Simpsons Child Porn Scandal

www.samesame.com.au
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In what seems to be one of the most ludicrous miscarriages of justice in a very long time, an Australian Supreme Court judge has ruled that an internet cartoon depicting sex between characters from The Simpsons is child pornography.

The images in question show Bart, Lisa and Maggie having sex. They were found on the computer of NSW man Alan John McEwan. He’s been charged with possession of child pornography and usage of a carriage service to access child pornography material.

Justice Michael Adams today said that if the images were of real children he’d be looking at ten years behind bars. However, as they were cartoons he was fined $3000 and given a two year good behaviour bond.

The Justice said the purpose of the legislation is to stop real sexual abuse and exploitation of children, however he believed that images like the cartoon “fuel demand for material that does involve the abuse of children.”

Seems to me that the Court needs to recognise the difference between illegal activity and poor taste.

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Comments

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coby

coby said on the 10th Dec, 2008

What a ridiculous waste of money and resources!

The Classification branch of the Attorney General's Department, who are responsible for providing recommendations to ACMA on online content, are guided by the principle that "adults should be able to read, hear and see what they want". Furthermore, they have a generally leniant stance on cartoons because they're obviously not real.

When classifying material they're very big on taking into consideration its context. Although this cartoon actually contains illegal acts, there are two key points about the picture's context that have been overlooked when deeming it banned material:

The Simpsons are ficticious - they're yellow, don't have enough fingers to be human and don't age. The family is satirical and not designed to be taken seriously. They do a lot of absurd things that a normal person would find amusing, but would never do in the real world. That's the whole point of the show. To say that this proports real acts of child porn is like saying that the show also encourages deranged clowns to kill children.

Secondly, the picture is designed to make us laugh! It's intent is definitely not to arouse... and anyone who thinks this picture could arouse "reasonable adults" (as described by the Classifications branch) is crazy.

Christian makes such a good point about child beauty pageants, which are actually designed to beautify minors. Surely these are more unfair on children and motivate paedophiles more than a satirical cartoon?

It's recognised by the Attorney General's Department that material needs to be classified need to represent the feelings of the majority of the community and in this case, I don't think it has. Sure, some people may find this in poor taste, but at the end of the day banning this material interferes with the Classification Act and the fundamental principle that "adults should be able to read, hear and see what they want".

PS - great discussion, and great article Christian!