A great deal of criticism is being hurled just now at the talking picture censors both here and in England.
The Fanciful
We picture the fellow all jaundiced and yellow,
A long and inquisitive nose --
A Stiggins in short of the rabidest sort
With a prudish Pecksniffian pose;
And he wriggles and squirms at the mildest of terms
And faints at the partially nude,
A purist, a preacher, a Sunday-school teacher,
Who looks upon kissing as rude.
He's a blurb, he's a snob, who is yearning to rob
The earnest producer and mangle the job.
The Real
As a matter of fact both in word and in act
He is probably what we esteem;
A man of broad views, which he doesn't confuse
With licence where sex is the theme.
With a normal sane mind of the healthier kind,
Mild-mannered, but nobody's fool.
He is not to be gulled or his commonsense dulled
By the blurb of the decadent school.
In short he's the sort that the normal support,
And, privately, probably quite a good sort.
First published in The Herald, 4 December 1929
Author reference sites: C.J. Dennis, Austlit, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Australian Poetry Library
See also.
