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Abstract
This thesis investigates the Australian classification system’s practices and policies regarding adult
animated films. It examines various legal documents to show how the system adheres to a model of
film aesthetics that privileges live-action over animated film when it comes to gauging the capacity
of films to impact emotionally and psychologically on viewers. This attitude is evidenced in the
Classification Review Board’s reports on the review of the original classification of four adult
Japanese anime films in August 2008. These Original Animation Video films – Bondage Mansion,
Sin Kan, Shino Sensei’s Classes in Seduction and Holy Virgins – all had their original R18+ rating
scrutinised by the Classification Review Board. Upon review, Holy Virgins had its rating changed to
RC, or refused classification. However, the Review Board noted in their review reports that all of
the films may have required an RC rating had they been live-action. These cases indicate that
animated adult films represent a challenge for the Australian classification system regarding the
extent to which the animated form mitigates a film’s impact.
This distinction between live-action and animated film is most clearly evident in the
Guidelines for the Classification of Films and Computer Games, which offers a series of examples
demonstrating how the aesthetic properties of a film can impact on viewers. This thesis argues that
when considered collectively, these examples imply an aesthetic model that responds to the
photorealistic properties of film, while also acknowledging the extent to which formal cinematic
techniques can influence a film’s impact. This model influences how classifiers evaluate a film from
an aesthetic perspective, which in turn contributes to the overall rating a film receives.
The aesthetic model implied in the Guidelines can be productively compared to particular
academic theories of film: specifically, the models of film put forward by Siegfried Kracauer in
Theory of Film: The Redemption of Physical Reality, and Christian Metz in his essay ‘On the
Impression of Reality in the Cinema’. This thesis argues that these models have a restricted capacity
to understand the emotional and psychological impact of film. Furthermore, corresponding
restrictions are to be found in the Guidelines. These limitations are the primary influence in the
discrepancy of classification ratings between live-action and animated films.
This thesis also considers the potential of more recent theories of film aesthetics to influence
classification processes. As well as the later psychoanalytic film theory of Christian Metz, it
examines work by Tom Gunning, Lev Manovich and Noël Carroll. Ultimately, this thesis proposes
that an alternative model based on the psychoanalytic concept of identification could be applied to
the Australian classification system and would be better able to comprehensively address the
challenge presented by adult animated films than the current aesthetic model.