View previous topic :: View next topic |
Author |
Message |
|
louis6578
Joined: 31 Jul 2013
Posts: 1873
|
Posted: Sat Apr 15, 2023 10:20 pm
|
|
|
Clam949959 wrote: |
Quote: | a class of middle school students are tasked to assassinate their homeroom teacher (who is really an alien with superpowers) before it destroys Earth at the end of the school year. |
Wrong. He is not an alien.
Moderator: Spoiler put under spoiler tags |
I dunno about the manga, but the anime reveals this "spoilers" in episode 1.
|
Back to top |
|
|
jmaeshawn
Joined: 08 Feb 2011
Posts: 174
|
Posted: Sun Apr 16, 2023 9:40 am
|
|
|
Considering that there's been 21 school shootings in the United States in 2023, and we're only halfway through April, I can understand why they would want to pull a series which has a plot that centers around students trying to kill their homeroom teacher.
Frankly, I'm surprised that they even allowed such a series to be in a middle school library in the first place.
That said, it's not the "massive censorship" that some commenters here are making it out to be. If people really want to read it, they can get it from their public library, a bookstore, eBook stores, etc... But I really don't think it's something that belongs in a school.
|
Back to top |
|
|
DRosencraft
Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 671
|
Posted: Sun Apr 16, 2023 9:53 am
|
|
|
jmaeshawn wrote: | Considering that there's been 21 school shootings in the United States in 2023, and we're only halfway through April, I can understand why they would want to pull a series which has a plot that centers around students trying to kill their homeroom teacher.
Frankly, I'm surprised that they even allowed such a series to be in a middle school in the first place. |
This is another important bit of context. The manga was written for an audience that has a much more limited access to firearms, so the chance that some kid that "doesn't get it" would choose to act out the story and be remotely successful is almost non-existent. Meanwhile, as I'm writing this, the news is breaking about 4 people shot dead, several others injured, at a birthday party in Alabama. Maybe having middle schoolers exposed to a story that, at best, treats attempted murder for hire as an aside, might not be be greatest strategy. As I alluded to in my other post, it's not as simplistic an issue as many would like it to be. Remove the political posturing and you reveal a complex problem that doesn't have clear-cut, actionable, solutions. As far as reasonableness goes, this is a reasonable decision by the school.
|
Back to top |
|
|
Cardcaptor Takato
Joined: 27 Jan 2018
Posts: 5056
|
Posted: Sun Apr 16, 2023 2:52 pm
|
|
|
DRosencraft wrote: |
This is another important bit of context. The manga was written for an audience that has a much more limited access to firearms, so the chance that some kid that "doesn't get it" would choose to act out the story and be remotely successful is almost non-existent. Meanwhile, as I'm writing this, the news is breaking about 4 people shot dead, several others injured, at a birthday party in Alabama. Maybe having middle schoolers exposed to a story that, at best, treats attempted murder for hire as an aside, might not be be greatest strategy. As I alluded to in my other post, it's not as simplistic an issue as many would like it to be. Remove the political posturing and you reveal a complex problem that doesn't have clear-cut, actionable, solutions. As far as reasonableness goes, this is a reasonable decision by the school. |
This is just the same violence in video games discourse we've had for like three and a half decades now and there's been mountains of research to show there's zero connection between media consumption and mass shootings. I don't get why weebs are defending this in this thread other than they think suppressing a widely popular manga and banning books will "own the libs" somehow. Aren't you supposed to be the free speech people?
Last edited by Cardcaptor Takato on Sun Apr 16, 2023 3:00 pm; edited 1 time in total
|
Back to top |
|
|
Juno016
Joined: 09 Jan 2012
Posts: 2407
|
Posted: Sun Apr 16, 2023 2:58 pm
|
|
|
onpufan wrote: | Most of the anti-anime rhetoric comes from the left these days because Japanese media is often seen as problematic. Japanese creators and their media often get called racist, sexist, nationalist, pedophilic, and similar -isms for their different values and content in media. It wasn't conservatives making all those outrage articles about Final Fantasy 16 not caring about diversity. Usually conservatives only get mad when there's a titty or something in a manga in a public school, or something like this. In the 90s it might have been true when they had enough power to do the Satanic Panic stuff with Pokemon, but these days the cultural space has shifted in America quite a lot. |
As someone who believes in the "defense of icky speech" (I believe regulation of media is not black and white and there is a time and place for it, but also that we need to have a pretty high threshold of tolerance for things we find problematic lest we end up swinging a giant hammer indiscriminately and take out important media) and often finds myself at odds with people I align with politically, I feel pretty confident that a lot of censorship just comes from all over, regardless of politics. This article indicates the organized opponents trying to remove this manga from school libraries are two notoriously conservative organizations, not leftist ones. Even so, there are people in the comments here on [presumably] both the left and right, suggesting the ban is fine based on the social context, or that it's not fine because they see past a surface level interpretation of the story. Again, I do not think this particular matter is politically-exclusive to one side, nor do I think we should be making generalizations of one political side, especially considering the other side is currently in the midst of a spike in bans on LGBTQ+ works in schools, some of which have been comics and manga.
