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(Some Guy)   Students may be forbidden to perform play based on "To Kill a Mockingbird." The best way to combat racism: Pretend it never happened   (charleston.net) divider line
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    More: Dumbass  
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690 clicks; posted to Politics » on 10 Feb 2007 at 3:22 AM (16 years ago)   |   Favorite    |   share:  Share on Twitter share via Email Share on Facebook



35 Comments     (+0 »)
 
geekyspice
2007-02-10 2:45:42 AM  
Goddammit. To Kill a Mockingbird is a classic that students should be reading or watching. To keep it off the stage because it's potentially racist would be like editing Schindler's List to only show workers in a factory.

It happened, it still happens, ignoring, censoring, editing, or hiding does NOT protect our youth.

It's one of my favorite books and my very favorite Gregory Peck movie. It's also showing a white man's search for truth while ignoring color, in a very difficult time and place.

Suck it libs.
 
RobertBruce
2007-02-10 2:55:21 AM  
Jackasses! its supposed to be offensive. The show must go on!
 
AlabamaGirl
2007-02-10 2:58:09 AM  
I just re-read this.....I remember why it's so good now.
 
Snowflake Tubbybottom
2007-02-10 3:03:11 AM  
[image from cinedestin.privatedns.com too old to be available]

Atticus! Atticus! Atticus!
 
DaCricket [TotalFark]
2007-02-10 3:04:36 AM  
Oh sweet jesus.
 
z_gringo
2007-02-10 3:22:27 AM  
Yay Freedom!
 
Poolio
2007-02-10 3:25:01 AM  
FAME!
 
HellbentForLeather
2007-02-10 3:33:21 AM  
Thanks, liberals!
 
Fart_Machine
2007-02-10 4:04:12 AM  
Where's Wando?
 
jgrynspan
2007-02-10 4:06:45 AM  
HellbentForLeather
Thanks, liberals!

Wait, what?
 
robsul82
2007-02-10 4:28:14 AM  
Considering Atticus Finch is probably the paragon of liberal virtue in modern cinema and Fictional Liberal Hero #1, I'm gonna say that was woefully misguided.
 
The_Flatline
2007-02-10 4:46:05 AM  
robsul82: Considering Atticus Finch is probably the paragon of liberal virtue in modern cinema and Fictional Liberal Hero #1, I'm gonna say that was woefully misguided.

Not to mention AFI's #1 hero in the history of cinema...
 
The_Flatline
2007-02-10 4:50:21 AM  
From TFA:

They organized and got nearly 600 of their classmates' signatures on petitions that asked the school's administration to allow the drama department to perform "To Kill a Mockingbird" with minor content adjustments.

Beckham said the petitions didn't factor into her final decision and that many students didn't even know what they were signing.

So much for all that democracy that they teach the kids you know? You try to work with the system, and you're dismissed out of hand.

I say second step is to form a lynch mob and go after the admin puke in question.
 
supergreg
2007-02-10 4:59:38 AM  
Blaming liberals for this is some amazing revisionism. But more importantly, this is film's greatest hero, liberal or otherwise:
[image from home.twcny.rr.com too old to be available]

"Those honky kids are going to about southern racism Atticus' way, or Shaft's way!!!" Ya damn right.
 
supergreg
2007-02-10 5:04:49 AM  
Argh! "...learn about southern racism..."
 
geekyspice
2007-02-10 5:11:31 AM  
[image from i2.photobucket.com too old to be available]
 
Hal B. Sure
2007-02-10 5:17:41 AM  
Beckham said the petitions didn't factor into her final decision and that many students didn't even know what they were signing.

Most thought they were signing a petition to get Big Fun to play at their prom.
 
ruhemaus
2007-02-10 5:38:25 AM  
This is almost as bad as some schools editing the anti-censorship message ot of Farenheight 451...
 
mrmagnet
2007-02-10 6:11:05 AM  
RTMFA:

- the students selected the play, because they were exposed to the book by the school district!

- the students petitioned for censorship so that they might present the play over objections about its language!

Therefore

- The students are race-baiting by taking the disagreement out of context.

- The students are not expressing an interest in fighting censorship or they'd stage the damn thing without the approval of the school district.
 
Phil Moskowitz
2007-02-10 6:21:59 AM  
ruhemaus

This is almost as bad as some schools editing the anti-censorship message ot of Farenheight 451...

