THE HIV GAME SHOW History of the project from a ... - COFA Sites

THE HIV GAME SHOW
History of the project from a 1998 talk.
VIDEO : Walk from tunnel, swim, jump, bath, ELEVATION
The two men walking towards you are performance artist Chris Ryan
and painter Herb Robertson. During 1988 and 1989, Sydney filmmaker
Stephen Cummins began shooting black-and-white Super 8 rolls of
film of them as a gay couple. Most of the rolls, like this one, didn’t end
up being used in finished projects. He wanted to form a narrative
based on the relationship of the gay couple to private and public
space, reacting to what he spoke of as a lack of images of same-sex
couples in both mainstream and alternative media.
This intention differed from his earlier, more formal studies of the body
in employing, however simply, a political perspective. Yet as the shoot
progressed, Stephen returned to formal experimentation, and Chris
Ryan’s influence from his theatre group The Sydney Front ensured that
one roll, intended as a portrayal of a domestic scene, carried
overtones of Hammer horror guaranteed to debunk any notions of
suburban gay bliss.
Some of these sequences ended up in his 1989 16mm film Elevation,
in which Ryan and Robertson meet in an elevator, initially snatching
kisses between floors as the general public enter and leave, and
eventually passionately kissing.
PAUSE VIDEO
In October 1989, Melbourne film-makers Anne-Marie Crawford and
Chris Windmill invited Stephen to take part in the project entitled
‘Personal Ads: 30 seconds of fame’, as part of the ARX Festival in
Perth. Eight film-makers each made a 30 second Super 8 film, these
films being screened between television commercials during a late
night Joan Collins film on Perth’s Channel 9.
Western Australia was at the time going through the final battles
surrounding the ecriminalization of male-to-male sex. Stephen
decided that the best product to be sold in this sort of situation was a
gay kiss. He suggested the slogan ‘Enjoy The Difference’, which I
suggested he change to ‘Taste The Difference’. Once again, it featured
Robertson and Ryan.
TASTE THE DIFFERENCE.

FACTS, the federal advertising self-regulation body, passed TASTE THE
DIFFERENCE as being suitable for late night viewing, but Channel Nine
station manager Les Downes saw things differently, banning the ad
from broadcast. He said that the ban was imposed because of the
‘explicit nature’ of the kiss. ‘We were not discriminating’, he said, ‘even
a man and a woman kissing in this way might have upset certain
viewers.’ Written protests were made by the project’s curators; by
Stephen; and by Perth gay groups, but the ad was not screened.
On November 17 th , 1989, the SBS program Eat Carpet screened all
eight of the Personal Ads, including Taste The Difference.
Unfortunately they miscued the videotapes, and Melbourne filmmaker
Dirk de Bruyn and Stephen received the wrong introductions to their
respective films, with the following result:
Video : Eat Carpet: Annette Shun Wah mistake – Dirk de Bruyn
film.
(After summarizing the controversy over ‘Taste the Difference’, host
Annette Sun-Wah introduced the video, but mistakenly played Dirk De
Bruyn’s piece instead. It showed the shadow of a young boy playing
‘totem tennis’, with a looped voiceover of ‘daddy daddy, look at me!’.
Host Annette Shun-Wah corrected the mistake on the following week’s
program. Dirk is apparently still hiding out from Franca Arena.
* POSTER: of TTD from exhibition.
The image re-appeared in 1991. Sydney artist Kaye Shumack used it
as one of three street posters in the ‘Visibility Posters’ project,
connected to the inaugural Word Of Mouth exhibition curated by
Katherine Fargher. (SHOW POSTER)
Over the next five years, Stephen continued to achieve success with
films like our collaborative piece ‘Resonance’, focussing on anti-gay
violence, and photographic exhibitions such as ‘Enthralled’ , focussing
on images of censorship. On discovering that he was HIV-Positive, he
began to research a documentary called ‘Status’, which examined
issues around HIV/AIDS and disclosure.
He became ill during the early stages of this project in 1994, and as
his hospital stay lengthened, the project was scaled down.
At the same time, Sydney artist Lynette Wallworth was organising the
Big New Sites project in conjunction with the Performance Space,

