TV Ontario’s “Saturday Night at the Movies.” Hosted by Elwy Yost, broadcast Lina Wertmuller’s film. Seven Beauties at 8:00 p.m. on 31 March 1984.
This film contains explicit scenes of at least three women being raped, men being shot in the head of machine-gunned after diving into an overflowing latrine, a sexually provocative girlchild, sexual intercourse between a Gestapo prison inmate and the power-corrupted woman commandante, mothers and sisters portrayed as prostitutes, and more. The director’s intent is, by means of irony, to condemn these things. The film is restricted in theatres, however, because even older children would not see the underlying irony, but only what was thereon the screen. Yet our taxpayer-supported network has broadcast this uncut into family homes when small children are awake.
The discussion panel following the film said that children should be able to watch such films and that no film should be cut. It may be the staff of “Saturday Night at the Movies” is testing the public reaction before broadcasting more avant-garde films from the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s. While some of those films are definitely worth seeing, many are filled with sexual violence and other forms of explicit sex and general denigration of the family and other values basic to our society. We should let our provincial television network know that we expect our public television to present the high quality, educational, positive family programming it was created to provide.
One approach would be to write to:
Dr. James G. Parr, Chairman
TV Ontario
2180 Yonge Street
Toronto, Ontario M4T 2T1
Mr. Elwy Yost
Saturday Night at the Movies
2180 Yonge Street
Toronto, Ontario M4T 2T1
Mrs. Mary Brown, Director
Theatres Branch
Ministry of Consumer and Commercial Relations
1075 Millwood Road
Mississauga, Ontario M4G 1X6
Mr. Andre Bureau, Chairman
Canadian Radio Television and Telecommunications Commission
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0N2
The Honourable Robert Elgie
Minister of Consumer & Commercial Relations
555 Yonge Street
Toronto, Ontario M7A 2H6
Monitoring TV Ontario’s programming and writing both to praise and protest is perhaps the most constructive and effective means we can use in an election year.