Not only is that horribly ironic, but it's about as needless and evil as it gets.

Are you just joking or did this happen?
 
Sluggard Stone
2007-02-10 7:08:10 AM  
[image from cghs.dadeschools.net too old to be available]



isn't still Black History Month?
 
quadropheniac
2007-02-10 7:52:09 AM  
While I disagree with the decision to ban the play, since that's pathetically stupid, I always found the book condescending to black people. But I just like to rag on otherwise beautifully written literature, so that's just me.
 
Unright
2007-02-10 9:14:14 AM  
HellbentForLeather: Thanks, liberals!

For teaching it to start with? You're welcome!

Phil Moskowitz: Are you just joking or did this happen?

No, it's true. Some school were censoring Farenheit 451. Students eventually wrote to Ray Bradbury and let him know so that he could help stop it.
 
chuggernaught
2007-02-10 9:29:11 AM  
Pretending it never happened is working out for the Germans, as far as the Holocaust goes.

/Brian: This tour book is blank from 1939-1945.
Bavarian Tour Guide: Nothing happened! We were all on vacation!
 
AdamK
2007-02-10 9:30:37 AM  
wow we're evil people
 
Jedi_Templar
2007-02-10 10:44:58 AM  
ruhemaus: This is almost as bad as some schools editing the anti-censorship message ot of Farenheight 451...

What the fark would be the point of having the students read Fahrenheit 451 without the censorship message?
 
helchose
2007-02-10 10:45:12 AM  
Forget our past transgressions, thereby failing to learn from them: The American Way!!
 
jake3988 [OhFark]
2007-02-10 11:26:36 AM  
The Weenerser is RIGHT ON. Except for the 'suck it libs' part... I don't get that one.

I just think we're trying to start a weird new cliche. Don't. Me and my progressives fight for freedom to show these kinds of things.
 
andychrist420
2007-02-10 11:29:42 AM  
" I swore to never read again after 'To Kill a Mockingbird' gave me no useful information about killing mockingbirds. It did teach me not to judge a man by the color of his skin, but what good does that do ME?"

/Homer makes it all better
//Too early for an exact quote, but you know the one.
///Where Marge wrote the book... and Homer didn't read it...
 
bajonista
2007-02-10 1:07:17 PM  
Yeah, "that word" is used by the main character, but Scout is corrected by her father. She's taught to read by a black woman, when most black people in their Alabama community were barely literate. The "white trash" characters are described as such by Atticus because they are cruel to black people. If anything TKaM demonstrates that racism and bigotry have to be taught.

This is just as asinine as banning Huckleberry Finn. The people that are offended are ignorant, illiterate nitwits. Most of the people that are so upset haven't even read the books in question. To Kill A Mockingbird and Huckleberry Finn are both extremely progressive and important novels. If my child were attending school and not reading these books I would protest.
 
Smeggy Smurf
2007-02-10 1:31:13 PM  
Why the hell would they ban it for racism when it's about not caring for what color you are?

Oh yeah, new definition of racism is not being sensitive enough to see race. farking libs have everythign farking backwards even more than usual
 
Hal B. Sure
2007-02-10 1:45:33 PM  
Our school did a performance of Roots, but to make it more palatable we took out all of that stuff about slavery.
 
Neeek
2007-02-10 2:10:09 PM  
Unright

No, it's true. Some school were censoring Farenheit 451. Students eventually wrote to Ray Bradbury and let him know so that he could help stop it.

IIRC, he ended up writing an afterword about it for the later editions of the book.
 
Sensei Can You See [TotalFark]
2007-02-10 2:23:53 PM  
Hal B. Sure:

Our school did a performance of Roots, but to make it more palatable we took out all of that stuff about slavery.

Heh. I saw "Blazing Saddles" on TV not long ago. Network execs decided to cut out all instances of the "N" word or insert other words.

Even if they hadn't had to cut out the scene with the sherrif and Lili von Schtupp on the couch, Lili's performance at the saloon, the beans-at-the-campfire scene and the whole KKK scene, all the dialogue censorship by it self would have rendered the movie incoherent.

And it's hardly gratuitous--it's a movie about racism, after all.
 
SuburbanCowboy
2007-02-10 4:49:04 PM  
If you bring up race, even in the context of trying to fight racism, you somehow manage to run the risk of being perceived as racist. People are so afraid of offending anyone, that they can't even see the context anymore.
 
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