Pearl & Dean Cinema Advertising and Village Roadshow film
distributors. Similar in concept to the Personal Ads project, it involved
twelve artists submitting four slides together with a one-minute sound
piece. Each of these were screened during the slide ads prior to the
commencement of film programs at the Hoyts and Greater Union
complexes in George St, with each artist’s piece being screened for
one month.
Stephen’s treatment for the project suggested that he would take
ideas and images from the Status project and use them in this
context. During his last days before his death on August 23rd, 1994, it
became clear that Status was not going to go beyond its initial
development. He was, however, keen to plan future projects as, it
seemed to me, a way of imagining a future. So I would talk with him
about bringing a copy of the Photoshop program to his home
computer, in order to develop the four slides at home. Unfortunately
the rapid advance of his illness did not even permit this to happen.
After his death, I was invited to take over his piece for the Big New
Sites project. It became a matter of choosing which of the multiple
issues from a one-hour documentary to condense down to one minute
of sound and image. Mindful of the unusual mainstream exposure that
the George St site offered, I talked to many people at the organisation
People Living With HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) about the issues involved. The
result was a decision to focus on poverty, placebo testing and the
growing censorship of gay images in HIV/AIDS educational material.
Visually, I used several of Stephen’s stills, including a reference to his
previously censored image. Stylistically, I referenced a scene from
Status , in which information was given in the context of a TV game
show. I named the piece The HIV Game Show, and hired
professional voiceover man Keith Scott to deliver the message.
THE HIV GAME SHOW
(TEXT TO GO ALONGSIDE IMAGES: )
IMAGE 1. (TEXT: "The HIV game show" )
COMPERE
Shut up and listen, it's the HIV game show!
All contestants HIV Positive... Test your buzzers!
(BUZZ sound effect)

COMPERE
Question One - Why was this image banned from TV
(BUZZ SFX)
CONTESTANT
Because it's 2 men kissing
COMPERE
No! they said the kiss itself was too explicit!
IMAGE 2. (TEXT: "All contestants chosen randomly" )
COMPERE
Question 2 - You get two hundred dollars pension, but spend three
hundred on rent, food and those pricey pills and potions! How do you
get by Time's up!
CONTESTANTS
I don't know.
(MUSIC SWELL)
COMPERE
I don't know is the correct answer! You both move on to our
experimental drug trial!
IMAGE 3. (TEXT: " OR" )
COMPERE
Going for gold, now! If you wish to play on, you can be a human
guinea pig on a dangerous unknown drug, or you can have the sugar
placebo pill!
CONTESTANTS
I can't choose.
(MUSIC SWELL)
COMPERE
You don't have a choice! We'll make it for you!
IMAGE 4. (TEXT: Credits)
CONTESTANT
I've had enough of this game!

COMPERE
But don't go away, there's much much more!
CONTESTANT
I'll finish when I'm ready!
COMPERE
Let me just run the rules by you!
CONTESTANT
Well, then we just change the rules.
The screening was to take place in late 1995, but a new battle of
words and correspondence began.
28th September 1995: A letter from Carmen Cavell, production
manager at Pearl & Dean Cinema Advertising explained that ‘the
material for slide advertising must be suitable for General Exhibition.
Obviously, the contents of the HIV slides do not fall within these
guidelines.’
We asked for specifics on their difficulties with the material.
October 2nd, 1995: Letter from Grahame Garland, Director of Pearl &
Dean: ‘The exhibitors are not prepared to screen any material that
may offend any segment of their audience.’
Still no specifics. We requested a meeting, which was held on Monday,
October 9th, 1995 at the offices of Pearl and Dean. The following was
said about the images.
IMAGE 1: ‘We’d have trouble showing a man and a woman kissing like
that’. The irony of the repeated reference to the original censorship
was lost on the speaker.
IMAGE 2: ‘There’s the nudity here, the buttocks’.
IMAGE 3: ‘And this one, it’s two men in close proximity’.
I then presented my response, based on the idea that this blurry,
distant, shadowed image was, indeed, a G-rated male-to-male kiss,
and that the concept of a G-rated male-to-male kiss was permissible
under the censorship guidelines, even though such a thing did not yet
exist in actuality. This became a long campaign.

