New Rochelle School District Censors Pages from 'Girl, Interrupted'
Bowdlerizing in New Rochelle:
Students at New Rochelle School High School are going to find it difficult to complete their next assignment: comparing the film adaptation of "Girl, Interrupted" to the best-selling book. In the book, Kaysen recounts her confinement at a Massachussets mental hospital in the 1960's.
Pages from the middle of the book have been torn out by the school district after having been deemed "inappropriate" by school officials due to sexual content and strong language. Removed is a scene where the rebellious Lisa (played by Angela Jolie in the movie) encourages Susanna (played by Winona Ryder) to circumvent hospital rules against sexual intercourse by engaging in oral sex instead.
"The material was of a sexual nature that we deemed inappropriate for teachers to present to their students," said English Department Chariperson Leslie Altschul, "since the book has other redeeming features, we took the liberty of bowdlerizing."
Sources at the school says that after receiving complaints from an as yet-to-be-identified person or group, the school district ordered students to return the book to the chairperson of the English department who then personally tore out pages 64 through 70 before returning the books to students. Ironically, news of the school censorship first broke during the same week as the school district's annual Literary Festival.
"Bowdlerizing is a particularly disturbing form of censorship since it not only suppresses specific content deemed 'objectionable,' but also does violence to the work by removing material that the author thought integral," said Joan Bertin, Executive Director of the National Coalition Against Censorship. "It is a kind of literary fraud perpetrated on an unsuspecting audience.
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Seems to me that once again some winger complained and we have censorship as a result. Hey, they didn't like a portion of the book so just rip the pages out and be done with it. This is a "War on Christmas Literature." Why didn't they just burn the book? America should be outraged.
Not for their children.
Just head out to the school web site. I think it took 3 clicks.
Here's what I just emailed to the chairman:
Why Not Just Burn The Books?
So they go to the local library and use that copy. Photocopy the pages they need and voila. Censorship avoided.
I used to laugh when parents bitched about books they didn't want their kids reading from the libraries I worked. Don't want them reading that book? Tell them not to. I'm not their parent, and you don't run the library. B-bye.
Let's be honest here. Some right-wing retard out there got the idea in their head that IF IT'S IN A BOOK, A CHILD WILL DO IT.
So the school tears out the pages...OK...
Don't these folks realize that this is the age of the FRIGGEN INTERNET? Interested teens whose books are missing those pages can go online and download a copy off Bittorrent and read those missing pages for themselves.
As the new generation says....EPIC FAIL!
Just because it's removed from a library, doesn't mean it's not for sale somewhere. If I had a kid there, I'd buy it and let it passed around just to piss off the school.
The whole idea of protecting children from Knowledge Of Sex is idiotic.
When will government of the people, by the politicians, for the corporations perish from this Earth?
Not soon enough!
There's a big difference in appropriateness between the two. Teachers have to be careful about the literature they assign because class discussions about sensitive subjects can devolve into talk and behavior that is undesirable, immature and/or ugly. I would much prefer discussing the issue with my child, then giving her the book myself and talking about it with her.
Today we let them find out about oral sex, and next thing you know they'll discover masturbation.
Just tear out a few organs of the person who complained.
That's a pretty astounding response from an English chair. And if any parent or group thinks the students don't know about sex, they're seriously deluded. Teach the book as is, or don't. As it is, the kids will probably seek out the censored pages and pass them around, because that's what often happens in these cases. That's some small comfort for the adult idiocy on display.
Didn't anyone read or see the movie Farenheit 451. Why is it that the wingers will complain about certain books to keep students from reading about sex. These same wingers are the very ones who get caught in sex scandals and yes I am talking about the Republicans. They are so hypocritical on the subject but its ok for them break the law in order to ingratiate themselves....Republicans make me sick especially after the last 8 years. They suck.
Paying Attention to the Real not the Memorex
That teen pregnancy rates is highest in Bible Belt Red States.
http://www.stopthereligiousright.org/biblebel...
Frank Zappa - Make A Jazz Noise Here
is anal sex. Trust me, i live here.
:P
Correctamundo, Mick.
Rochelle, Rochelle: a young girl's erotic journey from Milan to Minsk.
"Secular schools can never be tolerated because such a school has no religious instruction and a general moral instruction without a religious foundation is built on air; consequently, all character training and religion must be derived from faith . . . We need believing people."
1. Pat Robertson
2. Abraham Lincoln
3. Adolf Hitler
4. Rev. Jerry Falwell
Study the symptoms not the virus...
any difference between 1, 3 and 4?
.
When will government of the people, by the politicians, for the corporations perish from this Earth?
Not soon enough!
Godwin's Law?