|
Back to top |
|
|
Cardcaptor Takato
Joined: 27 Jan 2018
Posts: 5056
|
Posted: Sun Apr 16, 2023 3:03 pm
|
|
|
Some important context to add here is how most of these book bans across the country are often targeted at books written by BIPOC authors or books that address BIPOC characters and topics and it's particularly telling they're going after a popular comic by a Japanese author. And it also happens to be a series about how the way the educational school system is run disadvantages students from lower class backgrounds.
|
Back to top |
|
|
CatSword
Joined: 01 Jul 2014
Posts: 1489
|
Posted: Sun Apr 16, 2023 3:21 pm
|
|
|
jmaeshawn wrote: | Considering that there's been 21 school shootings in the United States in 2023, and we're only halfway through April, I can understand why they would want to pull a series which has a plot that centers around students trying to kill their homeroom teacher. |
It is not the books.
DRosencraft wrote: | The manga was written for an audience that has a much more limited access to firearms, so the chance that some kid that "doesn't get it" would choose to act out the story and be remotely successful is almost non-existent. Meanwhile, as I'm writing this, the news is breaking about 4 people shot dead, several others injured, at a birthday party in Alabama. Maybe having middle schoolers exposed to a story that, at best, treats attempted murder for hire as an aside, might not be be greatest strategy. |
It is not the books.
There are guns all throughout the school curriculum; even before getting into specific books studied, they cover Lincoln's assassination and several historical wars in grade school. When I was in 7th grade our teacher read to us aloud a trilogy of books which included a school shooting as a major plot point in the last book. I'm sure these very school libraries have other books, historical or contemporary fiction, that contain gun violence.
You can't strip any reference to guns (even special ones that only blast through tentacles) out of a school or school library, it's an impossible task. And that's the core issue behind these book censorship attempts - they want to pretend to students that guns, sexuality, racism, etc. don't exist, when a lot of them are facing those issues in real life head-on.
|
Back to top |
|
|
CrimeVsCrime
Joined: 10 Nov 2022
Posts: 30
|
Posted: Sun Apr 16, 2023 5:29 pm
|
|
|
CatSword wrote: | This is flawed logic because plenty of parents think Roald Dahl and Dr. Seuss are too macabre, racist, or encouraging of hopping on dads (yes, an actual complaint) for a school library. I don't agree with removing those books either; however, collection development is something best left up to the librarians and not parents who aren't involved enough in their child's life to know what they're reading. There are multiple legitimate purposes for acquiring Assassination Classroom for a middle school within collection development policies. |
The Roald Dahl and Dr. Seuss situations are not about them bring removed from schools. Schools can remove whatever they want as far as I'm concerned since it's their facility at the end of the day and they're in charge of it, even if I disagree with them or their reasoning. The Roald Dahl and Dr. Seuss situation is about the rights holders and publishers themselves refusing to allow them to be released at all anymore or released with many posthumous edits to an author's work for modern human consumption. They have told you that if you want to read Matilda or Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory then you're out of luck because they have deemed the book uses unacceptable words and language and must be edited for modern public consumption. It's not about parents deciding what's right for a child, it's about one grown adult playing moral guardian to another grown adult. Imagine Hollywood coming out and saying watching Blazing Saddles is no longer acceptable because it deals with uncomfortable themes and uses bad language. All future physical copies and official streams of the film will be the new altered version with dubbed over dialog and some scenes cut. Not a practice we want big publishing to continue.
CatSword wrote: | There are guns all throughout the school curriculum; even before getting into specific books studied, they cover Lincoln's assassination and several historical wars in grade school. When I was in 7th grade our teacher read to us aloud a trilogy of books which included a school shooting as a major plot point in the last book. I'm sure these very school libraries have other books, historical or contemporary fiction, that contain gun violence.
You can't strip any reference to guns (even special ones that only blast through tentacles) out of a school or school library, it's an impossible task. And that's the core issue behind these book censorship attempts - they want to pretend to students that guns, sexuality, racism, etc. don't exist, when a lot of them are facing those issues in real life head-on. |
I would say there's a difference between acknowledging guns exist and children consuming art that is imitable and can lead to accidents or intentional situations. A child reading about Lincoln's assassination or a war is not going to make them want to find their parent's gun and play pretend with it and accidently shoot someone after watching a cartoon do it. It's why American toy guns have to have a orange cap on them while other countries do not. They did a whole episode of Gargoyles about it where Broadway accidently shoots Eliza after watching a cowboy movie and being an idiot. Kids are pretty dumb. Also the particular scene of a bunch of students shooting up their teacher is probably in poor taste in America compared to other countries.
