this blog is not yet rated
so i was watching "this film is not yet rated" the other day on tv, the documentary about the film rating system, which happens to include some of the scenes that caused the movies in question to get an nc-17 rating, also giving the documentary an nc-17 rating, which it’s creator rejected and went with "unrated" instead (of course, it had already been rated)
but that’s really not what i’m trying to talk about. when i watched the movie i figured out it really all came down to censorship, what’s appropriate and what’s not appropriate (although it mostly focused on the mpaa’s inconsistency and undecidedness)
then that got me thinking about all this hype about censorship in schools. a couple of years ago their was all this hype in the town where i live about how school libraries were banning books, they were banning books that had certain words in them (f—) or certain themes (gay people) and things like that. actually some of the school banned webster’s dictionary, instead favoring a seriously abridged "student dictionary." i wonder which word’s weren’t included.
the reason for all the talk was because my school district, chambersburg area school district, was resisting the ban and wouldn’t ban the books or the dictionary or whatever. it even celbrated that fact with a holiday "READ BANNED BOOKS DAY" and everytime you check out a book the librarian gave you a book mark with all the books that had been
i think i was in 7th or 8th grade when my mom told me about this and i remember thinking "why not? why won’t they ban the books? i don’t want books with the f word in them or books about gay people in them!" now that i’m actually in high school, i realise that their;s much more than the f-word and gay people to worry about. my school library has a whole wall of those japanese graphic novels full of sex and violence, it even has a club full of goths and wierdies.
my mom explained to me that the shcool wouldn’t ban the books because that’s censorship, and the school wants to give me the choice, so i can draw my own line so to speek. ok. fine. but the library needs a line of it’s own. that’s like giving a teenager pot, and saying "decide if you want to do it or not.
i know censorship is bad when it comes to big brother, but trust me, if i ever wanted to look at porn graphic novels or read about gay people, i can find it on my own. i don’t need a school library for that.
i mean come on, i have the internet.
Tags: ban, book, censorship, dictionary, documentary, f word, film, gay, graphic, graphic novel, hype, japan, japanese, library, mpaa, nc-17, novel, people, rated, school, themes, this film is not yet rated, webster
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