13 nov 07
The other day, apropos of nothing, I was thinking about banned books. Actually, no, it was apropos of something — I read an article in Reason last weekend about Frederick Wiseman, a documentary filmmaker, and his movie Titicut Follies, which was banned from release at the time of its making until 1992. Obviously Reason disagrees with censorship, and I’d tend to agree. I honestly hadn’t thought much about movies being banned; generally I would think the market would dictate if a movie wouldn’t be profitable, it likely wouldn’t be made.
Remarkably, not that many books have actually been banned, according to Wikipedia’s list — more often they are challenged, like when suburban moms decide Harry Potter is evil. Here’s a list of commonly challenged books in the US. I’ve read many of these, all in public schools.
(Where’s Waldo? Really?)
GFS3 / 14 nov 2007 / 9:14 p.m.
Actually, Harry Potter has been banned. The Rev. Baker, headmaster of a Catholic school in Massachusetts, recently removed all of J.K. Rowling’s novels from the school library and banned it from the school’s summer reading list. The reason? The books feature wizards and witches. You can read more here:
http://darkpartyreview.blogspot.com/2007/11/essay-banning-harry.html