When I was growing up, my mother banned comics (of any kind) from the house. I did get access to the comics in the Sunday paper, but tat was it. The fear was, that we would forget about reading 'real' books and immerse ourselves only in reading comics.
The weird thing is - comics have been vital for difficult child 3 because they have more obvious social instruction in them, it's easier for him to understand the social context described when it's drawn there for him.
Witz, I recognise that some people wanting to ban Twilight are doing so because they claim it to be demonic (or whatever, along those lines) but there has been considerable discussion about this very topic here in Australia (on breakfast TV) and a much stronger reason claimed (by spokespersons who I know do not have a religious barrow to push) that Twilight is promoting teen sexuality to kids who really are too young for it. We're finding the books in primary school liibraries (that is kids up to 11 or 12 years old) and parents are getting upset about this. It has become a fad and when it is made so readily available to these younger kids, they will read it if it's there. I also agree that 'adulitfying' young kids (especially young pre-pubescent girls) is unhealthy.
However, banning books can sometimes only make them more desirable.
I have at times had to take a stand on what difficult child 3 is exposed to in mainstream. For example, he was 8 years old when his class were watching Roald Dahl's "The Witches". While other kids his age had no problem with such a film, we knew difficult child 3 couldn't handle it. He also didn't want to watch it, for him it would have been like making a five year old sit through a screening of "The Exorcist". So I got him excused from watching the film. It was another couple of years with gradual exposure, that he was able to watch the film. We actually had to show him the ending first so he knew that it came out alright (in the film). Personally, it was a lot longer before I could let difficult child 3 read the book and even then he censored it in his own miind to give it the ending in the film. Personally, I think Roald Dahl's mind was a bit of a worry... same with JK Rowling. Not for the 'witchcraft' stuff, but the apparently accepted bullying and nastiness that the school seems to not only allow, it enables. The one really good thing I can say about the Harry Potter series - it has got kids reading more and (hopefully) moving on to other, better, books. The 'witchcraft' content is totally fictional (in my opinion, not terribly well written, either) and not worth any sort of religious ban - it's superficial and derivative. But no threat, except perhaps to literary standards. I will say - she has improved considerably as a writer, over the series.
Perhaps what I have resented most about Harry Potter - my vow as a parent to read EVERYTHING my kids read, so I know what they are reading and can discuss it with them. And because I made that committment (to myself) I have had to grit my teeth through most of those books.
But I use it all. Having read the stuff (not just Harry Potter, but anything else I felt I could pick to pieces) I often use chunks of text (with attribution, of course) in any writing workshops I'm teaching, to demonstrate what NOT to do... and my worst examples do NOT come from Harry Potter.
Society shifts over time. The example of Huck Finn is a classic example, especially with the (then) accepted use of words no longer considered acceptable. When reading these books it MUST be remembered, that the times in which tey were written were different and there was no intention to offend, in ways that today would be offensive. We have similar examples in Aussie culture - not just certain words, but images and stereotypes which were considered terms of endearment 30 years ago, are now deeply offensive today. The concept of "walkabout" for example - Evonne Cawley (nee Goolagong) was a brilliant tennis player in her prime, of Aboriginal origins. Her coach, in an interview back in the 70s (I think it was) described her momentary lapses of concentration in her early training years as "going walkabout". He said he used the term affectionately, as 'homage to her Aboriginal heritage". But to say the same thing these days under the exact same circumstances would be considered racist.
WHen I was in senior high school (early 70s) we were studying Hamlet. Most of us in the classroom had the Dept of Ed textbook issue. Some had brought their own copies from home. In class we would be assigned various roles according to the whim of the teacher that day, and we would read aloud around the classroom. Thus it was that we discovered that the Dept of Ed issues had been censored - some 'racy bits' had been deleted. One of our classmates (perhaps the most sexually uptight of the lot of us) was reading her assigned passage aloud and found herself reading to shocked gasps and comments of, "That's not in MY copy!"
This was not uncommon. Our teacher told us to ignore the discrepancies and move on; those bits would not be in the final exams so don't worry about them. Naturally, we all rushed home to check our own parental copies of the classics...
An Aussie TV series set in a convent school of the 60s ("Brides of Christ" - a brilliant series) showed one nun teaching a class from "Romeo & Juliet" when a more senior nun overherd the pssage being read (something about "beast with two backs" and what does it mean) and the older teacher instructed the girls to rule lines through the offending passages, and move on.
Censoring Shakespeare... this was not restricted to religious orders. Our school was secular and state-based, they published their own censored copies and made them official. I think that qualifies as institutionalised censorship.
And yet - we studied Huck Finn at the same time as Hamlet. Because although it uses certain words now considered to be racist, it is NOT a racist book, especially if you consider when, how and why it was written.
Marg
