Censorship in the Y.A Genre

Ahh censorship. A delicious topic that has enthralled me since my film studies from yesteryore. I remember waxing lyrical about the evil Australian censorship laws which cited violent movies as the cause of violent events, such as the Port Arthur massacre, as the prime reason that censorship laws were (and probably still are) totally insane. (A mildly amusing aside is that I discovered in my research about the Port Arthur Massacre that the police search of the gunman's house revealed a shocking total of ten copies of The Sound of Music but no violent movies. Ban The Sound of Music? hmm)

So all the cool kids today are talking about this article "Darkness too Visible" By Meghan Cox Gurdon that appeared in the Wall Street Journal about how the Young Adult book Genre is far too violent and dark for the youth. The sub-header reads “Contemporary fiction for teens is rife with explicit abuse, violence and depravity. Why is this considered a good idea?”

Well thanks very much for your question Meghan. I'm sure my pals and I can help clarify a few points for you.

Firstly, for those who are unfamiliar with the genre these days, it's a bit arbitrary that she has tarred a whole genre with the same brush. Not every YA novel is as dark as the one she discusses in brief in her article.
However dark YA has its place too. Perhaps these novels can give validation to the experiences of teenagers who might otherwise feel totally freakish. Perhaps it allows teenagers to build up a world picture which is inclusive of some of the darker things in life that they never have and hopefully never will experience. Perhaps it is just fun for teenagers to delve into a different world. I mean I read heaps of serial killer books in my teen years and I've not yet turned into a serial killer. 

If you're a parent open to your Y.A reading teenagers perhaps such a book can open a dialogue for discussion.

This here is the crux of the situation. It's not the books that make people afraid. It's the inability to talk to their teens about uncomfortable issues that make them afraid. Even if their children are brought up in a world violence free, drug free, carefree, they know that their children will at some point or another be in contact with other people who haven't had such fortune. Parents know that they should somehow talk to their teen about this stuff but have no clue how to do this. So where does this leave them? Trying to censor the world for their teen and sugar coating it to death? I guess a dinner table conversation about self-mutilation or drug abuse is out of the question, but gee the weather was nice today.

I really feel this type of literature can open a myriad of doors. It opens the mind to the realities that other people face. This cultivates empathy for other people, a very valuable and not easily earned skilled. Surely this can't be harmful especially for an age group that is notorious for the pre-occupation with the self?

It can open communication between parents and children. And who knows maybe that leads to greater understanding between them, maybe parents learn their kids aren't so naive and silly and learn to trust them. Maybe kids learn that their parents aren't all up-tight money machines good for a hot meal and a roof over the head but are real people who might not be such bad people to know after all.

And even if you disagree entirely and think "No way is my kid EVER going to read a book that has sexual abuse in it" what about other Y.A books just as hard? Isn't the Diary of Anne Frank practically mandatory reading? Isn't that a horrible book if you get down to it?  Does it make it any better just because few to none of us will be exposed to the political climate she was exposed to? That's great we can have empathy for her but how any teens know anyone from such a background of persecution? Some? A few? But how many teens know someone who has been exposed to violence, drugs, sexual abuse? A lot more I'd say.

Got a cold? Stay away from the babies!

I'm about to have my first child which is a very exciting event for anyone. While at a routine Doctor's check up recently my doctor asked "Are you and your husband vaccinated against the whopping cough?"
I was all O.o "I don't know"
My doctor advised that there is an epidemic of whooping cough going about and this is dangerous for newborn babies.

I'm a very well vaccinated person. I've travelled all over the place and I got every jab and drank every potion possible in order not to contract some terrible disease on my journeys. This conscientiousness came from my experience working with a medical assistance company for travellers overseas. So many times had I received a phone call from some guy in the middle of No Where Africa or South America or Asia to hear they had been infected with a entirely preventable disease but didn't take precautions because "Hey that can't happen to me amirightorwhat?"

So upon returning home I looked in my very well filled in travel vaccination book and found that I do indeed have an updated whopping cough booster. My husband doesn't. He will. Most people don't realise that their whooping cough vaccination needs to be updated every ten years. It's true!

For you, me and Joe Blow down the road whooping cough can be a royal pain in the butt however it isn't deadly for us. For infants it is deadly. Here in Belgium the first vaccination against whopping cough occurs at the age of 2 months. Before that the child is at risk of contracting the disease from anyone in the open community who is ill from it. You might not have a clue that you are ill from whooping cough and are unwittingly infecting others.  In fact the following scene is entirely plausible;

Enter sniffing, red nose relative clutching a balled up kleenex in one hand, stinking of vicks vapor rub

"Congratulations on your new born baby. Oh me? Just a cold. Let me hold little Gary."
*cough splutter into baby's face*
"Oh how cute he scrunched up his face hhihihihi"


Whether or not you are for or against vaccination please keep away from newborns if you're at all sick. I really don't care if you think you're been rude by staying away and I really, really don't care if you just can't help yourself because you're irresistibly drawn to tiny people. I really really really care if my child gets sick and I think all parents, for or against vaccination, would agree with me on that point.

Protesting against everything

I was watching the nightly depresso-fest on the TV a few days ago (AKA the news) and there was a small piece about some protesters who stormed their way into a field of genetically modified potatoes (I believe some sort of research centre was doing some experiments with them, perhaps growing a mutant army from the eyes of the potatoes) and proceeded to stamp the plants into the ground in the name of the environment and human kind.

Now, I'm all for the environment and human kind and so forth, but sometimes I think such behaviour is odd. From what I can work out these plant-stomping parties are going on because no one knows the long-term effects GM foods has on humans. Nor does anyone know the effects GM foods may have on the environment. But is not knowing the effects enough to stamp experimental plants into the ground? If we stomped on every scientific experiment and discovery that was ever dreamed up we wouldn't be getting very far.I'm not saying I'm crazy about having GM foods in my diet when the side-effects are unknown, perhaps tighter government controls are necessary until their safety can be proven, but stopping such research strikes me as being premature.

If we're going to go about protesting technology why not protest something like mobile phones which have been proven to destroy bee populations (thus leading to their untimely demise after millions of years of existence but also doing great damage to the environment) and which the World Health Organisation has just recently declared as being "possibly carcinogenic to humans" I'd like to see these protesters running along the streets, ripping mobile phones out of peoples hands and throwing them to the ground screaming "NO MORE POSSIBLE BRAIN CANCER" and "SAVE THE BEES" while stomping some 15 year olds iphone into a billion nano bits. But that would probably inconvenience them. I mean if they are all about protesting stuff they need their mobile phones in order to assemble in the correct locations. Can you imagine trying to organise a plant-stomping protest in the middle of farmer-ville and everyone ends up in the wrong field and some poor farmer with NON GM crops is getting his rose bushes stamped while the evil GM potato farmer on the other side is enjoying a nice cup of tea and laughing his butt off. I don't think so!


So save the mobile phones, and stomp the potatoes!