NO “MOVIES” FOR BLACKS

Waikato Times, Volume 102, Issue 17242, 29 October 1927, Page 14 (Supplement)

NO “MOVIES” FOR BLACKS

WITHOUT CENSORSHIP. FILM COMMISSION WARNED. Aborigines should not be allowed to go to the pictures, except to see programmes specially selected for them, was the opinion expressed to the Film Commission at Sydney by Mr J. T. Beckett, a former Chief Inspector of Aborigines. The effect of moving pictures on primitive people was, on the whole, detrimental, said Mr Beckett, though they could be made a power for their uplift. The black man usually concluded that the pictures he saw were a true rendition of what the white man did. On the screen he saw white men and

women committing every sin possible without punishment, for the films usually inferred Die punishment instead of actually showing it. Therefore the natives go and do likewise. Witness told of some “boys” in his control who, having seen a “wild west” film depicting a cowboy “shooting up” a township, took revolvers with them when rounding up the horses and tore madly through the bush, shooting at kangaroos and emus.

Witness pointed out that England was sending films to the natives under her mandates to show them . hotter methods of agriculture and to teach them habits of industry. He suggested that similar action, if taken hy the Commonwealth with respect to the natives of Australia and New Guinea, would result in much benefit to them.