Really...You could have gone back much further: the Inquisition, ancient Rome, ancient Athens...You could have gone to the USSR of the early '20's, China at any point in history...But you had to bring up Hitler?
Look, I'm not arguing that you're wrong here, Truth_Critic, just lazy. Save Hitler for when he's the only historical figure you can turn to (like, say, a discussion about Hitler's mother). Otherwise, please do some intellectual exercise.
Don't try to confuse the issue with half-truths and gorilla dust.
I'm throwing the flag while there's a smile on my face. :D
Just askin' for you to get over the Hitler thing. You'll thank me in the long run.
Don't try to confuse the issue with half-truths and gorilla dust.
Though I find it interesting you chose to focus on Hitler. My intent was [not] too focus so much on Hitler, then to relate to the story subject(s). The way I took it, it was related to a school and in the authors' footer remark, "Why didn't they just burn the book?" was expressed. It's my opinion your reference to it's historical intent is misguided and moot. Though I did find your reference too [Godwin's law] interesting and I thank you for pointing that out, learn something new each day. Though as you know, it's not unique to the individual named Hitler.
The Law declares, "The rule does not make any statement about whether any particular reference or comparison to Hitler or the Nazis might be appropriate," Thank you for your interest though.
Study the symptoms not the virus...
3. Adolf Hitler. April 26, 1933, from a speech made during negotiations leading to the Nazi-Vatican Concordat of 1933.
Study the symptoms not the virus...
Look at the kind of parties these people throw!
And I've heard that married couples even sleep in separate beds there.
Don't try to confuse the issue with half-truths and gorilla dust.
An you picked her in the capri pants, a real sticking point with the censors in the day. They were worried about how the slacks 'cupped' her cheeks.
Fucking pervs.
me-oww!
did she not appear in capri pants on that show?
Okay, maybe it's just me, but I can't picture her- and those "cupped" cheeks- any other way.
Until she got her own show, anyway.
Don't try to confuse the issue with half-truths and gorilla dust.
I saw her in an interview -- maybe with Letterman and she was hilarious using her hands to show the 'cupping'
I think "That would be quite a handful" might have been said after...
There is a story I've heard Rob Reiner tell about being on the set with his dad at the age of about 12 and walking up to Moore, and pinching her bum.
me-oww!
If someone will tell kids and their parents that live moves on after high school. Deal with the nonsense then do whatever you want to when it is over. Rarely will anyone think of high school except for the idiots that make life ridiculous. Idiots think if you delete oral sex students will be protected from the knowledge. Truth is: sex is great and the right wing prigs don't want them to know, or kids would be hanging from the trees having sex.
Until America gets off their collective internet addictions, the outrage over book censorship will be indefinitely postponed.
Seriously, what's the first thing we do when we read about some kid who keeled over after spending 20 straight hours online playing WoW? We go online and email the story to our friends and post about it on our favorite Bboards.
And asking for outrage over the censorship of books with the younger generations would be like asking for outrage over the censorship of 8-track tapes from the older ones.
Seriously, what's the first thing we do when we read about some kid who keeled over after spending 20 straight hours online playing WoW? We go online and email the story to our friends and post about it on our favorite Bboards.
Speak for yourself on that one. I wouldn't spam anyone with a story like that.
A story like this one, though, I send around. Well, I send it to my mom and two of my aunts, then THEY send it around.
Don't try to confuse the issue with half-truths and gorilla dust.
as the online format will repelace printed books by then.
We need to worry about attempts to censore the net!
How about taking back the books, donating them to public libraries and working on another comparison. Grapes of Wrath, The Maltese Falcon, The Lord of the Rings, Forever Amber, Pride and Prejudice, Cinderella, there are all sorts of books made into movies.
Breaking the book -- disgusting.
me-oww!
make me angry as hell. You're point is common sense - pure and simple. If you don't like the content of the book, choose another you can use in it's entirety. Ripping out the 'offensive' pages sends the wrong message to students.
This English chair should be kicked to the curb. And the administration that bowed to pressure should be right behind her. They are only trying to cover their asses now that the complaints have been made. I'm betting that no permission slips/information letters went home to parents before those books were given to students. That is failure of the department and administrators.
Could they not have imagined that there'd be an uproar among at least a few holy roller type parents?
I can understand if English departments are reluctant to rely on things like old standards like, say, "The House of Seven Gables," but as miss_kitty points out, there are literally thousands of fabulous books to choose from, and "The Grapes of Wrath" would be the first one I'd think of. Also, "For Whom the Bell Tolls" or something from Hemingway. (Two books that made me cry, and I don't cry easily.) Maybe it's my inner English-major but I'm appalled at some of what they assign high school kids -- the worst being, this summer, kids moving into junior year assigned "The Dive From Claussen's Pier" over the summer. Thank god another teacher assigned "Candide" or I'd have torched the place.
