Unbelievably, the Australian Christian Right pressure group Festival of Light is trying to strong-arm Channel Nine over its excellent, meticulously detailed drama-documentary, Underbelly, also screened here on TV3.

Granted, kids should not be watching, unless under strong parental guidance- which is why it’s scheduled at 9.30 pm on Sundays here. Not in Australia, apparently, where Channel Nine is screening it at 8.30 pm.  What does FOL have to say in defence of itself?

Predictably, it’s primarily concerned about the sex. Oh yes, and the ‘extreme violence.’

Well, duh, it’s supposed to be a dramatised documentary about the Melbourne underworld and their trade in hard drugs, including P/crystal meth as the series progresses, one understands.  These people are not boy scouts, they are hardened criminals. And yes, I’m afraid that they do things like shoot women in the head while they’re sleeping alongside their children, particularly if they’ve had a meth-fuelled psychotic break to ramp up their already antisocial and brutal behaviour.  I can’t think of a better way to show people that this is what hard drugs do to people, in terms of the human misery that is inflicted by their production, distribution and competition within the pitch black market for their ghastly product sales.

What the hell is wrong with Ros Phillips and Australia’s version of our own equally benighted Society for Promotion of Community Standards? Underbelly is a deeply moral story about some wretchedly evil people, no matter what moral and ethical framework one uses.  Sorry, folks- this is a bungle, and you are way out of order there.

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