Censorship-For our own good?

[Grinnel]

A Canadian author just released a revamped version of the poem 'Twas theNight Before Christmas. This version is much healthier. Santa is not smoking a pipe and not blowing wreathes of smoke around his head.

This version is currently on sale beside the old one.

Apparently some children cry when they hear Santa is smoking, knowing that this means he will die soon. Also, advocates of the change think that old version sets a bad example, and should be changed. Perhaps they have not gone far enough. After all, Santa is fat in the poem. He should be skinny and fit, setting a healthy example.

What else should be dumped for our own good?

Sugarplums are unhealthy sugary snacks. These will lead to obesity and diabetes. Let us change them to visions of granola bars, or better, tofu snacks.

We see the moon reflecting on the breast of the new fallen snow. A simple change here to the word crest will drop the pornographic references out of this stanza without significantly altering the poem.

I believe that forcing eight tiny reindeer to pull a heavy sled up a wall to a roof is animal cruelty. A machine something like a snowmobile that runs on electricity is far more appropriate here.

'A little old driver'? I think not. A vertically challenged senior citizen is more politically correct.

Saint Nicholas. Perhaps we should use a name that would not offed non-catholics. Santa Clause would have the same effect, so we will change the name to Chris Kringle.

St Nicholas clearly breaks into the house. In these days of violent home invasions, Chris will lead the charge of propriety by ringing the bell and being invited in.

He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot.

These lines will be dropped from the new version. They are completely unsalvageable. We certainly cannot allow Chris to wear fur. Not only that, but he is extremely rude,walking into someone’s house filthy dirty.

Mr. Kringle, as children should respectfully call him, winks at a man in the poem, and the man admires Mr. Kringle’s dimples. Are we subjecting our children to gay references here? We should dump this; we don't need another Telletubby-type fiasco.

Leaving the house, Mr Kringle employs magic. Demon magic is highly offensive to the Moral Majority. All of the pages with this verse on them will be burned.

The politically incorrect ‘Happy Christmas to all’ will now be ‘Season’s greetings to all.’

The final change to this offensive poem will be the title. The new work, ‘Twas Several days Before New Years will be on sale this holiday season.

Now that we have that issue straightened out, it’s time to move on to Disney…

 

[CyBeR]

But...but...but...I like to eat steaks.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

Father Christmas used to be skinny - it was Coca Cola in the 1930s that made him fat. He just needs to cut out the pop.

 

[thaddeus6th]

Revisionism is something I really dislike. It reminds me of a suggestion a few years ago that 101 Dalmatians should be an 18 film because Cruella De Vil[sp] smokes in it.

 

[CyBeR]

I have nothing against censorship as a whole. Censor your own material if you wish, it's your inalienable right.
However, I find it despicable for people to censor works of any sort of art because they consider it unwholesome for their youth. What right have they to destroy something that was created by another under the guise of "it's for the children"? Would anyone DARE touch the Mona Lisa because she was a chubby woman and being fat now is considered unhealthy? Every time I hear about someone censoring something, I can only imagine a hack taking a brush to that famous painting in order to make Lisa more fit for this current age.
Disgraceful.

 

[prizzley]

I have nothing against censorship as a whole. Censor your own material if you wish, it's your inalienable right.
However, I find it despicable for people to censor works of any sort of art because they consider it unwholesome for their youth. What right have they to destroy something that was created by another under the guise of "it's for the children"? Would anyone DARE touch the Mona Lisa because she was a chubby woman and being fat now is considered unhealthy? Every time I hear about someone censoring something, I can only imagine a hack taking a brush to that famous painting in order to make Lisa more fit for this current age.
Disgraceful.

My sentiments exactly!

 

[Brian G Turner]

A Canadian author just released a revamped version of the poem 'Twas theNight Before Christmas. This version is much healthier. Santa is not smoking a pipe and not blowing wreathes of smoke around his head.

Doesn't sound like a problem. It's not censorship, which is preventing a person from making statements, but simply revisionism to keep something more culturally acceptable. It's actually quite common.

Smoking is no longer socially acceptable, and children are taught that it kills. So revising that aspect hardly destroys the story.

Heck, I'm a smoker and my young kids are always asking me when I'll quit. I think they would ask very awkward questions if they found out there was a story claiming Santa was a smoker as well.

 

[Ursa major]

Santa Claus must be either a supernatural being or possessed of technology far in advance of our own. (How else is the near simultaneous delivery of presents achieved?) So he (if Santa is a he) is no doubt able to call on spells, or highly advanced medical procedures and prophylactics, to counter the ill effects of smoking and appearing** to be overweight.






** - As Santa isn't human, who knows what his natural body shape should be?

 

[CyBeR]

Doesn't sound like a problem. It's not censorship, which is preventing a person from making statements, but simply revisionism to keep something more culturally acceptable. It's actually quite common.

I respectfully disagree.
Even if you edit a work to fit current standards, you are still effectively censoring that work. I honestly don't see how it's any different.
Plus, I believe that, in small steps, this helps in creating an overly sensitive society in which people need to be protected from absolutely everything that does not coincide with their own, subjective idea of "good taste". We begin by editing "this little bit here", and then we go with "that little bit there", and perhaps "that other little bit" is not quite right, and so on, until we may indeed have a work bereft of its original form. Like Shakespear in rap form and with today's lingo, because that's what's more culturally fitting.

