Meh! Freedom of Speech who wants it? It sucks, right? Let's hunt down all YA writers!
Wow… So first of all I would like to apologize to my ( I think 3 LJ friends) if you stumble into this rant. I just needed to vent a bit and I figured I’d used my livejournal as a “Dear diary” of sorts.
The reason behind my need to vent is this article published by the Walt Street Journal: CLICK HERE FOR A FUN READ.
When I read this I honestly didn't know what to make of it. I was torn between wanting to laugh and asking myself if this was written by my religiously fanatic aunt. Why do I bring up my aunt - with whom I don’t speak to since I was nineteen years old - because reading this article I was reminded of the reason why I stopped talking to her to begin with.
I started reading the Harry Potter books since I was a kid. I was learning English in a language institute, and in order to improve my pronunciation and writing, I decided to read a few books in English. After reading “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer Stone” in Spanish I decided I should read the sequel in its original language and that’s how my affair with Young Adult fiction began.
A few years later my aunt’s eldest daughter, who was also my favourite cousin, asked me for my books to read. I was more than happy to lend her said books and share my love for reading with one of my best friends.
Two weeks later she came to my house and gave me my book back. I asked her if she was done with it already and wanted book two. She replied she hadn’t read it in its entirety because my aunt had told her that book was the devil’s work
I was confused to say the least. I’ve read all those books. My mom had bought them for me. Why would my mom - my very overprotective mom - buy me a series of books that talked about evil stuff? Moreover, where was the evil stuff she was speaking of?
I didn’t remember anything remotely evil about those books. I told her all these things and my cousin’s robotic reply was- as the answer of someone of has been brainwashed into believing these things - “My mother says magic is the devil’s work, and you and I shouldn’t be reading it. She asked me to burn the book but I couldn’t destroy something that wasn’t mine so instead I brought it back to you.”
I couldn’t believe my ears. I knew from conversations with my mother that my aunt had joined a fanatic, and controversial religious group but I didn’t know until that moment the depths of the change my once favourite aunt had suffered.
And please, don’t get me wrong, this is not me attacking religious or conservative groups - as I’m Catholic. This is me standing up against narrow-minded, ridiculous, dangerous beliefs in general. I don’t care what religion, race, social group you belong to, if you say anything remotely similar to what my aunt said to my cousin I’m going to think you’re nuts and feel sorry for your kids.
Now that I shared that titbit of personal information I would like to analyze this article for a bit, so please indulge me.
Amy Freeman, a 46-year-old mother of three, stood recently in the young-adult section of her local Barnes & Noble, in Bethesda, Md., feeling thwarted and disheartened.
She had popped into the bookstore to pick up a welcome-home gift for her 13-year-old, who had been away. Hundreds of lurid and dramatic covers stood on the racks before her, and there was, she felt, "nothing, not a thing, that I could imagine giving my daughter. It was all vampires and suicide and self-mutilation, this dark, dark stuff." She left the store empty-handed.
Vampires? Suicide? Self-mutilation? Dark, Dark stuff? Um...okay. Even my deeply devout, conservative mother would laugh at this. So hiding it from our kids doesn’t make it real? I don’t think Vampires or wizards are real, but I also don’t think kids are stupid.
Harry Potter is filled with character deaths, mentions of torture and even more death, bloody battle scenes, etc, etc. Was I disturbed by any of it at age 12, 13, 14, 15, etc. the answer is: no. Did I start collecting pets in the neighbourhood to torture? Nope. In fact, I’m vegetarian, much like my favourite vampire Edward. Was my childhood experience ruined by being exposed to this much violence? Um… nope. The world is full of violence, always has been. Although we were much better at pretending it didn’t exist before the 1960’s.
Which brings me to this paragraph of the WSJ article:
As it happens, 40 years ago, no one had to contend with young-adult literature because there was no such thing. There was simply literature, some of it accessible to young readers and some not. As elsewhere in American life, the 1960s changed everything. In 1967, S.E. Hinton published "The Outsiders," a raw and striking novel that dealt directly with class tensions, family dysfunction and violent, disaffected youth. It launched an industry.
I just had to laugh at that. Well of course Young Adult Fiction as we know it today wouldn’t exist before the 1960’s. Before the 1960’s we were perfectly okay pretending no one died in Nazi Germany concentration camps. We were perfectly fine living in an Orwellian world in which what Big brother said was law. We were more than happy to let women get beaten by their husbands as a way to “discipline” disobedient wives. We lived in a world were appearances were kept, and things were discussed in a hush hush manner because it wasn’t proper to air our “dirty laundry” for the entire world to hear and see.
Was any of the ugliness we have currently in this world nonexistent?
Nope, it wasn’t. It was just swept under the rug.
So this makes me wonder, what was the purpose of this person in writing such article? Is she proposing we start telling writers what to write? Is she suggesting that we return to the way things were in a pre-Vietnam world? Does she intend we start a witch hunt against books that aren’t suitable for our kids to read? Does she want us to condemn Young Adult Fiction writers for their choices in subject matter?
I really can’t speculate much on this person’s purposes as I haven’t heard of her before this day, but what I can say is that I think she has a very simplistic view of the world we live in, as of the genre she was so critical of.
