Tales of Parental Censorship--share 'em!

[Judith Prietht]

When I was a teenager I had a vast collection of cassette tapes, which I kept stacked high in piles leaning against the wall. Every so often, my mother would stage a raid on the contents of my tape collection, selecting those tapes she felt were "of questionable content": read "Satanic." These tapes, which were judged pretty much solely on the cover art, included Motley Crue's Dr. Feelgood, Ugly Kid Joe, NWA, Guns-N-Roses (skulls and crosses? Fuggedaboutit!), Van Halen, and I think George Michael's Faith. She'd hide the offending tapes, but the thing was, they were always hidden in the same place. All I had to do was glance over my tapes, see some were missing, and hie it down to the kitchen spice rack and feel around behind it.
We were also banned from watching MTV, which of course made us want to watch it all the more and would turn it on every time Mom went upstairs. I still remember it was channel 71; and she'd check the cable box too.
The best one, though, was when a friend and I were at my house watching Bachelor Party. You know the part where the stripper is dancing around about to have sex with the donkey? Mom leapt in front of the tv set, spread her housecoat like a pair of wings, and obstructed the screen until the donkey ate all the drugs and died.
Mom's lightened up a lot, and these tales aren't so much deep emotional wounds as warm fuzzy anecdotes to me. So spill, people. Tell me some tales of parental censorship, when Mom and Dad doled out the timeless wisdom of "because I said so" in defiance of your plaintive, puling pleas for lenience. Also welcome, of course, are tales of your own parental censorship.

[China Guy]

Lessee, my parents the missionaries, neglecting to tell about the lesbian great aunt or the gay uncle. Somehow, I think that qualifies as censorship. The old man still hasn't 'fessed up about his brother citing a "don't ask, don't tell" policy.

[stuyguy]

The ONE AND ONLY advantage to being the youngest of three siblings (one 4 years older, the other 5 years older) is being brought to rated-M movies (for "mature," in those days) movies suitable for the rest of the family but not really for you.

I remember casually mentioning to my fourth grade class that the last movie I saw was The Graduate. I don't think they cared, but the teacher's jaw dropped.

Some of the movies I got to see were tittilating in some mysterious hormonal way to the pre-adolescent me, but frankly, most were just boring. (All that kissy-kissy stuff, you know.)

Today, a fourth-grader who has seen the 2002 equivilent of The Graduate would likely be laughed out of class.

[Dinsdale]

I remember my mom wanted us to watch Captain Kangaroo in the mornings instead of Ray Rayner. Some kind of prejudice against the cartoons on RR - which were mostly classic WB Bugs/Daffy/Road Runner. So I would have to change the channel back and forth from 2 (CK) to 9 (RR) when I thought my mom was near. And this was in the days before remotes were ubiquitous.

Also, no afternoon TV. Yep, no Garfield Goose (before they moved to a.m.), no Space Ghost, no Speed Racer, no Dark Shadows. Would have to sneak over to my buddy's house down the block for my fix. No censorship of content, just the belief that I should do something better with my time than sit in front of "that idiot box." Maybe "go outside and get some fresh air."

I'm not sure what was more noteable when we got color TV - the TV itself, or that my mom let us watch Bozo's Circus that day (and only that day) over the lunch hour. Man, that clown's hair was red!

Oh yeah - Laugh-In was inappropriate when it first came out, though we wore her down.

Funny thing, some of my fondest memories of my mom were when we used to stay up late and watch Mary Hartman Mary Hartman, Fernwood Tonight, and Monty Python together. And she became a BIG fan of Ray. Apparently her tastes changed as I aged.

Here's another one, not quite on topic, dealing with a different media. I'm sure it will shock you to hear that when I was a teenager I had a stash of dirty mags. Mostly Penthouse and Playboy, with a Hustler or High Society or 2 thrown in. Whatever I managed to steal from the barbershop, come across (pun intended) during a boy scout paper drive, or find without a cover in the gutter.

One day I came home to find my stash lying on my bed. My mom had apparently done some cleaning in my room, and discovered my (none-too-secret) hiding place. On top of the pile was a nice Hustler spread, with a note in my mom's handwriting saying If you like this sort of thing maybe you should plan on being a gynecologist.

[Lisa Ann]

I wasn't allowed to listen to the radio because of the "Devil Beat". I was allowed to attend school dances because of the promiscuous styles of popular dancing - ??? I was given a bra check each morning before leaving for school. I'm not sure that counts as censorship. My boobs felt it was. I always took it off a block away and stuffed it in my purse, anyway.

[auntie em]

My siblings were much older than I was (closest was 9 years away), and I did what they did, so I was the only kid in my first grade class who watched Saturday Night Live, and/or listened to Richard Pryor and George Carlin records on a regular basis. I was also taken to see various R-rated movies from the time I was 4, with the full knowledge of my parents (who themselves took me to watch porn movies with friends when I was about two; they figured I wouldn't really know what was going on, but apparently I mistook the movie "actors" for my grandparents :eek: so we had to leave).