 

[Jake Reynolds]

Once again, people blame everyone but themselves for what happens to a society's children. Instead of cutting smoking out of something like this, why don't we just make it illegal? Now, before you all get up in arms, I'm a smoker myself, and I realise that any government's interest lie not in the protection of its citizens, but in the protection of it corporations. Smoking will never be made illegal due to taxation, unionists and lobbyists, and so they 'tackle' the issue this way. Pointless.

Just make the hard decision and ride it out. If you're the first country to make smoking illegal, then you'll get your kudos in other ways.

 

[Brian G Turner]

I respectfully disagree.
Even if you edit a work to fit current standards, you are still effectively censoring that work. I honestly don't see how it's any different.
Plus, I believe that, in small steps, this helps in creating an overly sensitive society in which people need to be protected from absolutely everything that does not coincide with their own, subjective idea of "good taste". We begin by editing "this little bit here", and then we go with "that little bit there", and perhaps "that other little bit" is not quite right, and so on, until we may indeed have a work bereft of its original form. Like Shakespear in rap form and with today's lingo, because that's what's more culturally fitting.

I really don't see the problem with someone editing (that's what it is, not censoring) the Night Before Christmas to remove a smoking reference - especially when the original is reportedly still on sale beside it.

Consumers still have a choice, and make it accordingly. Nothing appears to have been inflicted upon anyone.

However, on the subject of "censorship", apparently I can no longer buy Agatha Christie's "10 Little Niggers". Instead it was renamed decades ago as "Then there were none". Perhaps we should complain about that, too?

 

[Dante DiBenedetto]

I remember writing a mil-fic horror short story that followed a band of mercenaries. I was submitting it around, and when I read the guidelines for one of the places, I had to go in and censor a decent chunk of it.

It just didn't have the same feel to it anymore. It felt neutered from it's original form.

I know some writers/editors like to say, 'If your story can't stand on its legs with censorship, maybe you need some more practice,' but that is such a trite copout. Take the shock value and grit out of a story, and you're missing out on the extra flavor.

 

[thaddeus6th]

Actually, a sudden thought strikes me:

There's a thread Brian started somewhere or other about sexuality in fiction, and he mentioned paederasty (which is when an adult chap has an, er, intimate relationship with an adolescent boy) which was very common in ancient Hellenistic culture (in fact, even Hadrian in the 2nd century AD partook of it). But putting that in fiction might just be too difficult now.

If it's entirely critical then you're slamming an ancient and (then) acceptable practice with modern morality (even though things like genocide and torture could be included) but if you don't then you're effectively condoning either rape or statutory rape (the latter being illegal due to the age of consent not being met).

So, I think one or two things are almost or actually impossible to include, but they're very few.

 

[prizzley]

I really don't see the problem with someone editing (that's what it is, not censoring) the Night Before Christmas to remove a smoking reference - especially when the original is reportedly still on sale beside it.

Every period has its moral and ethical values, which are often different from earlier periods. We like to think we have the moral high ground whereas what we have is a different view of the same issues. And future generations will probably disagree with us.

I don't believe it's either ethical or moral to impose current values on earlier generations. Revisionists should be embarrassed by their arrogant assumption that they are right.

 

[CyBeR]

However, on the subject of "censorship", apparently I can no longer buy Agatha Christie's "10 Little Niggers". Instead it was renamed decades ago as "Then there were none". Perhaps we should complain about that, too?

Pretty much off-topic, but thank you for clearing up that one for me. The book is still sold here as "10 little niggers" ("10 Negri mititei" in Romanian), and I always wondered why there was such great difference between the original name (which I assumed was "And then there were none") and the translation.

 

[thaddeus6th]

I think banning a book is a different kettle of fish to revising/tampering with it.

To use the very good art analogy, banning is like hiding a painting from public view and revisionism is like this:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/119195-Helpful-Old-Lady-Ruins-200-Year-Old-Portrait

Incidentally, I've read the ruiner-woman now wants a slice of the donations made by tourists who have gone to see the painting of the baboonified Jesus.

 

[Ursa major]

And Then There Were None has also been called Ten Little Indians, which was the book's name** when I read it a few decades back.






** - According to Wiki, this was the original title of the US version of the book; I've no idea why I was reading the US version, but it wasn't a unique experience: I read Robert Graves's The Golden Fleece under its US title, Hercules, My Shipmate.)

 

[Fishbowl Helmet]

Reductio ad absurdum. Well done.

 

[Dante DiBenedetto]

However, on the subject of "censorship", apparently I can no longer buy Agatha Christie's "10 Little Niggers". Instead it was renamed decades ago as "Then there were none". Perhaps we should complain about that, too?

Sure. Let's do that.

Eventually the word 'Nigger' will become archaic and not nearly as effective nor offensive as whatever modern pejoratives will become commonplace.

Censoring that which has become embarrassing or unacceptable is no excuse. Whatever the original message, intent, or language used by the author should not be whiddled away by apologists. If someone doesn't want "10 Little Niggers" in their book store, they don't have to carry it.

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a constant source of controversy for censorship in the States. Seriously, I've had enough. Ultimately, a book is a form of entertainment. If you don't like what's inside, do not partake. I don't need people to hold my hand when I'm reading Mark Twain, Agatha Christie, Robert E. Howard, or H.P. Lovecraft.

 

[Ursa major]

Changing the name of Agatha Christie's novel has absolutely no effect on the contents of the book - the plot and the characters - so it's hardly something one should use to justify manning the barricades.

After all, Christie didn't refuse to allow the book to be sold in the states with that different title, Ten Little Indians, one which would have resonated more with the US public (because the word, Indians, was in the US version of the ditty from which the title comes).