Yes, YA books often reflect experiences teenagers might be having… Judy Blume had books which in part discussed the various modes of teenage sexuality as a natural part of growing up and becoming a fully formed adult.
Good literature is not didactic or instructive, but meant to reflect the subjective experiences people might have in their lives. It’s meant to make us feel not so alone and weird in this world.
I think the strength of Judy Blume’s work rests in the fact that she takes her reader, no matter what age they are, seriously as human beings. As much as we try and shield our kids from things, they are going to experience them, so I appreciate that she works to reflect that in her work.
I used to hold up our Censorship board as an example of how censorship could be used in a modern democracy in a sensible, proactive and useful way.
For example, no one here cares about video games being violent because restrictions placed on them make it illegal to sell to minors (GTA is “R18” - you have to be 18 to buy a copy - which meant no one cared about Hot Coffee here either because the game was already restricted to adults).
Here, all movies and games are rated and unlike the ESRB or MPAA ratings these are legally binding - a movie theatre letting a 13 year old into Mad Max Fury Road could be fined.
However, any system is only as good as the people running it. Our previous chief censor, Bill Hastings, was a level headed progressive individual with no specific ties to any outside groups, and who seemed to have his hand on the pulse of what people would find acceptable. You had to doing something pretty questionable for Bill to ban it - he would even typically fight against anyone wanting a higher rating, doing things like creating an R13 to allow all teenagers to be able to see Saving Private Ryan (due to the opening scenes realism being a great experience of what war was like).
However, after he retired from the position, he was replaced by a fundamentalist Christian who is doing his best to roll New Zealand back to the dark ages. He has clear ties with Family First (better described as a Christian Fundy group, than Right Wing - everyone here is still pretty left leaning compared to the U.S.). During his appointment he assured everyone that his religious beliefs would have no baring on how he censored. This has been specifically proven incorrect now with this ruling. We can only hope enough people are outraged that he is forced to resign, but we’re also a super apathetic country so by the end of this week no one will care any more :/.
A point of clarification too - the book is currently banned because it has been deemed necessary of further review, which hasn’t happened yet. In all likely hood what will happen is it will be restricted to adults, meaning bookstores and libraries can carry it but can’t sell it to anyone under the determined age (most likely 18, since porn is typically R18 and unless the book features someone peeing or pooing on someone else they will probably label it as such.)(edit: the peeing or pooing thing would keep it banned. That’s the only sex act that is illegal to depict here on moral grounds. Obviously child porn, beastilality etc is banned to protect the innocent).
As an aside, we don’t have anything like a constitution - our founding document doesn’t guarantee any human rights (it’s more about how the country would be shared between Maori and English, and how rights afforded to English as Citizens of Her Majesty would be extended to Maori). Our Bill of Rights, which does enshrine our legally upheld rights, can, and has been, changed by the Government of the time to suit their needs.
Looking back on it, we knew that most Blume books were “for girls,” but somehow they were okay for boys to read, unlike, say, Sweet Valley High or Nancy Drew. Not that we could have articulated it, but I’m sure it was because her characters are written like real people instead of two-dimensional cyphers for the reader to project herself onto. Granted, there was a lot of giggling when we passed around Forever with the good parts dogeared, but whaddya want, it was fifth grade. (And we didn’t get in trouble for it! “Oh this? It’s just a Judy Blume book, teacher.” They must have known though. It was a very progressive elementary school.)
Well, they likely did know, and understood that kids that age are thinking about this stuff and that it’s perfectly normal really. I think that’s probably what’s upsetting about curriculum that attempts to talk down to children and young teens - they can see through that BS quite easily, and instead of learning when condescended to, they just tune out and get what information they can elsewhere.
As Edward Stratemeyer intended?
TIL you can’t legally buy yourself an unaccompanied-by-parent ticket to an R-rated movie in Tennessee if you’re under 18. By law. Since 1989.
Growing up with that system, I still recall my moment of utter cognitive dissonance when I realised anyone of any age could see any movie (or buy any video game) in the U.S… To my mind, the gap between “won’t someone think of the children” and “this product is obviously made for adults” leads to the obvious conclusion that we should stop kids seeing it. Good to see some states getting on board!
Seventeen. Going on Eighteen. What’s the diff?
Apparently some people think there’s one. I didn’t know until today that NC-17 meant that no children seventeen-and-under would be admitted, rather than no children under 17. They apparently made that adjustment in 1996.
Well, outside of Tennessee, maybe you could legally, but that doesn’t mean it’s all that easy to do. Getting into a movie you’re ostensibly too young to see is only as hard as the minimum-wage ticket-takers make it, but a hardass manager will make it more of a challenge for your garden-variety 8th-grader to stroll into a screening of, say, Blue is the Warmest Color.
thats not legally binding though is it? If someone let a 16 year old in, can they be fined? (My understanding was that it’s more a corporate policy to follow the well established rules and that everyone follows them, effectively censoring but ultimately with no legal backing).
NZ R18 is restricted without exemption - we don’t have any ratings that allow “only in the presence of guardians”. All the others (M(ature), PG and G) are guidelines only.
The instance of “18 year old cousin looking after 13 year old nephew”, he could take him into anything lower than NC-17 though right?
Yeah. A voluntary standard. Used to be lax, now everyone expects that it will be enforced by retailers, theater chains, and technological measures, I think it’s wrong that Tennessee codifies it into law-- and even if Tennessee respected the MPAA’s age brackets, the MPAA is leery of getting the state involved.
Again, it depends on the management. They might not feel they have a legal obligation to sell you a ticket if they don’t like the cut of your jib. Darla down in the local Herpes Cineplex box office might not give a damn, though.
Please note: While the MPAA has assigned BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR a rating of NC-17, recommending that no one under 18 be admitted, IFC Center feels that the film is appropriate viewing for mature adolescents. Accordingly, the theater will admit high school age patrons at its discretion.
Good for them! I like that movie for reasonably-mature high schoolers.
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
