M.P. makes bid to stop censorship

Press, 1 September 1982, Page 1

M.P. makes bid to stop censorship

PA Wellington The Labour spokesman oh broadcasting, Mr J. L. Hunt, is mounting a last-ditch effort to stop the censorship of an episode of the television series, "Brideshead Revisited.” Mr Hunt, member of Parliament for New Lynn, has laid an urgent formal complaint with the Broadcasting Tribunal asking it to overturn Television New Zealand’s decision to cut a scene from the episode, to be screened on Sunday, September 12. ...

Mr Hunt has also put a notice of motion calling on Parliament to denounce “this mindless act of cultural vandalism” and urging the Director-General of TVNZ to reverse the decision. “Viewers have a right to make their own judgment on serious television drama like ‘Brideshead.’ Their freedom to choose should not be constricted by some narrowminded bureaucrat bending over backwards to please a few Mother Grundies,” Mr Hunt said. The series won the British B.A.F.T.A. award, was nom-

inated for 11 American Emmy awards, and had a cast including Claire Bloom, Sir John Gielgud, and Lord Olivier. “It represents the very pinnacle of television drama. “If New Zealand television is really run by little tin gods, never has their cavalier attitude to their audience been more aptly demonstrated than by this gutless lily-livered act of censorship which anticipates complaints from professional prudes,” Mr Hunt said.