SEX APPEAL IN ART

Taranaki Daily News, 22 January 1935, Page 7

SEX APPEAL IN ART

VIEWS OF MR. BERNARD SHAW. “NO UNDESIRABLE FILMS.” By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright Rec. 6.30 pm. London, Jan. 21. “Sex appeal is a perfectly legitimate element in all fine arts dealing directly with humanity,” declared Mr. Bernard Shaw during a broadcast. He added that the Archbishop of Canterbury had referred to undesirable films. There were none. No film studio would spend £50,000 making a film unless it was very, desirable indeed, possibly not by the Archbishop but certainly by a large section of the human race who were not archbishops. “Let us cease talking about desirable and undesirable and consider whether we can extirpate films detrimental to public morals,” he said. “Censorship, involving handing over the job to some frail, erring, mortal man and making him omnipotent on the assumption that official status confers infallibility and omniscience, is silly. “One of the most sacred functions of the theatre is do educate and refine sex appeal, the treatment of which under censorship is often vulgar, yet the good done by associating sex appeal with beauty, cleanliness, poetry and music is incalculable.”