Censorship in America

Censorship’s definition is “the suppression of published or broadcast material the suppression of all or part of a publication, play, or film considered offensive or a threat to society” (Encarta Dictionary 295). It is hard to believe that it can be found in this day and age where it seems that everyone and anyone says what they think, when they think it. It is even more difficult to believe that in the United States of America, a country that was formed based on freedom, it is used. It is the job as citizens of the United States of America to understand the reasons behind censorship and how people lose control over it, as well as the ways it is used in everyday life.

In the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America the founders of the country state, “… no law … abridging the freedom of speech…”. It also states on the topics of religion, the freedom of press, and of the right to assemble and petition. Strange is it not, the country has changed its thoughts on this amendment, government officials now try to stop certain things from being said or seen. There is now ratings for not only the movies that are watched, but the television series, music, and the video games people may play. The Federal Communications Commission - FCC, Classification and Rating Administration - CARA, Entertainment Software Rating Board - ESRB, and more are trying to limit what the young people of our great country see.

With recent “technical difficulties” and “wardrobe malfunctions” we see a changing of the guard. The Government is tightening up control of the countries leashes. Five second delays on live television broadcasts, and live radio feed delays mark a new era of censorship (Eggerton 1). In some way it seems strange, it would not have been seen this in the sixties or seventies.

In 2003 a video game was set for release, it was called BMX XXX, released by Acclaim, the company behind Turok and other games. The selling point for the game was that it had nudity in it. No plot, the player just rides a bike like in the best selling Dave Mirra BMX game, but with nudity. Sony Executives decided that the game needed to be censored. The nudity had no impact on game play and the headaches were more than the company wanted to deal with; let the other systems take the terrible game in full. Many people wrote in to a column in the Official U.S. Playstation Magazine to comment on this. It was the May 2003 issue and the column in question was “The Watchdog” by John Scalzi.

Fans of the magazine wrote in with their thoughts, and John typed them up in a nice, neat, and credited package. Carlos sent in his concerns via e-mail, and his were the only ones printed; he said he saw both sides of the argument, that he thought it was a marketing ploy, and that the themes of the game served no purpose. He said that the nudity should be part of the plot not just a selling point.

He also says that when people think of games like the popular Grand Theft Auto series that the violence and nudity are crucial to the plot, there are even morals in the game… although they may not be good morals. “No sane adult thinks kids should play a game like that, but for adults, it offers something beyond the cheap thrill of prurience,” (Watchdog) Scalzi writes in the column on the GTA games. At least some things need to be censored, others just need intelligent people to buy them.

The ESRB had fun with BMX XXX, three different platforms, two different ratings. Since Sony didn’t want a teenage sex comedy on their platform, the nudity was partially cut out, but still it contained adult themes, ESRB rating: Mature. The X-Box and GameCube versions also are rated Mature, but they didn’t cut the nudity out. The game also received a Mature rating due to these other contributions: Comic Mischief, Strong Language, and Strong Sexual Content (ESRB). Not one for the kids to play at all.

In 1990 William Noble published a book on book banning, one of the characteristic forms of censorship. In it Noble discusses the best thing censors can do for a book - ban it. A classic example is Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, when it was originally published the book didn’t sell very well. After the news spread that the book was banned it sold 50,000 copies, 30,000 more than Mark Twain himself predicted. Noble writes that “Book banners understand word-power and it gives them a springboard for censorship” (148). When just banning the book doesn’t do the job, the book banner resorts to his ultimate weapon: fire. If a person can’t make people stop reading, burn all copies he can get his paws on. It sounds stupid, right?

Many of the books that are classified as Required Reading have been challenged and banned in some places. JD Saligner’s Catcher in the Rye, The Diary of Anne Frank, Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, and Of Mice and Men for example are on reading lists in many high schools across the country. Also, great classical works like Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare, and Plato’s works were banned (Noble 203-120). Just because a book tells a theory differently doesn’t mean it’s bad, Jews don’t ban the Christian Bible do they?

