Charles Levendosky has written an excellent piece on censorship.
The campaign season often gives rise to dumb ideas. Weeks ago, the
FBI
released statistics showing that youth and school violence is at its
lowest level in more than a decade. Yet, members of Congress chose
this
month to blame the film and television industries for rising teen
violence.
The message to Hollywood: Get rid of the violence on your own, or
we\’ll
pass legislation that does it for you. The political chorus was
joined
by Democratic candidate for president Al Gore, his running mate,
Joseph
Lieberman, and Lynne Cheney, wife of Republican vice presidential
nominee Dick Cheney.
Politicians don\’t believe the American people can find the off button
on
their television sets.
There is pleanty more, be sure to read on…
Charles Levendosky has written an excellent piece on censorship.
The campaign season often gives rise to dumb ideas. Weeks ago, the
FBI
released statistics showing that youth and school violence is at its
lowest level in more than a decade. Yet, members of Congress chose
this
month to blame the film and television industries for rising teen
violence.
The message to Hollywood: Get rid of the violence on your own, or
we\’ll
pass legislation that does it for you. The political chorus was
joined
by Democratic candidate for president Al Gore, his running mate,
Joseph
Lieberman, and Lynne Cheney, wife of Republican vice presidential
nominee Dick Cheney.
Politicians don\’t believe the American people can find the off button
on
their television sets.
There is pleanty more, be sure to read on…They want the government to make decisions
about
what adults and children will be allowed to watch. Never mind
parental
decisions. Never mind the First Amendment.
The threat of congressional legislation is real. The Senate Commerce
Committee passed a bill Sept. 20, that will ban television shows
containing graphic bloodshed or violence during daylight hours when
children might be watching — from 6 a.m to 10 p.m. Presumably, news
reports are excluded from the ban.
Sen. Ernest Hollings, D-S.C., who sponsored the bill, wants a \”safe
harbor\” for children during the time when they watch television.
Hollings doesn\’t believe that the much heralded V-chip technology,
required by law in all new TV sets larger than 13 inches, has
worked.
The V-chip can be used by parents to block violent or sexual
material.
But many parents don\’t want technology making choices for them, so
they
don\’t use it. That should be a clue to Hollings. If parents don\’t
want a
V-chip making judgments for them, they certainly don\’t want the
government doing it.
This political attack on Hollywood has been fueled by a phony report
recently released by the Federal Trade Commission that pretends to
show
that violence in the media causes teen violence in the streets and
schools. But even the FTC report did not claim that violent programs
and
violent video games cause aggression. It couldn\’t.
The report hedged by noting statistical \”correlations\” between
violent
media fare and teen violence. Correlations can indicate some
relationship between two different kinds of events — or
correlations
can indicate absolutely nothing. If one were to chart birds singing
before dawn with the rising of the sun, one would find an almost
perfect
correlation. But to then suggest that bird songs cause the sun to
rise
would be patently ridiculous. Yet the correlation is unmistakably
present.
A correlation between the 100 best books in English and the 100 most
frequently challenged books in the past decade, as compiled by the
American Library Association\’s Office of Intellectual Freedom, would
be
very high. Perhaps someone could argue from the correlation that the
better a book is, the more likely it is to be attacked.
No credible scientific evidence exists that shows a cause-and-effect
relationship between watching violent programming and aggressive
behavior.
But the politicians will beat their chests and act holier than thou
as
they try to drum up votes. These same politicians, if they are over
50
years old, were likely raised on the often frightening fairy tales
by
Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm and sad tales like Hans Christian Andersen\’s
\”The Little Match Girl\” and \”The Steadfast Tin Soldier.\” Few would
claim
such stories twisted the psyches of those who read them.
In the last decade, the Grimm Brothers\’ adaptation of \”Little Red
Riding
Hood,\” by the way, was attacked by teachers and parents in the
United
States for being too violent.
This is also Banned Books Week — the week that the American Library
Association set aside to celebrate our freedom to read. It\’s an
appropriate time to read a banned book, if you haven\’t already in
the
past month.
J.K. Rowling\’s Harry Potter series received the dubious honor of
being
the most frequently challenged books in 1999. The attempts to ban
the
series were based on charges that it encourages a belief in the
occult,
wizardry and magic.
The number of books that were targeted for banning last year,
according
to the list compiled by the Office of Intellectual Freedom, dropped
to
472. Challenges to books have been dropping steadily since 1995 and
since the Internet has become a major focus of censorship attempts.
The majority of the attempts to ban books are reported by public
libraries, public schools and school libraries. And most challenges
to
books are initiated by parents, library patrons and school
administrators.
If you haven\’t read one of the books on the list of the American
Library
Association\’s Ten Most Challenged Books of 1999, you haven\’t been
reading: John Steinbeck\’s \”Of Mice and Men\” is sixth on the list;
Maya
Angelou\’s \”I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings\” is seventh; Margaret
Atwood\’s \”The Handmaid\’s Tale\” is eighth, Alice Walker\’s \”The Color
Purple\” is ninth and in 10th place, David Guterson\’s \”Snow Falling
on
Cedars.\”
These classics were challenged because some folks were offended by
the
strong language and the realistic sexual scenes.
It is somewhat comforting to know that \”Of Mice and Men\” still
shocks
some readers. Books should shock us out of our complacency, should
make
us uncomfortable with their truths. Shake us a little. They should
make
us think, or even reevaluate our lives or issues.
One finds Mark Twain\’s \”The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn\” high on
the
list of books most frequently challenged in the past decade. Authors
like J.D. Salinger, Maurice Sendak, Toni Morrison, Harper Lee,
Aldous
Huxley, Kurt Vonnegut, Richard Wright, William Golding and Isabel
Allende have books on that list.
Stumped for a good book to read during those winter months when the
snow
is high against your door? Call your local library or bookstore and
ask
what book has been banned recently, then go down and get a copy.
It\’s
bound to be worth reading.
(Levendosky is a member of the Freedom to Read Foundation Board, the
litigating arm of the American Library Association.)
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