The Australian classification system: practices and policies regarding adult animated films

This thesis investigates the Australian classification system’s practices and policies regarding adultanimated films. It examines various legal documents to show how the system adheres to a model offilm aesthetics that privileges live-action over animated film when it comes to gauging the capacityof films to impact emotionally and psychologically on viewers. This attitude is evidenced in theClassification Review Board’s reports on the review of the original classification of four adultJapanese anime films in August 2008. These Original Animation Video films – Bondage Mansion,Sin Kan, Shino Sensei’s Classes in Seduction and Holy Virgins – all had their original R18+ ratingscrutinised by the Classification Review Board. Upon review, Holy Virgins had its rating changed toRC, or refused classification. However, the Review Board noted in their review reports that all ofthe films may have required an RC rating had they been live-action. These cases indicate thatanimated adult films represent a challenge for the Australian classification system regarding theextent to which the animated form mitigates a film’s impact.This distinction between live-action and animated film is most clearly evident in theGuidelines for the Classification of Films and Computer Games, which offers a series of examplesdemonstrating how the aesthetic properties of a film can impact on viewers. This thesis argues thatwhen considered collectively, these examples imply an aesthetic model that responds to thephotorealistic properties of film, while also acknowledging the extent to which formal cinematictechniques can influence a film’s impact. This model influences how classifiers evaluate a film froman aesthetic perspective, which in turn contributes to the overall rating a film receives.The aesthetic model implied in the Guidelines can be productively compared to particularacademic theories of film: specifically, the models of film put forward by Siegfried Kracauer inTheory of Film: The Redemption of Physical Reality, and Christian Metz in his essay ‘On theImpression of Reality in the Cinema’. This thesis argues that these models have a restricted capacityto understand the emotional and psychological impact of film. Furthermore, correspondingrestrictions are to be found in the Guidelines. These limitations are the primary influence in thediscrepancy of classification ratings between live-action and animated films.This thesis also considers the potential of more recent theories of film aesthetics to influenceclassification processes. As well as the later psychoanalytic film theory of Christian Metz, itexamines work by Tom Gunning, Lev Manovich and Noël Carroll. Ultimately, this thesis proposesthat an alternative model based on the psychoanalytic concept of identification could be applied tothe Australian classification system and would be better able to comprehensively address thechallenge presented by adult animated films than the current aesthetic model