I know that some of the stories I am writing are not for the faint of heart,
but what I want to know is why is there censorship on T.V.,
and why do movies and television have a ratings system while most books do not?
I know that there are many books for children, and teens like J.K. Rowlands' Harry Potter series. But when I was under eighteen I could buy a Stephen King novel and not get the third degree from the sales clerk.
What do you think?
Add your comments below.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
censorship and rating systems
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1 comment:
Please excuse the length of my answer.
There is a censorship for books, but not in the way you think. I'm pretty sure you've heard of banned books and people trying to force books off shelves because of their content. A recent example of this is of course The Golden Compass being removed from the shelves of a Christian private schools as the author recently admitted to atheism and the supposed "atheist" theme of the books. There are other famous banned books because of their cultural or political message, such as The Catcher in the Rye and The Anarchist Cookbook. Other banned books are listed on Wiki.
Books sometimes has to go through an agent, a editor and a publisher, each of which can tell the author to change the content if they find it disagreeable. Then the book to become published needs an International Standard Book Number (ISBN which appears on the back of most books) which recognizes the book as a medium. Any of these processes can demand you change 'undesirable' aspects of your book in order to have it published. Unless you self publish and you’re allowed to write what you wish.
But you are probably talking about censorship as in rating, such as G for family and R for adult. For example a book like Salem’s Lot by Stephen King would have an adult rating and the book The Cat in the Hat should have a children rating. The truth is there are a thousand times more books being published in a month then there are movies being produced. Books of every sort, cooking, fantasy, self help, text books, instruction manuals, political standpoints, biographies, humour, graphic novels, audio books and so on. There are more books out there then can ever be read in a life time. All we can hope for is that the people who read and review the certain book makes sure it is advertised to the appropriate audience. Second, as much as books are a great source of entertainment and information, they are slowly losing strength as a mass media, making way for the internet and movies, which gets more coverage due to aggressive advertising. The most some books can hope for is word of mouth and the random internet review. So a book going from word of mouth usually is heard by someone of the appropriate age group. Harry Potter is passed in school grounds quickly and as the children grew up, they continued to enjoy it and the parents dived in as well. Books such as Sideways Stories from Wayside School only remain popular among kids, then become big when they are seized by production companies and made into bad TV shows.
So should their be a rating system for books? Don’t know for certain. A review board for books must be huge to cover every single book out there, so it might be an impossible task. So what I say is this. Encourage children to read books appropriate to their reading and maturity level. And if they sneak Stephen King home to read and enjoy it, so much the better. If they cry and are scared, comfort them. But sit down and talk to them about what they have read. And always encourage everyone to read. It’s impossible to read everything. But at least read something.
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