I sent this article to Boing Boing but I never got the chance to write on my own blog my thoughts about it or why it got my attention.
The article is about how a children's book publisher in the U.S., Boyds Mills Press, declined to publish a book by Rotraut Susanne Berner after the German author/illustrator refused to make some changes. What the publisher found objectionable from the book's illustrations were people depicted as smoking, as well as a painting of a naked woman and a small statue of a naked man standing on a pedestal, both objects displayed in an art gallery where the book is partly set. (The book is a part of series that depicts the everyday life of children and adults.)
Another Boing Boing reader submitted a blog post from an editor of a children's book magazine reacting to the incident:
But if I were running Boyds Mills Press, I would have made the exact same call, although I might have spared myself the embarrassment of expressing interest in the first place. Selling picture books is difficult, selling foreign-born picture books is almost impossible, add some boobs and a little dick to the mix and you might as well just climb up to the roof and throw your money over the side. It's not censorship, as there is no private obligation to publish. It's stupid parents. Again. [Emphasis mine.]
And that was exactly why the article caught my attention, more than the call for censorship. I'm sorry but there really are a lot of, uhm, paranoid parents out there.
If my sentiments are not obvious enough, I should state that I think the images, by themselves (since I haven't seen the entire book and they apparently seem to be the only source of controversy), are not malicious or offensive. Come on, they're illustrations. The statue's penis is hardly discernible (I'm serious about the wee willy in this entry's title--check out the image on the left, taken from Spiegel Online, or from one of the links above) and the naked woman is a cartoon rendition of a painting. Of course, not everyone shares my opinion, and the American publisher, Boyds Mills Press, anticipated that not everyone would be as open minded in America. I mean, an award-winning young adult book was recently banned from libraries because it used the word 'scrotum,' and it referred to an actual scrotum (of a dog, not even a human). Boyds Mills was probably just trying to avoid a marketing problem or a backlash because in reality, book publishing is still a business.
Okay, so what about the parents? It is understandable for parents to be protective of their children. But there is such a thing as being overprotective. Some parents think that they should shield their children from each and every little thing that is scary or offensive. They raise their children with blinders on and with a very limited and exclusive social circle, afraid that their young ones will be poisoned by anything they find objectionable. But it can't be done. It's not realistic. The best thing a parent can do is to teach the child how to confront the realities of the everyday world, both the good and the bad, and be ready to answer questions and explain things. Because if it's not going to come from you, then children can easily find other places to look for answers, and those answers can be correct or incorrect, accurate or inaccurate. It's the parent's responsibility to enable the child to tell them apart. I think children themselves are the best gauge of whether something is appropriate or inappropriate. They know what kind of information and issues they are ready to absorb and confront. Children are very quick learners and can easily adapt... if we allow them to.
When I was probably six or seven years old, my parents unwittingly took my sister and I to our first R-rated film. They apparently had no idea what the film was about. Well, it was at the Film Center so it was most likely considered an "art film." (Very few of my friends know who Pia Zadora is but I do. It was because she starred in the film in question, Butterfly.) Okay, so I don't remember the film anymore or any of the nude scenes. My parents made no big deal about it, I made no big deal about it. It didn't warp my childhood. (People, bite your tongues.) It's that kind of attitude that I think helped me develop and healthy outlook towards sex and sexuality.
Then, imagine if we didn't enter the Met or Moma in New York when I was ten years old, or the museums in Paris, London, or Amsterdam when I was twenty. My parents took my sister and I to different museums all over the world when we were growing up and that is why I can spend hours and hours in a museum and have a great passion for art. If we are going to follow the standards of over-reacting parents, then those places house a lot pornographic materials that you can actually observe up close and even touch. The horror! But we know that artwork is not pornography, so why would an illustration of the contents of a museum or gallery be any different?
I have to admit that there are a lot of stuff being pumped out by the media that are just offensive, narrow-minded, or simply incorrect. Parents can help filter that information for children. But at the same time, during the time when they can't, they must be ready to bravely give explanations and answer questions. Unfortunately,a lot of parents are more scared than courageous, more irrational than they are logical.
Okay, so I'm not a parent and maybe I don't know what I'm talking about. But we all know what it was like to be a child. We all know what it was like to discover the world, to discover new things. We all know what it's like to deal with parents and other authority figures. Maybe one day I'll I become a parent myself. And if I start acting like a crazy, paranoid dad, you have my permission to give me good slap on the face to bring me back to my senses.
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