Censorship and Bans (warning: language)

[vividlyvisceral]

Something I've been musing over a lot lately these days, especially now that I'm in the planning stages of writing my first real attempt at a serious novel. "Censorship", and "Banning."

Who here is for it, and who here is against it? I'd be interested in hearing some coherent arguments since most of the people I talk to are Gen. Baby Boomers and seem quite determined on the "some things are just inappropriate" stance.

I've been against censorship in pretty much all its forms since 2008, where an Australian photographer Bill Henson was scandalized by a child protection advocate who claimed that his artistic photographs of a (consenting) thirteen year old girl standing/sitting in a shadowy setting were "sexual in content" and should be destroyed.

These were beautiful pictures, I can tell you that. I was 15/16 at the time and I knew that. The girl in question went on television and said "He didn't goad me into this with candy or try to solicit me, it's just art." and other critics went on to say "It's the people who look at this sort of picture and immediately assume that it's sexual who should be the ones getting looked at."

Since then I've realised that lots of things are being banned in many countries for shockingly stupid reasons- a lot less reasonable than the one above.

China won't allow any movies depicting time travel, or that portray China as a villain or idiotic in any way, shape or form.

Australia has banned 18+ games from America because they don't seem to be able to trust adults with their own entertainment choices and force them to be watered down so they must be suitable to be bought by fifteen year olds.

-and don't get me started on countries like Iran or Malaysia. There are places in that area that have banned stories like "Alice in Wonderland" because it shows animals to be of near-human intelligence.

It's fucking insane. Mind my language, or don't- this is sort of the point- but I'm not one of those young women who are going to grow up and shove cotton wool into her children's ears and pray that they don't hear the word 'fuck' until they're 25. If my twelve year old walks up to me and says "Mum, what's a cunt?" sure, I'm going to be pissed that someone is saying horrible words around my kids- but I'm not going to try and blot the word out of existence for them. Sooner or later they need to know what's acceptable or not so they can grow up and make the decisions on their own.

I can understand that some things are meant for adults and not for children, but isn't that what ratings are for? Since when did it become a right for a government to decide what literature we should or shouldn't read? Or what films we shouldn't be allowed to see? If it has violence towards animals, put it in the warning. If it has sex scenes, put it in the warning. If it involves stringing a woman up and disemboweling her, PUT IT IN THE WARNING.

Yes, I can admit there are variations and that sometimes things should be censored/banned. Child porn for instance is unforgivable. But there are other things that are being handled so poorly that it's just going to end up worse in the end.

-I love aesthetic violence. I revel in delight when I see a bloody scene in a movie or read about characters undergoing long torturous methods in novels. Satire against other countries makes me think and amuses me greatly. And I really enjoy researching and learning about others ideals and political beliefs just so I'm aware.

This is a bit of a rant as well as a topic starter, but this is possibly the one controversial topic I'm a bit of a radical about. I do want to hear what other people think though, or else I'm not going to know what to do if the novel I write comes under question for its content.
(If you can't tell, it's got controversy mixed in. Towns getting razed, villagers getting crucified, teen girls being sold into sex slavery- that's just covering the first three chapters.)

...any one out there have an opinion?

[Rowena]

I completely agree with you that nothing should be banned. Isn't that the point of freedom of speech? If, personally, you don't want your child to be reading a certain book, than you can make that decision for yourself and keep them from reading it until they're a certain age (and in some cases I can see why you would check up on what your kid was reading, 'cause my parents never did and I tried to read Wicked when I was twelve) but don't try to get your kid's school/your city/your state to ban the book. It's just ridiculous. Also it's hard not to notice how (at least in the U.S.) when you go through the banned books list, almost all of the problems were started by parents in small towns in the south/midwest. (Not making any judgement here, I'm just saying.) Complaining about how something's anti-religious or something. It's really ticks me off.

Also, do not even get me started on book burning, which isn't really related but I thought about when I was reading your post. I hate book burning. It should never be done. Ever. End of story.

[vividlyvisceral]

In Australia we don't actually have freedom of speech. We think we do, but we actually don't- it isn't written down in any sort of legislation and people can be criminalized for "slander" if they go out badmouthing someone in a high government position on a large scale.

School libraries banning books because of parents always made me frustrated. I went to a rather small Australian school, and no parents were really involved enough to try and ban anything. Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings were in the shelves, as were several other books I remember no one ever picking up.
-but I would hear of schools wanting to ban things such as Harry Potter or Twilight, and while I don't like Twilight for its... watered-down version of a plot- I will admit that it got some girls reading who otherwise would've never picked up a book in their life.

