I know that we just need to push back on the books and those teacher resources.
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Well, you were telling me earlier as well, because we brought awareness that in Alberta,
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we had a massive campaign, we gave a binder about this thick to the Minister of Education.
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And one of the topics we went over in the book was, in the binder was the pornographic books.
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You know, they're teaching children masturbation.
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And you had noted that it would be completely flagged as in games,
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if masturbation ever came up in any style whatsoever.
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So under film and game classification, most Western countries have similar classification laws.
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But under nudity, when there's genitalia detail and sexual arousal is depicted,
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If the sexual arousal is depicted, it is R-rated.
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Mitigation factors, factors that would normally lower the impact,
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like educational merit, stylisation or scientific merit, they don't apply normally.
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And I would say most Western countries hold similar classification because what's happening now is
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there's this new thing called classifying in publishing or classifying in production.
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So Netflix or whoever, they can have their own classifiers and they do their own in-house classification.
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So it's like, you know, you walk into your own supermarket and you're self-checkout
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and you just have to make sure that I'm going to be an honest customer
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and I'm going to make sure I'm going to scan every single thing.
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So there's a level of bureaucracy that should be overlooking everything,