Banned in America

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1. Food for Thought:

  • There always has been and always will be censorship.
  • Is this true: "Fear is the root of all censorship."
  • “Us” and “Them” is often the universal language of censorship.
  • Who has the right to determine when “a line has been crossed”?
  • When “we” decide that “they” are promoting “hate,” who decides the definition of “hate”? One culture’s “hate” is another culture’s “norm.”
  • Is there such a thing as too much “political correctness”?
  • Censoring censorship can be a form of censorship. EXAMPLES: “We” don’t like “them” censoring books, so “we” will prevent “them” from doing so because “they” are [fill in blank] and “we” are [fill in blank]. “They” use speech (art, music, etc.) that promotes [fill in some form of "crime"]; we must prevent that.

2. Definitions

3. A Brief History of Censorship

4. Censorship in America

5a. Recent and On-Going Examples:

5b. FAHRENHEIT 451 and THE MARTIAN:

Censored versus Self-Censored

Ray Bradbury's “Fahrenheit 451 is an indictment of censorship and expurgation, so the fact that this book was expurgated and marketed by the publisher that way for 13 years before the author became aware of the abuse is particularly ironic. In 1967, Ballantine Books published a special edition of the novel to be sold in high schools. Over 75 passages were modified to eliminate such words as hell, damn, and abortion, and two incidents were eliminated. The original first incident described a drunk man who was changed to a sick man in the expurgated edition. In the second incident, reference is made cleaning fluff out of the human navel, but the expurgated edition changed the reference to cleaning ears.” This edition was published through 1979; neither Bradbury nor anyone else suspected the truth. In 1979, Bradbury was alerted and he demanded that Ballantine withdraw the expurgated edition immediately and replace it with the original. The publisher agreed and the original, unexpurgated edition was published in 1980. This act of censorship “set in motion the American Library Association Intellectual Freedom Committee, Young Adult Division.” Among other things, the Committee warned school book clubs like Scholastic that it would strip away the “ALA Best Book” announcement from all expurgated books. The ALA also alerted teacher groups to demand that an expurgated book in a school book club be “clearly identified on the copyright page as an ‘edited school book edition’.” In a coda that now appears in editions of Fahrenheit 451, Bradbury states, “I will not go gently onto a shelf, degutted, to become a non-book.” © Nicholas Karolides, et al. 120 Banned Books. Page 488. There are more than 160 swear words in Andy Weir’s sci-fi thriller, The Martian, including two memorably deployed F-words in the novel’s first three sentences. The profanity did not strike Mr. Weir as excessive when he wrote the book nearly a decade ago. After all, the story’s narrator, an astronaut named Mark Watney, is stranded alone on Mars with a dwindling supply of food and a rescue mission that is four years away — circumstances that warrant constant cursing. But shortly after the book came out, Mr. Weir started hearing from a subset of readers who objected to the obscenities. “I got a lot of emails from science teachers who said, ‘Man I’d love to use your book as a teaching aid, but there’s so much profanity in it that we can’t really do that,’” said Mr. Weir, 44, who is cheerful, hyper-analytical and casually profane, much like his protagonist. “It’s hard to get that by a school board.” Apart from the four-letter words, “The Martian” is a science teacher’s dream text. It’s a gripping survival story that hinges on the hero’s ability to solve a series of complex problems, using his knowledge of physics, chemistry, astronomy and math, in order to stay alive on a hostile planet. After getting dozens of inquiries from teachers, Mr. Weir, who describes himself as “a lifelong space nerd,” asked his publisher, Crown, if they could release a cleaned-up edition of the book. The novel was pretty easy to amend, by simply replacing the foul language with tamer words like “screwed,” “jerk” and “crap” (Mr. Weir said there were “occasional squabbles” when he tried to lobby the censors to keep some of the less offensive swear words in.) A kid-friendly version came out last year, and it is now being used to help teach science in classrooms around the country. © Alexandra Alter. New York Times. Business Day Section. 24 Feb, 2017. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/24/business/andy-weirs-best-seller-the-martian-gets-a-classroom-friendly-makeover.html?mcubz=3&_r=0

5c. Film and Television Adaptations:

“When you sell a book it is a gamble; you take the risk that someone will take your work and turn it into something you're ashamed of.” Lionel Shriver. We Need To Talk About Kevin.
1. Hollywood Ate My NovelWhen writers sell the rights to their literary creations (such as novels) to movie studios, producers, and/or directors, their work can be changed at will unless there are very explicit conditions in the contract. Even then, censorship can take place. http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/hollywood-ate-my-novel-novelists-reveal-what-it-s-like-to-have-their-book-turned-into-a-movie-6940772.html
2. ScreenwritersGary Whitta has worked in Hollywood for 15 years, and if the experience has taught him anything, it’s that screenwriters don’t have much control over the final product. “Oftentimes when you work on a movie, it gets all bent and pushed and pulled out of shape by the various people on the film who are more powerful than you,” Whitta says . . . . “Because everyone on a film is more powerful than the writer.” Fresh ideas face an uphill battle in Hollywood. At first Warner Bros. was enamored with the edginess of Whitta’s script for The Book of Eli, a post-apocalyptic thriller with religious overtones. But when push came to shove, the studio balked. https://www.wired.com/2015/08/geeks-guide-gary-whitta/

6a. Banned Book and Censorship Videos:

6b. Two Authors Speak Out:

Banned by liberals
Banned by conservatives

7. "Book Banning is a Bipartisan Game"

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