Book burnings make me furious. The fact that there are mass burnings in some countries infuriate me. When there was that racist group who wanted to burn the Qur'an last year I literally wanted to smack some of those idiots, even if to them it was just "symbolic"- it doesn't matter.

Books are human knowledge, thoughts, feelings, dreams and history compacted to pages. That is MAGIC to me. To ban or burn any book is a crime in my eyes, even if that book is just one big long bigoted rant. I badly want one of those rare uncensored copies of "Mein Kampf" just so I can read what Adolf Hitler really wrote. It doesn't mean I believe a word of his self-righteous rambling- I just love to have read these things.

As far as I can see, parents who try to get the government to ban things are trying to pawn off their responsibilities as parents. Just check up on what your kid is reading. If they're reading "Monica Mayhem; the true story of a Porn Star"- maybe you've got something to worry about.

I've read Monica Mayhem by the way. It made me absolutely devastated how she ended up in her career- it was a lot of abuse-, but the fact that she can enjoy it and take some pride in it makes me happy, and the fact she wrote a book so teens and young women wouldn't be misled about going into the adult film industry.
-but what happens to it? It gets categorized as erotica and stamped with a "this is disgustingly inappropriate" sticker.
It's a woman trying to share her life story and some pretty valuable wisdom. Why is it that people keep seeing something like gore, magic, anti-religious or erotica instead of the real message of a book? It pisses me off.

[Rowena]

In Australia we don't actually have freedom of speech. We think we do, but we actually don't- it isn't written down in any sort of legislation and people can be criminalized for "slander" if they go out badmouthing someone in a high government position on a large scale.

That sucks. I didn't realize that.

Again, I completley agree with everything you said, especially the stuff about book burning. The very thought makes me so furious!

[megasaurus]

Censoship actually annoys me so flipping much! When I was in school before in Canada they had banned so many amazing books from th library and classrooms and it angered me! Cut, My sister's Keeper, Harry Potter, North of Beautiful, that books all about a girl trying to find who she really is and that she's beautiful inside and and her birthmark doesn't change that. They banned it because it mentioned in one chapter how for christmas her boyfriend gave her lingerie and wanted to see her in it in his bed like last christmas. Hello, it was one flipping chapter, and it didn't even go into any detail about her sex life, all it said was that she had had sex with her boyfriend before.

They made me take home my own copy of cut and my copy of wintergirls because it dealt with "Issues that are too mature for yourage group and you shouldn't be reading things like these anyways." I was in fricking grade eight, and they wouldn't let me read a book about a recovering cutter, or a book about an anorexic girl trying to figure out the mes of her life, I needed to read Wintergirls at that moment and they knew it! My fricken sister almost killed herself and I wanted to unerstand why, and they woulnd't let me! The said I had to take it home adn read it there because it was too mature for the school adn they didn't want my fellow peers to read things like that.

Did they not see that we already dealt with that crap in our everyday life? Six girls in my grade that year were anorexic or bulimic. Three of them were cutters, one committed suicide, four attempted t commit suicide, over half of them were already sexually actice and one girl got an abortion because she became pregnant, and they stil thought that a book about a recovering cutter, or a recovering anorexic was to mature? The kids in my grade could have used that!

Ugh, the school system is so retarded sometimes with their censoring and banning.

[Hannah]

Banning things/censorship is just... ugh. Don't get me started on it.

Looks like we're all pretty much in agreement here, though.

And the stupidest reason for banning a book I've ever seen had to be this one school I know that wanted to ban "A Light in the Attic" by Shel Silverstein. Yeah, like, the guy who wrote "The Giving Tree" and "Runny Babbit" and all that good stuff.

Basically, the book that they wanted to ban was a collection of poems. I still have my copy myself--everyone I know who's ever hit the age of five does. There's nothing bad about them, they're all written for younger kids--one of the books was a read aloud for my second grade class. Yes, second grade! This is the kind of material that I'm talking about here.

So, then, this one school (a middle school, I might add), wanted it banned. Why? Because "it is trying to send a message to children that they should break dishes in order to get out of the chore of washing them".

I don't know about you guys, but, to me, that's just a retarded reason.

[Rowena]

That's actually one of the stupidest things I've ever heard.

