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ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE - ISSUE 4.4 - JULY 1999


Animation: Adults May Not Be Unwelcome
(But jeez, what would they be doing there?)

by Cedric Littardi

On May 16, 1999 at the High Court of Paris, Mr. Tibor Clerdouet, Mr. Yvan West Laurence and myself, defended by attorney Paul-Albert Iweins, spent two hours debating the meaning of animation and the right to continue publishing the French magazine AnimeLand. The exact terms and reasons for this accusation were explained in "Animation Land: Adults Unwelcome" in the July 1998 issue of Animation World Magazine. To put it shortly, the public ministry decided to prosecute the magazine, seeking to force it into becoming a "publication aimed at youth" according to a 1949 law or cease publication.

Following the article in Animation World Magazine, a great number of e-mails of support were received from people around the world and we wish to thank everyone for them. Although the procedure is quite irregular (a French court may only receive material in French or translated by an authorized translator), they were presented during the court audience. The support was mainly from abroad, since it had been knowingly decided that the affair not be publicized, so as not to create a negative feeling from the court before the beginning of the trial.

The Trial
Unfortunately, the reasons for which the judgement was passed were probably not the right ones. During the proceedings, all three of the defendants were interrogated. The court was answered time and time again with the same logical arguments, which will probably seem obvious to those of you who are reading this: animation is an artistic medium just like any other, the series AnimeLand focuses upon are not especially for children and when they are they were most often aired so long ago that anyone who was a kid then is now an adult. Therefore, in no way is AnimeLand an excuse to sell adult material to kids. The statistics concerning the readership shows that only 20% are under 18 years of age. Plus, the classification in the official booklet for press distributors is "specialized press" and in no way "magazine for children," etc. All three defenders unanimously declared that it would be better to make AnimeLand unavailable to minors rather than make it a publication "aimed at youth" as the law states, even if only per question of principle.

The arguments had been carefully worked out with the attorney before the trial, not because they were not spontaneous, but mainly because when he was chosen he was in no way convinced that AnimeLand was not a publication aimed at youth. It took a great deal of time and effort to convince him. In a sense, this was the best rehearsal of all.

These arguments, however, seemed far from effective in convincing the court. As a matter of fact, the technical enforcement of the 1949 law is to prevent magazines from being attractive to children as a way to draw them to unsuitable products. This clearly seemed to be the main reason behind this trial. One week before the trial, we were provided through an unofficial source with the results of the previous meeting of the committee which keeps an eye on all publications (the very same committee that started this whole process) when they reviewed AnimeLand in the midst of about ten other magazines all dealing with porn. The opinion voiced by some of the members on the magazine was: "Not dangerous, but to be put under close surveillance."

Factors of the Decision
The reasons that seemed instrumental in the pronouncing of the "not guilty" verdict were the following:

1. The accuser's default. The prosecutor, as a representative of the French state, acted on behalf of a surveillance committee set to monitor whether the contents of magazines are suitable. However, he was not sure of what was recouped exactly under the designation of "publications aimed at youth," and he wrote a letter to the aforementioned committee to ask for an explanation, never receiving an answer. In a way this is the surest proof we have to this day of the inefficiency of this committee which persistent rumors qualify as pompous and outdated. These rumors, however, did not prevent us from spending great amounts of time, effort and money to prepare our case.

2. The judge considered, as a result of the aforementioned, that it had not wholly been proven AnimeLand was primarily aimed at youth (insisting on the "primarily," since it still seemed obvious to every one of the judges that it had to be in part). The decision seems to have been made because of the lack of determination in the prosecutor's plea, but also because of the brilliant defense by attorney Iweins which made a parallel between the way The Adventures of Tintin were considered unreadable by his father in his own time, and the way AnimeLand's readers were carrying exactly the same kind of hopes for the future by defending a new medium that unfortunately will remain unexplainable for the elder generation. This argument, which was kept for the end, really did seem to produce an effect on the court.

Apparently, the president of the 17th chamber -­ the chamber in front of which we were judged that also deals with most cases of defamation and problems in media exposure throughout France, has been heard to mention off the record that she felt quite unsure of the decision that had been taken and reassured when the public ministry had chosen not to pursue prosecution into appeal. However, the judgement does admit that some of the content of the magazine uses a vocabulary and develops some themes that are not consistent with the preoccupations, as well as the reading abilities, of youth.

A Mixed Result
This trial cannot be considered anything else than a victory, because it sets a precedent in a French court over a law that was never the subject of any trial before. It was a judgement in favor of liberty, a judgement implicitly recognizing animation as more than a genre just for children. However, it is far from being a triumph. When the legal process begun, everyone was persuaded that obviously no one could ignore that animation is an artistic form, and that AnimeLand has never been a "kids' magazine," as it may be bluntly said. However, this trial's aftermath also leaves a great amount of bitterness. It brought to the realization that although a long way has been walked since the creation of AnimeLand eight years ago, and although several years ago the trial's outcome would surely have been in favor of prosecution, all that we held as evident, and which probably seems evident to all the readers of Animation World Magazine, is still very far from being a generally accepted truth.

Cedric Littardi is one of the founders of the AnimeLand magazine in France and has worked as a specialized journalist in various European countries. He created the first Japanese anime label in France (KAZE Animation) and now works as a consultant in all graphic and animation areas.


Note: Readers may contact any Animation World Magazine contributor by sending an e-mail to editor@awn.com.