Ghosts are consumed by their quests for justice. The very presence of spectres denotes that something has gone wrong and has yet to be righted. Canadian obscenity law is haunted by the same unresolved issues that have existed since the first obscenity laws were introduced in Victorian England; haunted by the crime legend of the snuff film and its mythos; and haunted by the cultural traumas of two of Canada’s most infamous violent crimes — those of Paul Bernardo and Luka Magnotta — both of which involve recordings of those crimes. In this talk, scholar Meg Lonergan explores how obscenity law in Canada is based on consuming ghost stories; that is, the obscenity provi­sions continue to exist because of the reappearance of cultural anxie­ties and ghosts of past traumas, rather than empirical proof that these laws are effective at protecting against harm.

Using a Derridean theory of hauntology and textual analysis, Meg Lonergan argues that the spectre of the snuff film and its mythology is haunting Canadian obscenity law. This is manifested in three interconnected anxieties: 1) that viewers, including government officials, are unable to distinguish fictional representation and authentic recordings; 2) that regardless of whether material is real or fake, the influence of such materials is the same; 3) that obscene content — whether real or fictional — is becoming increasingly sexually violent and thus must necessitate a natural progression to making snuff films real.

Lonergan’s lecture draws on fictional films such as Michael Findlay’s SNUFF and Philip Marshak’s DRACULA SUCKS, as well as the docuseries DON’T FUCK WITH CATS, alongside her hauntological readings of both real snuff films, and those that only exist in the phobic imagination.