[skywriter9]

Censorship drives me insane, coming from a place where I had freedom of speech and freedom on the internet.

I've been living in China for a year, and the internet? Oh dear. Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Megaupload, Google (if you use it too much), Hulu, Veoh, Blogspot, Wordpress (half the time)... so many websites are blocked. Often I wonder now why the hell would they do this? But the thing is, it works for China. By keeping the information from the people, they keep the people from, in general, doing things they aren't supposed to (rebellions, etc.) Even Chinese video sites themselves are not... you can't just post anything. Your video is actually watched by a person before it is posted.

And I agree~ your parents should be the ones to make the decision whether something is appropriate for their child or not. My mother has never taken a book away from me, ever. Same goes with movies. Rated R? She'll let me watch it. The only catch is that she'll watch it with me. If she sees something bad, she'll just casually comment- "Oh, smoking isn't good." (Fine. That's just an example, she's never said that to me. I know it, of course.) As with books, which can be pretty embarrassing. We actually read Hunger Games in my book group and somehow my mother ended up talking about rape. *sigh*

Yeah. So, I don't even know if this is on topic. It's been a long year and I still have about a week left, and my brain is fried (I'm pretty sure if you pulled it out, at least half would be brown and shriveled.)

[maxrider12]

I am totally in agreement with everyone here. Parents should decide what they do or don't want their children to read, not anybody else.

Here's a little story that happened to my dad when he was in middle school. It's a bit off-topic, but the point becomes clear in the denouement (I'm trying out my new vocabulary word--what do you think?).

When he was in middle school, he was several reading levels above the rest of his class. One day, when he brough a huge book into class, his teacher said that he "needed to choose something more age-appropriate." Now, I understand if someone isn't performing to the best of their ability and the teacher tells them to get something higher-level, like a ninth grader reading only Dr. Seuss. But when someone is performing better than everyone else? That's just wrong. So my dad went to the library, chose about a dozen books, and came back. And every one of those books was a Dr. Seuss book.

My point is, no one should decide what you read but you and your parents. Your school can't decide what you read, and your state can't choose what you enjoy.

Here's something to wrap your mind around: The book Uncle Tom's Cabin has been banned in around thirty states. (Banned in school and public libraries. And I'm only forty-two percent sure that it's that many states.) However, middle schoolers study it in almost every state. So why would school pique students' curiousity and then not let them pursue it?

[skywriter9]

I find it surprising that the Hunger Games are being allowed in schools. Not that I have a problem with this, but reading the book and discussing all the violence in class is sort of mind baffling.

Then again... it isn't. Because my teacher read it aloud last year in class. The school district approved it as a class book. There's also a set of copies at my school here in China for people to read (not that any teacher is going to pick it. *sigh*)

I dunno. I just find it sort of odd that that's a book they'd approve for in class reading.

[maxrider12]

You're right. If people are going to ban a book because "it is trying to send a message to children that they should break dishes in order to get out of the chore of washing them" why would they allow a book where twenty-two people die, usually a horrible, bloody death?

Anyway, my mom and I were talking about this, and we agreed on something: "Why change a book" (somebody changed a word used 200 times in a Mark Twain book. due to the sensitivity I won't say what it is) "when nobody would draw a moustache on the Mona Lisa?"

[Subject Matter]

Well, I agree with all of you. It's one thing to take a book away because you're reading it in Math class *ahem*, but I had "The Hunger Games" taken away for violence in 7th grade. THE HUNGER GAMES! But if I'm mature enough to read it, I think I would be able to 'prevent myself from being corrupted'. By a book. Seriously?

Another time, same year, I had recently watched 'The Pianist' as a part of a Holocaust project, and I was taken to the principle's office for mentioning one of the gorier scenes to my friend.

*End rant*

Going off topic... has anyone seen the Pianist? I still think it's a good movie.

[lollipopdreams]

Yes! The book removing/burning is INFURIATING!!!! My school doesn't ban books, nope, our school has lots of dirty, dirty books (and not in the sense of water spilled on it, etc.). And I guess I'm glad. All older, more high-level reading books have something inappropriate. If we didn't, what would I be reading? I'm a highschoolers and I read at a level of reading 5-6 years ahead of my age! If we didn't have these high-level books, I'd be reading my grandma's books! That would be horrid! I mean, some VERY VERY bad things maybe shouldn't be on our bookshelves, but most of this stuff we know about already, so why ban it from us? What's the point?!?