The guidelines provided by the OFLC at the time referred to levels of
Sexual References and Adult Themes against various ratings (G, PG, M
an so on). They were defined as follows:
SEXUAL REFERENCES may include verbal references to, and
description and visual depictions of, sexual matters including Ñ double
entendres, risque jokes and other sexual innuendo, torrid embraces,
kisses and petting, partial nudity with sexual connotations.
ADULT THEMES may include verbal references to, or description of and
visuals associated with, elements such as Ñ suicide, crime, corruption,
marital problems, divorce and other emotional trauma, drug and
alcohol dependency, death and serious illness, racism, religious issues,
homosexuality.
Pick the odd one out. Neither Sexual References or Adult Themes were
apparently permissible in G-rated films. I rang the OFLC secretary,
Joel Greenberg and asked him how they rated, say, a male-to-female
kiss as opposed to a male-to-male kiss. He adamantly informed me
that there was no discriminatory practise in their ratings. Why then, I
asked, was homosexuality included in the Adult Themes list, when all
sexual behavoir was adequately covered in the Sexual References list
Was the mere existence of a homosexual character something that
could cause distress to children His reply was : ‘I can’t comment on
that’.
I then spoke to David Haines, who was Deputy Chief Censor from 1988
to 1994, and who actually had written the guidelines that were then in
force. His replies were similar, except that he conceded that the
presence of the word ‘homosexuality’ in the Adult Themes list was
probably an anomaly. Sensing a kindred spirit, I asked him to write an
analysis of ‘The HIV Game Show’. David’s written conclusion was that
the piece was suitable for general exhibition.
Questioning the idea that neither Sexual References or Adult Themes
were apparently permissible in G-rated films, I made a list of over fifty
G-rated films, attaching to each a checklist of the presence of every
other word in both categories. (Ben Hur: partial nudity; The Diary of
Anne Frank: emotional trauma, death; The Nun’s Story: religious
issues; )
I then attended the films Free Willy 2 and Pocohontas at George St
cinemas, and shotlisted the ads that Pearl & Dean were screening with

them. An example: With Free Willy 2 (which incidentally contains
crime, corruption, death, racism, religious issues and kissing) was an
ad for Lynx deoderant for men.
* Woman, aged early 20s, dancing in a bar. She wears a long black
skirt that is split to just above the thigh. She takes off her medallion,
and starts to strip off her clothes. The camera perspective is from a
man, also early 20s, who watches her.
* Camera changes to her perspective of the man's now naked and
sweaty upper body.
* The camera intercuts between : a close-up tilt up his body, and a
profile of the woman's face. She looks on with lust and gradually opens
her mouth.
* Cut to a Wide Shot of the man and woman holding each other, and
gradually lowering their bodies to the floor of the bar.
On being presented with this shotlist; with the analysis of my piece by
the author of the current censorship system, with various letters of
support from AIDS organisations and with my hitlist of G-rated films,
Pearl & Dean stopped talking about ‘two men in close proximity’. In
fact, they stopped talking altogether, and passed the buck to Village
Roadshow.
I immediately contacted Allan Finney, Roadshow’s general manager,
and asked for his support. He delegated to Libby Rhys-Jones, the NSW
state manager, who viewed the piece and pronounced it suitable, in
her view, for general exhibition. Gleefully, I took her letter of support
to the meeting with the Village Roadshow flunkies. They informed me
that she was in distribution, they were in exhibition and thus had final
control of what actually went on to the screen. Rather than make
specific references to the images, they simply repeated the mantra
that Village Roadshow was unwilling to screen anything which may
offend any segment of their audience.
Realising that I wasn’t going to simply take no for an answer, they
eventually agreed to a test screening, with the audience being polled
at the exits. They agreed that myself and the Big New Sites organisers
would have input into the questionnaire.
Months went by, until suddenly, with a few days notice, we were
informed that the test screening would take place at 10am on
Saturday, March 2nd 1996 at a thirty seat theatrette in Westfield
Shoppingtown, Parramatta. It was the day of both the Federal Election
and the Mardi Gras. The film was to be the children’s film Toy Story,
then in its sixth or seventh month and unlikely to even fill a thirty seat

