Editorial: Movies ban out of step

The Warehouse has banned the selling of R18 games like Grand Theft Auto 5.

There's much to admire in The Warehouse's removal of graphic video games from its shelves, but lumping those in with R18 movies and TV shows seems a ham-fisted attempt to appear family-friendly.

The giant retailer said it was pulling R18 video games, movies and box sets from its shelves and from online in part because of graphic sex scenes and violence towards women in the recently released video game Grand Theft Auto V.

I shudder when my (young) children even mention the Grand Theft Auto games and have no problem with their removal from the shelves. Adults who simply must play it can easily get it from specialty gaming stores or online.

So what's the difference, you ask, between banning R18 games and banning R18 movies and TV shows?

There are plenty of differences. For starters, video games by their very nature appeal to adolescents. They're also interactive, with the player actively immersing themselves in, often, worlds of crime and extreme violence.

I'd hesitate to compare video games and DVDs because they're such different formats.

And if you're going to ban a Martin Scorsese movie because it's R18, will you ban an Eminem album because of its bad language?

Not everyone is comfortable shopping online. We have no JB Hi-Fi in Rotorua and The Warehouse, over the years, has become one of the few physical retailers where you can buy CDs and DVDs, as specialist stores shut their doors.

There are many quality films and TV shows with an R18 rating which will no longer be available at The Warehouse (and perhaps not available at The Warehouse's competitive prices) and despite the retailer being praised this week for its "ethical leadership" it's hard to see how the decision not to sell them can be justified.