This was me using my freedom of speech since I still have it. Let us hope people like the writer behind this article - and my crazy aunt - aren’t successful in their efforts. Otherwise, I may be seeing the last days of freedom of speech. What a sad, sad world that would be.
The reason behind my need to vent is this article published by the Walt Street Journal: CLICK HERE FOR A FUN READ.
When I read this I honestly didn't know what to make of it. I was torn between wanting to laugh and asking myself if this was written by my religiously fanatic aunt. Why do I bring up my aunt - with whom I don’t speak to since I was nineteen years old - because reading this article I was reminded of the reason why I stopped talking to her to begin with.
I started reading the Harry Potter books since I was a kid. I was learning English in a language institute, and in order to improve my pronunciation and writing, I decided to read a few books in English. After reading “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer Stone” in Spanish I decided I should read the sequel in its original language and that’s how my affair with Young Adult fiction began.
A few years later my aunt’s eldest daughter, who was also my favourite cousin, asked me for my books to read. I was more than happy to lend her said books and share my love for reading with one of my best friends.
Two weeks later she came to my house and gave me my book back. I asked her if she was done with it already and wanted book two. She replied she hadn’t read it in its entirety because my aunt had told her that book was the devil’s work
I was confused to say the least. I’ve read all those books. My mom had bought them for me. Why would my mom - my very overprotective mom - buy me a series of books that talked about evil stuff? Moreover, where was the evil stuff she was speaking of?
I didn’t remember anything remotely evil about those books. I told her all these things and my cousin’s robotic reply was- as the answer of someone of has been brainwashed into believing these things - “My mother says magic is the devil’s work, and you and I shouldn’t be reading it. She asked me to burn the book but I couldn’t destroy something that wasn’t mine so instead I brought it back to you.”
I couldn’t believe my ears. I knew from conversations with my mother that my aunt had joined a fanatic, and controversial religious group but I didn’t know until that moment the depths of the change my once favourite aunt had suffered.
And please, don’t get me wrong, this is not me attacking religious or conservative groups - as I’m Catholic. This is me standing up against narrow-minded, ridiculous, dangerous beliefs in general. I don’t care what religion, race, social group you belong to, if you say anything remotely similar to what my aunt said to my cousin I’m going to think you’re nuts and feel sorry for your kids.
Now that I shared that titbit of personal information I would like to analyze this article for a bit, so please indulge me.
Amy Freeman, a 46-year-old mother of three, stood recently in the young-adult section of her local Barnes & Noble, in Bethesda, Md., feeling thwarted and disheartened.
She had popped into the bookstore to pick up a welcome-home gift for her 13-year-old, who had been away. Hundreds of lurid and dramatic covers stood on the racks before her, and there was, she felt, "nothing, not a thing, that I could imagine giving my daughter. It was all vampires and suicide and self-mutilation, this dark, dark stuff." She left the store empty-handed.
Vampires? Suicide? Self-mutilation? Dark, Dark stuff? Um...okay. Even my deeply devout, conservative mother would laugh at this. So hiding it from our kids doesn’t make it real? I don’t think Vampires or wizards are real, but I also don’t think kids are stupid.
Harry Potter is filled with character deaths, mentions of torture and even more death, bloody battle scenes, etc, etc. Was I disturbed by any of it at age 12, 13, 14, 15, etc. the answer is: no. Did I start collecting pets in the neighbourhood to torture? Nope. In fact, I’m vegetarian, much like my favourite vampire Edward. Was my childhood experience ruined by being exposed to this much violence? Um… nope. The world is full of violence, always has been. Although we were much better at pretending it didn’t exist before the 1960’s.
Which brings me to this paragraph of the WSJ article:
As it happens, 40 years ago, no one had to contend with young-adult literature because there was no such thing. There was simply literature, some of it accessible to young readers and some not. As elsewhere in American life, the 1960s changed everything. In 1967, S.E. Hinton published "The Outsiders," a raw and striking novel that dealt directly with class tensions, family dysfunction and violent, disaffected youth. It launched an industry.
I just had to laugh at that. Well of course Young Adult Fiction as we know it today wouldn’t exist before the 1960’s. Before the 1960’s we were perfectly okay pretending no one died in Nazi Germany concentration camps. We were perfectly fine living in an Orwellian world in which what Big brother said was law. We were more than happy to let women get beaten by their husbands as a way to “discipline” disobedient wives. We lived in a world were appearances were kept, and things were discussed in a hush hush manner because it wasn’t proper to air our “dirty laundry” for the entire world to hear and see.
Was any of the ugliness we have currently in this world nonexistent?
Nope, it wasn’t. It was just swept under the rug.
So this makes me wonder, what was the purpose of this person in writing such article? Is she proposing we start telling writers what to write? Is she suggesting that we return to the way things were in a pre-Vietnam world? Does she intend we start a witch hunt against books that aren’t suitable for our kids to read? Does she want us to condemn Young Adult Fiction writers for their choices in subject matter?
I really can’t speculate much on this person’s purposes as I haven’t heard of her before this day, but what I can say is that I think she has a very simplistic view of the world we live in, as of the genre she was so critical of.
This was me using my freedom of speech since I still have it. Let us hope people like the writer behind this article - and my crazy aunt - aren’t successful in their efforts. Otherwise, I may be seeing the last days of freedom of speech. What a sad, sad world that would be.