Books aren’t the only thing people fear. In 1985 Tipper Gore founded the Parents Music Resource Center - PMRC, a group that advocates “responsible” music lyrics (Hull 17). They petitioned to have warning labels on album covers to warn parents of children and they won. Possibly their most famous case is against a band called Twisted Sister, a 80’s “big hair” band who dressed in drag. The band lost and had to label their albums, with the rest of the musicians of the day and age.

The newest target of musical censorship is rap. Scholars who have studied rap from it’s somewhat humble beginnings liken the rapper to an old time traveling storyteller - minstrel, if you must - passing the news of what has and is happening. These modern day minstrels tell it like it is: a social commentary on inner-city life and more. Critics on the other hand charge that rappers glorify crime, violence, and drug use, and that they should use their influence and act as responsible role models (Hull 19). Does that sound like something a rapper would even consider? No, it doesn’t, rappers are people who tell stories, just like a well respected author.

Movie time, the theater just got a new movie in. Should a parent take the kids? Maybe not in this case, where in 2002 a bunch of moronic males from a MTV hit show fittingly called Jackass decided to hit the big screen. The movie was so jarringly similar to the television show, which was rated TV-MA for mature audiences only and aired after 11 PM when all the good and impressionable children were in bed. It contained the results of what happens when alcohol, drugs, and testoterone are mixed. The movie, aptly titled Jackass: The Movie, was rated R for “dangerous, sometimes extremely crude stunts, language and nudity” by the CARA.

The general public should thank the censors, at least for Jackass, it wasn’t shall good comedy at all. Bathroom humor overdose is what many would describe it as. Surprisingly it won an - read one - award: the 2003 Razzie Award for “Most Flatulent Teen-Targeted Movie” (IMDb). What little faith many have in this country must be shattered, or at least compromised. At Rotten Tomatoes the critics have classified it as “Rotten”, meaning that it isn’t a hit, cult classic maybe for those who love bathroom humor and bad jokes, hit no, not at all, never. Now here’s a movie to take the kids to, Harry Potter… sure they may be scared by the big snake, the evil ghosts, and escaped prisoners, but kids like Harry Potter, right?

There are many forms of censorship, good versions that usually do not go to extremes. Editing, self-censorship, and institutional censorship are all good forms. They normally don’t overdo it, and people still get a very good idea of what’s going on in the world. In fact they have been with us since the beginning and “maintain a somewhat democratic and reasonable civil society” (Klotzer 1-2). But, when the government is in charge it’s somewhat different. In Klotzer’s article he says that the fourth form of censorship is “the most ominous because it’s practitioners carry guns in their holsters.” Of course the government is only censoring things that may hurt the current administration. Bad censorship, yes.

The question is what should the government force the public to censor? Citizens shouldn’t be seeing nudity - however brief - on national television during an event almost the entire country watched. In the end it’s not how much is censored, it’s how it is censored. Late night TV shows have the right to minor indecencies, and of course there shouldn’t be anything like that on children’s television channels, unless Adult Swim airing on Cartoon Network at 11 o’clock at night counts. Be censor smart, don’t let it get out of control in America, after all nobody is perfect.

Works Cited

Encarta World English Dictionary. Definitions. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc., 1999.

Eggerton, John. “Assume the position: repentant broadcasters tell House committee they’re cleaning up.” Broadcasting & Cable, v134, i9 (Mar 2004): 2, InfoTrac OneFile. InfoTrac. Jamestown Community College, 12 Mar. 2004.

ESRB. 2004. Entertainment Software Ratings Board. 8 Apr. 2004. .com.

Hull, Mary. Censorship in America. Santa Barbara: AVC-CLIO, Inc., 1999.

IMDb. Internet Movie Database. 8 Apr. 2004. .com

Klotzer, Charles. “Censorship: a two-front war.” St. Louis Journalism Review, v33, i255 (Apr 2003): 28, InfoTrac OneFile. InfoTrac. Jamestown Community College, 12 Mar. 2004.

Noble, William. Book Banning in America. Who Bans Books? - And Why. Middlebury: Paul S Eriksson, 1990.

“Reasons for Movie Ratings” (CARA). 2004. Classification and Rating Administration. 8 Apr. 2004 .com.

Scalzi, John. “The Watchdog”. Official U.S. Playstation Magazine. May 2003: pNA.