Ben Affleck's directorial debut has had its UK release delayed indefinitely. Given some of Mr Affleck's career moves, this may be no great loss to cinephiles, but the reason for the delay is interesting. Apparently the plot of Gone Baby Gone had a number of similarities to the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.
One can see the distributors' point: for right or wrong, British people have become deeply sensitive about the McCann case, and might not take too kindly to a Hollywood thriller that seems to exploit the same themes. But hang on a moment: Dennis Lehane's novel, upon which the film is based, is still available from Amazon. Do readers not possess the same sensibilities as moviegoers? Do bibliophiles not lose sleep over Maddie?
It does seem that the same content can provoke wildly differing reactions when it's presented in a different medium. Monica Ali's Brick Lane provoked grumbles when it was published, demonstrations and the withdrawal of Royal approval when made into a movie (although Ali now claims this was all overhyped). A similar escalation of outrage occurred in the transition of Jerry Springer: The Opera from stage to screen.
Of course books can cause ructions: just think of The Satanic Verses. But in 1989 Roy Hattersley seriously suggested that the book-burnings would fizzle out if the publishers agreed not to bring out a paperback.
Similarly, despite the defining role assigned to the Lady Chatterley trial, it was relatively easy to get a copy of Lawrence's novel before 1960, provided one had the wherewithal to pop over to Paris, splash out on a hardback and slip a discreet fiver to the customs officer at Dover. Penguin's perceived sin was to sell the book for three shillings and sixpence, a price that "wives and servants" might be able to afford. And for many years, the standard English-language version of Boccaccio's Decameron had the raunchiest section left untranslated - the implication being that anyone who could read medieval Italian was incorruptible.
What all these examples have in common is that censorship, whether self-imposed, statutory or demotic, appears to depend more on the social, economic or educational status of potential consumers than on the content itself. A poor, working-class, non-graduate admirer of Ben Affleck, we have to infer, isn't capable of exercising rational choice about anything.