theatrette.
They also faxed us a copy of the questionnaire, seemingly as a fait
accompli. Some example questions:
‘Do you think that this ad is suitable for screening in a children’s
movie’. I was able to negotiate a change from ‘children’s movie’ to
‘G-rated movie’.
‘Would you allow your children to see a movie knowing that this ad
will be screened’ I asked for this question to be struck out on the
basis that it was a more emotive version of the previous question.
They would not agree to this.
* SVHS: Shoppingtown ambience.
March 2nd , 1996.
Fourteen people attended the Toy Story screening. Myself and two
others were in attendance as observers, but didn’t take part in the
questionnaire. I did, however, sneak a camera into the cinema and
film the ad on the screen.
slides on screen
Sample size for the questionnaire was eight. It took several more
months to get the results from Village Roadshow, but when they finally
arrived, they were weighted heavily in favour of the piece. Seven
people answered the question ‘Would you allow your children to see a
movie knowing that this ad will be screened’; five of them said yes.
A subsequent letter from Village Roadshow stated that they would not
screen the slides, as ‘five out of eight people questioned stated that
they would not allow their child to see a movie knowing that this ad
would be screened.’
We then asked Village for clarification on their position, pointing out
that they had completely misread their own survey results. We also let
them know that I was now intending to make a documentary about
the censorship of the project, and their current position based on this
misreading appeared to be, at the very least, rather foolish. This was
in October 1996. There has been, to date, no reply to this letter.
In the last few months, the Performance Space has been negotiating a
new version of the Big New Sites project in conjunction with Val
Morgan Cinema Advertising and Palace Film Distributors. It had been
planned to show the HIV Gameshow at the Verona Cinema during
Mardi Gras 1998 prior to film screenings. On seeing the piece a few

weeks ago, Val Morgan advertising suggested to the Performance
Space that the ad will need to be approved by Palace’s head office in
Melbourne. I eagerly await a new round of negotiations.
I wanted to end this tale on an upbeat note, and thus have left out one
detail. In early 1996, the OFLC sought submissions on the re-drafting
of its censorship guidelines. I mounted a campaign for the removal of
the word ‘homosexuality’ from the Adult Themes list (suicide, crime,
corruption etc.), based on the incongruity of its presence there when
their Sexual References list was supposedly determined on a nondiscriminatory
basis. My submission included a large public petition
that I left in city cinemas over a one-week period. When the new
guidelines were published in July 1996, the word had been removed.
Homosexual characters may now legally exist in G-rated contexts.
They are even legally allowed to kiss. But I’d watch the close
proximity, and I feel it will be quite some time until they can put their
tongues in.
Imagine, if you will, a game show in which the rules are changed
every time that a contestant wins a point. The as-yet unsuccessful
attempts to bring The HIV Game Show to the silver screen have
involved many such games. As the main contestant (as opposed to the
‘winning’ contestant), I never won the proverbial holiday in a sundrenched
resort, but rather the ‘consolation’ of a slight shift in the
censorship laws.