trinityvixen | The Censorship Rag

Again, I blame The New York Times for inspiring this latest sigh at the state of this country.

The Rating Says PG, but Is That Guidance Enough?

It may surprise anyone reading this, but I'm not going to get into the whole thing about hey, assholes with kids, you are the ones who are supposed to be watching this stuff. It's a parent's job, not the rest of the world's to monitor what their kids do. There was a slew of ads to this effect dealing with marijuana use, and how parents needed to be the ones getting the message across as to what behavior was acceptable or not.

No, my gripe will not be about parental negligance, which is probaly 90% of the cause for the prudish conservative push to have everything fined or rated to oblivion. My real concern with censorship is, as it always has been, about the strangling of communication. I liked that, despite the author's questioning of who is responsible, the parents interviewed took the responsibility upon themselves. One parent noted that she took an eight year old to see "Closer," which is a very adult film, dealing explicitly with sex. She said she didn't have a problem with her child exploring sex or asking questions about it. That is the right attitude. She also mentioned that, usually, the exposure was limited to 'good' films that had stories to support the nudity and sex-talk, proving that she's not just a licentious liberal brainwasher, but a discerning adult who knows she cannot stop the tides, but she can teach her child to swim safely on them.

Contrast this with the parent who not only stopped letting her kids watch "The Simpsons" because of its 'inappropriate' humor, but also limits the children's exposure to the news. This is the problem, right here. Efforts to stop violence and sex, the most 'corrosive' aspects of popular culture, are often exposed as hypocritical when parents allow the news to go on, which often is worse (mostly, because it's real). So, you get people like this, who go the whole hog and try to keep out the world. Not only is this sheltering somewhat suffocating for a child, it's unrealistic. So the kid doesn't watch the news--are you going to stop him from reading? Stop him from listening? Asking questions is how we learn, how we develop critical minds, critical eyes. If all you see is what you want to see, you are living dangerously.

This woman, this parent, and not the one who lets the kids see/play/read whatever, is the poster-child for the opposite argument regarding censorship, or 'monitoring' as the conservatives say to avoid calling a spade a spade, the anti-censorship argument. Just as the right-wing can howl about Janet Jackson's tittie or some tramp dropping her towel for some guy on the Eagles, we can point the finger right back. Is this what we want? An environment where we don't watch the news because it might upset us? Then only certain people will watch the news, will control the news, and those are precisely the people you don't want controlling it. The person who wants to lead is often the least suited to it, the one drug in against his will and due to his ability is often best. Do we turn over the 'truth' to the person who will use it or who will express it?

Censorship is about denying communication, using silence to promote silence. Monitoring should not be. It's a wonderful sacrifice that the MPAA and the video game industry makes, letting us know what to expect from a film based on its rating. Most sensible people realize that ratings will always be relative. A great example would be Sixteen Candles, which was PG once upon a time, but has been on some rerelease, bumped to an R. It's all relative. If you find nudity inappropriate in any circumstance, you might have trouble even with G, kid-friendly Disney (them heroines gets pretty skimpy at times). By assuming that a G is a G, or that an R is an R, or even that such ratings would ever be possible, people are not talking to their kids, not asking or reading up on the media in question to find out what "rated M for Mature" means.

Dialogue is key. If you talk to your kid and express your wish that they not watch certain movies or play certain games, explain why, and not just demand they do as you say, you would be a lot less hypocritical, and, shocker, the kid might actually listen. If you want to boil it down, guilt trip them into thinking you'd be disappointed if they disobeyed. Come up with a punishment for violations--they go to the theater and see an R-rated movie? Call the theater, cut an allowance, take initiative. But, for God's sake, talk to the kid. Ask why he/she needed to see it so badly it couldn't wait. If they go out and see something you didn't have a problem with, make sure they don't have a problem with it. If you see something together and don't like that they saw it with you, just explain what you thought was bad or crass or awful, and why it was a bad thing. Don't generalize, make it a two-way conversation, and don't leave real life out of it. Contrary to the mother keeping the news from her kids, I would recommend kids do read the news, watch it on TV, get an idea of what obsesses the general public beyond movie stars and cartoons. Explain to them that bad news sells, but that the behavior on or off the screen that gets attention isn't necessarily good.

Sheltering the kid isn't the answer. Talking with them is. If you want them to truly be protected against the barrage of images and messages thrown at them, make them personally impervious to the trash by giving them the ability to reason and think for themselves. That's the take-home message, < /rant >.

In other news, it's hotter than a bastard in the lab today. I've gone and stood in the cold room for a few minutes here and there when I really can't stand it any longer. Also, much to my chagrin, I've learned that Taye Diggs is married. Sigh. Such a gorgeous man. I guess I can't be too mean about his wife, though. He's married to the lady from Wicked, Idina Menzel (I'm murdering the spelling, I'm sure), who has just cracked a rib doing one of her final (well, the final, I guess) performances as Elpheba (god, the spelling!). Additionally, the article in the Times mentioning that brought up the fact that she has bodyguards after receiving racially-motivated threatening letters--she is white, her husband is not, though whose crime that is, I'm sure I don't know. Is this 2005 or 1965? Are people still so backwards they can look at a couple of beautiful people and see them only for their color? Wake up, idiots. If we want to be biased, we should start making a law such that the beautiful people can't inter-marry. They should be obligated to marry completely fugly people to spread the genetic love around, or something.