Two stories of freedom and attempts at censorship.
The first: who can and can't do what in public. You might be sick of this story already, but I thought this was thoughtful piece.
The second: what you can and can't write in a children's book.
The first: two men kissing in front of middle America.
The second: the word "scrotum". Crabbi recently blogged about people freaking out from seeing the real names for anatomical parts. I guess this is another one.
* * * *
And again the New York Times files a gay-themed story in the Styles section! What is up with that? I notice it all the time. It drives me nuts.
9 comments:
I'm not familiar with the NYT's section layouts... is "Style" similar to the "Arts and Entertainment" sections in Canadian papers? If so, then would it not make sense to be discussing advertisments and broadcast issues and the like in that section?
is "Style" similar to the "Arts and Entertainment" sections in Canadian papers?
No. The New York Times calls that "Arts & Leisure".
"Style" is fashion and, to a lesser extent, design. Articles on advertising and media are usually in the A&L section. But dozens of stories about gay couples or gay events (a gay hockey league, for example) turn up in the Styles section.
So "Styles" would be more similar to "Fashion" here?
I can see stories about marriage (Gay or Straight) being in the Fashion section, but an article about kissing in advertising? Odd.
Styles is Fashion, yes, but I think some Canadian newspapers call it Styles.
How about an article about a gay hockey league? About a gay teenager whose parents had him sent to a brainwashing camp? A gay bereavement group? The New York Times put all of those in the Styles section.
Admittedly some of those I would have difficulty classifying (is the main theme of a gay-only football league sports or human rights?), but you're right I don't think I'd ever put it in a fashion/styles section.
I guess they've just decided to be lazy and put all gay-themed articles in the Style section. Lazy asses.
is the main theme of a gay-only football league sports or human rights?
There is no section for human rights.
I can use an analogy from my own field. Articles about athletes with disabilities, even on the elite (Paralympic, World Games, etc.) level, used to be filed almost exclusively as human-interest stories. The athletes hated it.
These days - at least in more progressive areas - you'll see those stories in the sports sections. We think that's progress.
The gay hockey league was a New York City story. It would have normally been in the metro section.
The gay teenager with the brainwashing parents was a national story. It gets filed under national.
If an editor doesn't know where to file something, he or she could just imagine where it would be filed if it were about heterosexuals, and do the same. Sending a Styles reporter to cover all gay-themed stories is more than lazy IMO. It's insulting.
The inclusion of the word has shocked some school librarians, who have pledged to ban the book from elementary schools
If you pledge to ban a book from a school, you don't deserve to keep your job as a librarian.
If you pressure a librarian to remove a book based on the correct anatomical use of a word, you don't deserve to keep your job as a citizen.
If you pledge to ban a book from a school, you don't deserve to keep your job as a librarian.
If you pressure a librarian to remove a book based on the correct anatomical use of a word, you don't deserve to keep your job as a citizen.
Ah, that's well said.
Really, it's astonishing. It's not like the book uses the word "cocksucker". It's using the correct name of a part of the human body. Should children not know the names of these parts because when they're older the part will have a sexual function???
How ignorant - how prudish - how small-minded - people can be! And librarians!! There's no excuse.
This reminds me, I should email this post to our old friend G the Library Bitch...
Really, it's astonishing. It's not like the book uses the word "cocksucker". It's using the correct name of a part of the human body. Should children not know the names of these parts because when they're older the part will have a sexual function???
The myth of "innocence" rears its head once again.
I find it really amusing that conservatives are big on both "tradition" and "innocence" -- traditionally, young children in rural areas weren't all that innocent about sex. After all, they saw sex and death regularly on the farm. That's how (livestock) farms work, after all.
But the anti-intellectual trend among religious conservatives has, as its corollary, a pro-ignorance side -- ignorance is to be valued and preserved in children, only under the name "innocence".
Which, of course, means that once they hit puberty, you get teen pregnancies -- 'cause they don't know any better. Odd how the States with the most liberal sex-ed also have the lowest teen pregnancy rates, eh?
Post a Comment