If the manga was actually being pulled from publication and removed like Rurouni Kenshin was then I could understand people being upset. But this seems no different than a parent not letting their kid watch a movie with a higher rating than they want their child to see, or getting mad your teacher isn't willing to play an R rated movie in class.
|
Back to top |
|
|
Egan Loo
Joined: 25 Feb 2005
Posts: 1343
|
Posted: Sun Apr 16, 2023 6:33 pm
|
|
|
CrimeVsCrime wrote: | The Roald Dahl and Dr. Seuss situations are not about them bring removed from schools. Schools can remove whatever they want as far as I'm concerned since it's their facility at the end of the day and they're in charge of it, even if I disagree with them or their reasoning. The Roald Dahl and Dr. Seuss situation is about the rights holders and publishers themselves refusing to allow them to be released at all anymore or released with many posthumous edits to an author's work for modern human consumption. They have told you that if you want to read Matilda or Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory then you're out of luck because they have deemed the book uses unacceptable words and language and must be edited for modern public consumption. It's not about parents deciding what's right for a child, it's about one grown adult playing moral guardian to another grown adult. Imagine Hollywood coming out and saying watching Blazing Saddles is no longer acceptable because it deals with uncomfortable themes and uses bad language. All future physical copies and official streams of the film will be the new altered version with dubbed over dialog and some scenes cut. Not a practice we want big publishing to continue. |
As noted in this thread above, the British publisher Puffin sells both the original edition of Roald Dahl's books and the 2023 revision. The American edition remains the same.
|
Back to top |
|
|
Cardcaptor Takato
Joined: 27 Jan 2018
Posts: 5056
|
Posted: Sun Apr 16, 2023 8:45 pm
|
|
|
CrimeVsCrime wrote: | Schools can remove whatever they want as far as I'm concerned since it's their facility at the end of the day and they're in charge of it, even if I disagree with them or their reasoning. |
People keep saying this line throughout this thread that it's the school's choice while ignoring that most of these schools face violent death threats from extremists if they don't remove books and the school boards have all been hijacked by extremists with an intentional agenda.
Quote: | The Roald Dahl and Dr. Seuss situation is about the rights holders and publishers themselves refusing to allow them to be released at all anymore or released with many posthumous edits to an author's work for modern human consumption. |
You can still buy the uncensored versions of Roald Dahl books and no one is calling for Blazing Saddles to be banned. I'm questioning what news networks you're getting your information from.
Quote: | They did a whole episode of Gargoyles about it where Broadway accidently shoots Eliza after watching a cowboy movie and being an idiot. Kids are pretty dumb. Also the particular scene of a bunch of students shooting up their teacher is probably in poor taste in America compared to other countries. |
I don't think it's good reasoning skills if you're basing your arguments on a Disney cartoon and not science.
Quote: | If the manga was actually being pulled from publication and removed like Rurouni Kenshin was then I could understand people being upset. But this seems no different than a parent not letting their kid watch a movie with a higher rating than they want their child to see, or getting mad your teacher isn't willing to play an R rated movie in class. |
You're clearly not being serious about kids if you're suddenly defending a manga written by a pedo. And Rurouni Kenshin wasn’t pulled from publication. Viz just chose not to release any new chapters of the manga in English.
|
Back to top |
|
|
Shinuki
Joined: 23 Mar 2016
Posts: 122
|
Posted: Sun Apr 16, 2023 11:19 pm
|
|
|
[quote="Fedora-san"]
kaoru99 wrote: |
Regardless, to call this censorship is inaccurate. An individual school or library choosing not carrying a book does not qualify as censorship. They are under no obligator to host or platform any piece of media they personally find abhorrent or even distasteful. |
lol It's the literal definition of censorship:
"the suppression or prohibition of any parts of books, films, news, etc. that are considered obscene, politically unacceptable, or a threat to security."
"Censorship, the suppression of words, images, or ideas that are "offensive," happens whenever some people succeed in imposing their personal political or moral values on others. Censorship can be carried out by the government as well as private pressure groups"
It's quite annoying how some people online try to play with the term censorship and it's meaning as if there's good and bad censorship, censorship is censorship, and in the moment schools/institutions are banning a specific book specially for politicial/social reasons because they think is innapropriate or even dangerous, it's is censorship, simple as that.
|
Back to top |
|
|
Redbeard 101
Oscar the Grouch
Forums Superstar
Joined: 14 Aug 2006
Posts: 16961
|
Posted: Mon Apr 17, 2023 1:26 am
|
|
|
Shinuki wrote: |
lol It's the literal definition of censorship: |
Yea, try again. They're not altering the manga in any way. They're not trying to have it banned entirely to where you can't get it. They're not trying to have it removed from existence. They're saying don't have it there. So no, it's not censorship.
