Does Britain have a broken society? Yes, and a broken Board of Film Classification, too. Here's where I release my inner Mary Whitehouse: how on eath did this movie get released in the UK with a title like this? It's a film by Kevin Smith, and despite Jersey Girl and Dogma may even be funny. But after going to speak to a group of Corby sixth formers on careers, I left Lodge Park school to be confronted by this title advertised on the side of the local bus. What do I do when my five year old son asks me "Mummy, what's a porno?". Why should I have to explain this? If I take my daughter to the movies to see the Madagascar sequel, why I am telling her what a porno is as we pass the giant film poster?
As we consider the horrors of the Baby P case it strikes me that the casual, coarse degradation of our society thinks nothing of putting explicit messages and images where any child can see them - like the side of a town bus. There are spicy passages in some of my earlier novels. But the titles and the covers are unobjectionable - adult content is for adults. I hope the next Conservative government puts a premium on protecting innocence. "Zack and Miri make a Porno", no matter how amusing and good-hearted the film it describes, is not something our kids should be reading, in giant letters, before they are ready.