And I'm not casting aspersions at all on "Girl Interrupted," but there are some things you can see coming a mile away. Unless you're self-sequestered in a lot of English departments, I suppose.
If you're going to show art, show it, don't fuck with it! Don't like the content? Don't show it. You don't mess with the work of an artist.
John Ashcroft revealed what a pervert he was when he covered up Themis' chest. What, women aren't supposed to have breasts? Are breasts obscene? Of course not, just sexually repressed creeps that pretend they are to the world, while they jerk off to Victoria's Secret catalogs under the sheets at home, flashlight optional.
Sickening!
...Bad girls use birth control and good girls just get pregnant. A conservative right wing religious brother of mine xtian daughter just gave birth to her third out-of-wedlock child and the mom just turned 20. I love my family but shit, seriously...censorship will protect her from all of that gawd awful liberal thinking.
So now they will compare the differences between the book and the movie, correct? And they will focus on the sex scene. Yep, that's the way to protect the kids from evil sex. Have them put that scene in their paper as a significant difference. Good job!
Those people need to be fired ASAP. These are the same bunch of non-thinking preverts who banned The catcher in the rye. Ommomm he said a potty word. Grow up dumb-fucks and tend to your own family, and keep your filthy hands off my books and out of my pants, busy-body sons of bitches. CEO citizens,eyes,open(with angry red veins popping out)
This will just encourage the kids to wonder what's between pages 62 to 72. So, they will buy the book, discuss the missing pages, and it will just reinforce oral sex to them.
School screwed up big time.
An old retired fart.
I think I'll write them and say that.
If penises and breasts and vaginae are so bad, why did God give them to us?
Was he stoned or something?
In fact, talking of stoned, if cannabis is so bad, why did God give us that? Or are you saying that God didn't create the world and everything in it?
I think you need to listen to this
me-oww!
Look, either teach the whole book or none of it. If it's too racy for kids, then teach another book. But ripping the pages out of any book is just plain evil. As a person with an English degree, the thought of destroying a book is appalling to me.
I've never read Girl, Interrupted, but I've seen the movie. I don't see how the students are going to be able to see the movie either. It's rated R for good reason.
Parents have the right to shield their kids from things they find offensive, but I don't think everyone needs to suffer because of a narrow minded few.
I miss my old Alma Mater! I don't recall book banning when I was there tho... Of course that was way back in the 1980-90's when sex was ok because the President only banged Marilyn Monroe.
and this type of using part of the book and tearing out pages is stupid.
Why bother with the book in the first place? I don't think the oral sex issue is appropriate for a school lesson, as it doesn't seem necessary. But I don't know anything about the book or movie. IS there some uber lesson from this book that can't be learned from other sources without the overt sexualality?
This is an infringement on the author's copyright.
As a retired English teacher, I am ashamed of whoever would resort to tearing out pages. I had objections to Of Mice and Men, To Kill a Mockingbird, and Sinclair Lewis's Babbit over the years but was fortunate to work in a district that allowed for parents to opt their individual kids out of reading "objectionable" material. The rest of moved on and studied the books.
Of course, it's OK to have your kids watch people jump into and out of bed on soap operas on their days off.
This is rediculouse. The school district should never censor anything. That means introducing students to possibly controversial books. Maybe a John grisham book and movie. or Jurassic park.
People need to have the courage to show such classics as Girl Interrupted
Those above who have said in some form or another "get it at the library" or "buy it somewhere" miss the clear point: They shouldn't have to.
The idea of someone sitting in an office, sitting there tearing pages out of the middle of a book.... It's.... I just.... Oh, my.
I have never seen this movie but watching this clip made me realize something. At 40, I am older than MLK_Jr. was when he was killed. It kind of makes his life that much more amazing that he accomplished everything he did in his life before the age I am now.
As for the censorship thing I can't say anything that hasn't already been said very well here so I'm going to let it be.
In Dallas, they effectively cancelled a high school production of Rent.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
Should i tear out the offending parts from the Bibles at the local school library?
Must be some pretty damn thin Bibles at this so called 'school' what with all the incest and so forth.
I'm guessing Cider House Rules won't be on their reading list any time soon.
If there's one way to make sure you're kids read a book, tell them they can't because it's too sexy.
And if there's one way to sell a lot of books, add a few pages that parents will find objectionable. The author must be stoked now since the book is getting free publicity right before Christmas and not long before Banned Book Week.
You can absolutely be sure that those torn out pages will now be thoroughly read and discussed by the students. No self-respecting student would do otherwise.
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