Books and Bans

[annuin]

First off, thanks to Luna for passing on the BookSlut link of Caitlín R. Kiernan's interview. Always nice to get a heads up.

Browsing around on the site I ran into an article about challenged/banned books, especially in schools by parents who seem to feel that trying to avoid the real world is the best way of teaching ones children. Funnily enough in a roundabout way it also tied into something that Karen posted today, about a doll that comes with a realistic figure and pubic hair, which one parent found inappropriate. Because we all know that things that pretty much every adult on the planet has is inappropriate *rolls eyes*.

Reading challenged/banned book lists just make me want to go out and buy or read the books in question. Especially as the reasons for the challenges are usually so completely ridiculous.

Each year the American Library Association has it's banned books week and has a list of the top 10 most challenged books as well as the 100 most frequently challenged books of 1990-2000.

http://www.forbiddenlibrary.com/ is a site that also lists books that have been challenged, including William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, which was removed from a Merrimack, N.H. high school English class (1996) because of a policy that bans instruction which has "the effect of encouraging or supporting homosexuality as a positive lifestyle alternative.". I'm sure Willy would have been proud that hundreds of years later his work still incites strong reactions. Also nice to know that representing homosexuality in a positive light is so completely repulsive to be taught in schools. We're so much better off with bigotry, hatred and ignorance after all.

One book on the Bookslut list was King & King, a kids book for the 4-8 crowd penned by Dutch authors, in which a Prince is told by his mother that he won't ascend to the crown until he is married. He seeks out numerous princesses who leave him cold, and then falls in love with another prince, and they marry and the last page even shows them kissing. Needless to say that though this book was only published in 2002 in the US, it was already in the top 10 banned/challenged books list of the American Library Association the next year.

One parents reaction: "For those who are unfamiliar with this book," she wrote, "it promotes things like a prince marrying another prince and being married more then once is OK. To put icing on the cake, the last page in the book shows both of the princes kissing."

While I wouldn't say divorce was okay, the current divorce rate, which is pretty staggering, shows that it's definitely a frequent occurance. It's not like seeing divorce in a book is going to make kids grow up and want one, any less than reading a story about 2 princes falling in love is going to make children decide to be gay. Discussing something is not the same thing as promoting it as a behaviour that one must follow.

But I guess that's always been the crux of the problem, all too often I've noticed that (often religiously conservative, or ignorant) people seem to think that you choose to be gay, or that hanging around gay people might turn you gay. Which completely negates the fact that most gay people come from straight families, as well as the fact that I doubt any one of us has ever chosen whom we fall in love, or lust, with, regardless of gender. And I doubt one would ever choose to become gay when you consider the current hostile attitude to people of alternative sexuality. Yeah, let me just sign up for bigotry and hatred and prejudice... sounds like loads of fun.

And this isn't the only subject on which some parents can be complete morons...

Judy Blume's Deenie got challenged because it made reference to masturbation, Linda Jaivin's Eat Me was deemed obscene by one parent because it referenced women and their sexuality, and one grandfather wanted Glenn Murray's Walter The Farting Dog removed from the library stacks because it contained the word 'fart' 24 times. Yes, really.

While the farting dog thing is sadly amusing, in regards to the other two and books like them, the only thing any of this will ever really accomplish is more ignorance regarding sexuality, as well as more shame or (body) issues. I don't think anyone was ever helped by being made to feel that a natural human behaviour and a natural bodily function and need was shameful and nasty and such.

Oh yes, and one parent challenged a book about horses, because it supported the theory of evolution. Their request to remove the book from the library was withdrawn, but they subsequently requested that the library retain a book about creationism. I'm not even going to get into that one...

In Stockton, CA, Mayor Gary Podesto called on the city council to make area libraries safer for children after an 11-year-old checked out a book for adults about child abuse. He called it a "how-to book for pedophiles.".

I love that... so if it's for adults it's an informational book, but when in the hands of kids it all of a sudden becomes a hand book for pedophilia? Unless he feels that it becomes a handbook for such to anyone? That's like saying that a book on physics is a handbook for nuclear bombmakers or some crap. Any knowledge gained from somewhere has the potential to be used for a particular evil, does this mean we just need to stop teaching people anything at all? for fear that one day that knowledge might be used for ill?

Ugh.

The bookslut list, which is October's "Banned Bookslut" column you can find here: http://www.bookslut.com/banned_bookslut/2004_10_003480.php, which opens thus:

The holiday season is fast approaching, and if you're looking for a great way to corrupt any impressionable youth you may be related to, here's a small list of books (and a movie) that were challenged this past year in the United States due to concerns about their content.

Which I think is a mighty fine idea ;)





"An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all."

-- Oscar Wilde