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  • What this test should/does protect has become slightly more confusing in the recent past

Miller Test For Obscenity

Sources

- Oluwole, Joseph/Green, Preston, Censorship and Student Communication in Online and Offline Settings. IG Global, 2015 (page 87)

- Nowlin, Christopher, Judging Obscenity: A Critical History of Expert Evidence. McGill-Queen's Press, 2003 (pages 76-79)

- Lively, Donald/Weaver, Russel, Contemporary Supreme Court Cases: Landmark Decisions Since Roe V. Wade. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2006 (pages 82-84)

The Test

Impact

New ideas and controversies about what gives art value; what makes "good art"

Background

  • Set an important precedent
  • No good defnition by which court cases were being judged
  • Let people know what they could and could not be prosecuted for

To judge future cases, the Miller Test for Obscenity was developed with three prongs asking:

In short: Many people do not like the idea of it being up ot judeges in court to decide what is art versus what is nothing more than an obscenity

  • Supreme Court under Scrutiny
  • Miller v. California (1973)

The Court Case

The Court Case- Result

  • Marvin Miller versus the state of California

General disagreement about whether pornogrphic acting is a feminist act or degrades women and appeals to the aforementioned "prurient interest"

- The case resulted in a definable standard or test by which all future obscenity cases should be judged called the Miller Test for Obscenity

  • Miller was convicted for mailing advertisements showing men and women in many sexually explicit positions

2) "whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law."

1) "whether the average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest."

  • Main issue- How little social value does a material have to have to be found obscene
  • patently offensive- clearly or obviously offensive
  • may vary based on location
  • prurient interest as oppsed to curious interest
  • attempted timelessness

3) "whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value."

The Court Case- Ruling

  • In favor of the state of California
  • 5-4
  • Does it matter?
  • Charges were based on previous California laws regarding prohibition of some obscene content
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