As for my own personal feelings, normally I am more of a mind to not wrap kids in bubble wrap and try and stop them from reading things that might offend someone. In this case the manga is honestly not aimed at kids of middle school age here in the US. I think this would be fine in a High School school library. While we can debate the accuracy of the age rating system for material, at the end of the day this does have a 16+ rating here. If it was in a high school they'd at least have a leg to stand on arguing why to keep it.
|
Back to top |
|
|
CaptainSockpuppet
Joined: 09 Apr 2023
Posts: 5
|
Posted: Mon Apr 17, 2023 2:29 am
|
|
|
Age ratings exist for a reason. Local school boards, especially private schools are free to enforce them.
I am more inclined to believe the poor taste stance rather than "violent comics/games lead to violence" stance.
Pokemon S1 E19 was taken out of airing rotation from Kids WB due to it having to be aired after the events September 11. This is not censorship.
What is going on here (in regards to this manga) is similar to that. After 9/11 U.S. culture shifted, and now school shootings are leading us to another shift.
|
Back to top |
|
|
Cardcaptor Takato
Joined: 27 Jan 2018
Posts: 5056
|
Posted: Mon Apr 17, 2023 2:49 am
|
|
|
Redbeard 101 wrote: |
As for my own personal feelings, normally I am more of a mind to not wrap kids in bubble wrap and try and stop them from reading things that might offend someone. In this case the manga is honestly not aimed at kids of middle school age here in the US. I think this would be fine in a High School school library. While we can debate the accuracy of the age rating system for material, at the end of the day this does have a 16+ rating here. If it was in a high school they'd at least have a leg to stand on arguing why to keep it. |
Focusing on the content of the individual manga series in question here is missing the forest of the trees and you have to look at this in the broader context of the book banning movement that this is about targeting books by LGBTQIA+ authors and BIPOC authors. The groups targeting Assassination Classroom, the ironically named Moms for Liberty and Citizens Defending Freedom, are notorious alt right groups with a history of attacking LGBTIA+ rights and attacking minority groups. In the case of Citizens Defending Freedom, they consider any books with LGBTQIA+ themes to be "pornography" and are trying to ban all LGBTQIA+ related books in public schools. Assassination Classroom is not an LGBTQIA+ title but they are clearly using it as a scapegoat to justify their broader movement and this is also part of their broader tactic of sensationalizing reading materials written by any authors who are not white. They also love to target books with anti-authoritarian themes which is a theme in Assassination Classroom and they consider anything with ant-authoritarian themes to be inherently violent.
And also they might not be out specifically to ban Assassination Classroom from existence but they already trying to expand book banning laws to include schools of all ages and they regularly threaten and target non-school public libraries and also send death threats to bookstores for having drag queen story hours so this is a clear movement about banning books from existing. This is not about Assassination Classroom having guns in it or the manga sometimes having a hanky panky joke in it. I doubt these groups even read like a single volume of the manga outside of looking up the Wikipedia article. This is about control of what people read and this a movement to target minorities and Assassination Classroom is just a scapegoat for their broader movement to scare parents into thinking their kids are being exposed to dangerous material or whatever so they can main more control and power to take away minority group's rights. Also noteworthy that the lady from Moms for Liberty trying to ban Assassination Classroom, Jennifer Pippin, also banned a graphic novel adaptation of Anne Frank's diary so that tells you a lot about these groups.
|
Back to top |
|
|
AJ (LordNikon)
Joined: 14 Apr 2009
Posts: 513
Location: Kyoto
|
Posted: Mon Apr 17, 2023 7:20 am
|
|
|
I debating saying anything. As a Japanese, I live many years in America and see hypocrisy from both Democrats and Republicans for longer than most posters have been have (and many staffers too) alive.
Just let one copy of Ass-Class (or any popular series that glamorizes violence) be found in locker after school shooting and most liberal of Americans will scream outright banning this and a war on otaku just like Japanese did years ago after the Akiba incident, and just like Americans did on goth/lone crowds after Columbine. One last note as career journalist, after 9/11, even most staunch liberal was crying for blood and war in middle east. Not till a few years in that everyone calmed down and went back to no-war rally.
For the record, most of these titles would never have been permitted in school libraries thirty years ago by liberals either, and forty years ago, comics books would never be found in librarians; long standing belief by educators was comics books promote illiteracy.
As a long time supporter of Democrats, liberals in America are no less immune to human nature than any other party. As Bart Simpson said back in 80's, "You're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't"
|
Back to top |
|
|
|