The following are the relevant Oklahoma Statutes relating to the "Tin Drum" censorship and First Amendment controversy--the actual language in the statutes guiding these actions, plus my interpretation of what the statutes actually mean. Plus regardless of what Oklahoma law sez, how this whole imbroglio should be analyzed from a "First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution" standpoint.

This page is a supplement to an article I wrote in the February, 1998 issue of the MensOkie, the newsletter of the Central Oklahoma Mensa chapter of  American Mensa, Ltd.  All opinions expressed herein are solely my own, and not to be construed as the opinions of American Mensa Ltd., nor  any member of the Central Oklahoma Mensa chapter.

If you would like to read my original article (the one that ran in the newsletter was edited due to waaaaay excessive length!)   please click here.

This page links to analysis and commentary on the statutory language in question.  If you want to see the "raw text" of the statutes themselves (to compare, and maybe do your own analysis), click here.

(now, right off the bat, someone is gonna say, "Hey Joe, this woulda been a perfect project to utilize frames!"  Well, you're right.....except a lotta people don't have frame capacity on their browsers, so I ain't gonna leave 'em out in the cold.  If I feel ornery in a few days, I might make up a "frames" version, just for fun.....but don't hold your breath waiting!!

As you read this stuff, one might exclaim at various junctures, "But geez, anyone with common sense would know that they mean (whatever)!!"  

                                                                                                                                      DOH !!

Sorry, law doesn't work that way.  Especially Constitutional law.  

Huge cases have turned upon missing words in crucial places...like "and, "or," "may," "shall," "will" and others.  In the realm of First Amendment law, definition is particularly crucial:  most of the precedent-making cases in that area of law come from state or city attempts to circumvent prior judicial rulings....by employing cutesy legal definitions, conditions or parameters.

These particular statutes do not rise that that level, because of several bad elements of basic legislative drafting.  But, I'm spoiling your fun. 

All text in this type of font is the actual language as found in the statute.  If the text is in red, it is still the actual language of the statute, but I have just emphasized it to draw your attention to it. Text like this is stuff I have added in order to immediately emphasize something--but it is not a part of the statutory language!  OK?  

Having all this stuff on a single web page would get extremely ponderous (I know, that is the way I first laid it out!)  Thus, I have devoted at least one page to EACH important statute in this discussion.  Each page has links back to this page, and to the other related pages.  You'll also notice that there aren't many fancy special effects, fancy backgrounds, and whatnot on these pages; I don't want to distract from the work at hand.

First, a background note:  Those who have followed this case know that most of the recent court wrangling revolves around issues concerning the actual seizure of the movie (in videotape form) from persons who rented it to watch at home. While this issue is extremely important (and illustrates another strange dimension of the "law in Oklahoma County"), the whole action rested on whether The Tin Drum was....in fact......"obscene child pornography" in the first place.

These are the issues we are exploring on this site:

1)  Is the movie The Tin Drum child pornography?

2)  Is the movie The Tin Drum obscene?

The answer to both questions is an emphatic NO, and we are gonna show you why.  It all hinges on the following statute:

21 Okl.St.Ann. s 1024.1   DEFINITIONS



My Article concerning the TIN DRUM controversy





You are person number   to view this special Tin Drum site!