Not in Front of the Children
Dear Marjorie,
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StumbleUponI don't mean to be breezy about drecky pop culture or about parents' fears. I just don't think there is much the Britney-haters of the world can do, given, not to put too fine a point on it, capitalism. Pop culture is big business, and it's entwined with the rest of the system in sneaky, snaky ways: As you point out, Britney creeps in everywhere, on little flat feet, often in the company of her cool new best friend Bob Dole. That an old-fashioned curmudgeon like Dole could inveigh against sexy movies while running for president, then move immediately to pitching Viagra on TV--and in New Yorker ads! What would Mr. Shawn say?--and now be advertising Pepsi with the suggestive Ms. Spears, who is young enough to be his granddaughter, just shows you how unstable and porous the categories are. Individual parents can keep some stuff they hate out of their kids' lives--we gave up TV when ours broke down (and I really miss it!)--but probably not a lot. That poor deprived seventh-grader not permitted to see Hannibal will see it on video next year on a sleep-over. And he'll think it's really neat! And maybe it is! As individuals, the best parents can do is to give their kids a sense of critical distance from commercial culture--so they can enjoy it without being swallowed up by it. After all, you and I both enjoy parts of it, no? As a society, we could be providing kids with an enriched cultural life that would include everything from free first-rate, after-school programs to community gyms and swimming pools to bringing back the "frills" (music, drama, art, gym) that have died the death of a thousand budget cuts, but that is "elitist," costs money, and involves being concerned with all children, not just one's own, and taking those children seriously as something more than test-takers and logo-wearers and couch potatoes in training. That, and getting rid of capitalism. Put that on the to-do list for sure.
I can see why you feel that Heins lacks sympathy for the parental-protection impulse that lies behind some of the urge to censor and why that bothers you. I suspect that in our hearts, you and I don't believe that the material we hate has no bad real-world effects (as opposed to the stuff that the fundamentalists hate, which has good real-life effects), despite the "inconclusive" studies. But--I speak for myself here--much of the cultural effluvia that strikes me as harmful is completely mainstream. Anorexic fashion models with breast implants! The Bible! Pearl Harbor! If even one kid joins the Navy because of that 10th-rate nationalistic extravaganza, that will be more harm than Deep Throat ever did to its horny viewers. As for the Bible, that is definitely one book that many a young girl has been ruined by, and many a young boy, too. And I'm not even thinking of that child-abusing church in Atlanta where they strip the kids and beat them in public and marry them off at 14.
"I see you've come round to one of your favorite themes," says my sweetie, who's been reading over my shoulder, "lambasting the Bible." I think that means it's time to say goodbye. I hope Slate readers interested in the issues will read Not in Front of the Children, a useful and apparently controversial book, and then join the ACLU, get involved in the schools (unless they are right-wing fundamentalists, in which case they should kick back, watch some pornography, and listen to Britney Spears), and--this is important--overthrow capitalism.
This has been fun, Marjorie. See you at the movies,
Katha
This week, Slate's Book Clubbers examine Marjorie Heins' Not in Front of the Children, a history of indecency laws and other forms of censorship aimed at protecting children from offensive material. Click here for a word on our format and here to buy the book. 
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Reader Comments From The Fray:
[Notes from the Fray Editor: Don't knock Pearl Harbor and the Navy,here, from Tom Wootton (who does the same job over at this Chatterbox); and comments from an actual teenager here. Thomas takes the anti-censorship argument to its limits here. Nice post--as always--from Ananda Gupta, and a good one from Dilan Esper led to a good thread. And a truly excellent discussion of the issues flowed from Thrasymachus's post, below--highly recommended.]
Government censors take the position that their sober and mature judgment about propriety and "harmful influences" may be substituted for the judgment of the viewing public, on the ground that they are incapable of making such decisions themselves.
Given the revulsion that this argument engenders in most members of the "general public", it's no wonder that the censors have turned to the relationship of parents with their children, since that's the only sphere of life in which ordinary people are tempted to endorse this line of reasoning themselves.
--Thrasymachus
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I read Jean Genet at the age of 14 and made my father furious. My son watches Jackass. There wouldn't be a problem with these stimulating dynamics between generations, except that there is a low grade, persistent belief that "victimless" behaviors such as pornography and self-pissing, generate second-order behaviors that are criminal and do have victims. Unfortunately there will never be a way to prove or disprove these ideas. So it will be up to families, neighborhoods, communities to agree on some level of tolerance and order that they can live with. When government imposes controls without perception, and uses force without empathy or compassion, that is obscene
--Zeitguy
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There are positive messages that young boys can learn from popular culture. For example, by watching beer commercials you learn that supermodels really like dorky guys--just as long as they drink the right beer. This is a valuable message since when you come right down to it most of us, with the possible exception of the captain of the football team, are dorks. I don't think that kind of valuable message is available in the public schools. Nor will it be as long as people listen to those right wing nuts who would keep alcohol out of the hands of 19 year old girls in Texas
--Neill Hamilton
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While it is nearly fatuous to note that kids did not face such things as sex and violence on television hundreds of years ago, it is vital to note that they instead saw the real things. What with growing up on farms, living in cramped quarters, war, plague, famine, child labor, etc, they were exposed to sex, death, and violence nearly every day of their incredibly short and brutal lives. I yield to no-one in my contempt for modern culture, but over-sexualized pro wrestling and a provocatively dressed Britney Spears are awfully mild challenges to the mental state of children by comparison to those that man has faced throughout history. It is all well and good to argue that we should seek to limit children's exposure because we are now a more enlightened society and are capable of insulating them from these things to some degree, but it is foolish to argue that there was some Golden Age in which they were allowed to grow to maturity in complete innocence.
--Brothersjudddotcom
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