By the time I was 10, however, my brother and sisters were out of the house, and then suddenly my parents became "protective"; I wasn't supposed to be watching cable TV at all, or seeing R-rated movies (both of which I did at friends' houses)--and this went on until I was in college.

Also, my mother objected to certain songs specifically:


Wake Me Up Before You Go Go, by Wham--because, according to my mother, he was singing about drugs ("I wanna hit that hiiiiiiigh...")

Panama by Van Halen--"I reached down... buh-tween mah legs..."

Roxanne by The Police--obvious reasons

.... the list goes on.

Thing was, she was never sure, when we were in the car, if I was listening to a tape or the radio, nor did she really know how to shut the thing off. She'd just start punching buttons, when she heard something offensive, until the music went away.

Good times, good times. :D

[xizor]

my sister and I were forbidden from singing certain songs as children because they were "not nice songs that nice children should sing". Among them were Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini and Yummy Yummy Yummy I've Got Love in my Tummy :eek:

[auntie em]

Xizor, I can't believe you can't see the evil in those songs!

The latter is the resulting effect of the former.

Think about it. ;)

[auntie em]

Xizor, I can't believe you can't see the evil in those songs!

The latter is the resulting effect of the former.

Think about it. ;)

[wring]

Last summer I lived at home (I was 21), I wasn't 'allowed' to go to a Joan Baez concert 'cause they were concerned about the 'sort of people I'd meet there'.

During the Detroit riots, (we lived in a neighboring county, some 40 miles away from the riot area), I wasn't allowed to go out of the house, not even to the corner one house away to mail a letter.

I knew a guy while I was in High School who joined the Marines (this was during Viet Nam), then deserted. I wrote him a letter, discovered later that mom had taken the letter. I figured it out 'cause she saved the stamp (about 6 cents if I recall correctly - yes, I'm that old).

On the Other hand, from the time I was about 11 til I moved out, every Christmas, my folks would buy me a bottle of booze. Go figure. (oddly enough, neither my older sister nor younger brother got this, just me)

[LifeOnWry]

I remember not being allowed to watch Saturday Night Live, and being probably the only kid in my class who wasn't. I recall the night my dad came into my bedroom, though, and told me "You can come watch SNL for a few minutes.... that weirdo singer you like is on." It was Bowie, and I still have a little thump of affection for my father when I think about that. My choices in music were never censored, although my mother about choked on her breakfast the first time she heard Aqualung.

I am a HORRIBLE censor where my child is concerned, though. Maybe I'm just getting old, but I really do think there's a significant difference between the stuff my parents had to be concerned about, and the stuff I have to be concerned about. My mother wasn't happy that I listened to a song that had the word "snot" in it. I have to worry about Eminem, Linkin Park and whoeverthehell else is out there.

[Walloon]

My parents were very liberal about letting me read or see whatever I wanted to read. My mother bought me a copy of National Lampoon magazine when I was 12. When I was 12, my dad took me to see The Godfather and Deliverance, and then A Clockwork Orange (the R-rated version) and The Exorcist when I was 13.

What could I rebel against?

[funions]

The only real censorship that I had to endure when growing up was an absolute refusal on my mom's part to let me watch 'The Brady Bunch' or 'Speed Racer'. Her reasoning? They were asinine shows. I was also only allowed to watch 'Little House on the Prarie' and 'The Waltons' when she wasn't home, because they made her cry, and she certainly didn't want to cry at such sappy shows.

[Guinastasia]

Hmmm...with my folks, it was more age appropriateness than anything else. When I was about 8 years old, I found Flowers in the Attic on my mom's book shelf and was intrigued by the cover. She said I was too young and promised me I could read it when I got older. When I was in 7th grade, I saw the other girls in the class reading it, so I went home and asked her if I could. She said yes and got it down from the attic for me.

She used to like to watch movies first to see if they were okay for me, but that's about it. The only thing she REALLY didn't want me watching was horror movies, because they gave me nightmares and I was too petrified to sleep.

She said I couldn't watch Married...With Children or In Living Color when I was 11, but occassionally she'd let me. Then she found out I had been watching them upstairs all along and wasn't really upset.

I'll probably be stricter-when my sister was 11, she wanted to read Stephen King's It in the worst way, but I convinced my mother to make her wait.

[Burnt Sugar]

I was never allowed to watch The Simpsons.

[Duckster]

I had a terrible childhood, based upon the previous posts (growing up in the 60s and 70s).

My parents never censored anything - radio, stereo, TV, books, magazines, the lot. Our house was a benevolent dictatorship (shared between Ma & Pa). There never was a need to censor.

Oops, a mistake.

I never could get a subscription to Mad Magazine, despite repeated requests as a birthday present or Christmas gift.

As I said, I had a terrible childhood. :)

[Sylkyn]

My mother was one of those moms that was much older than my friends' mothers. I eventually came to realize her way of thinking was vastly different than just about everyone else's.

However, this sticks out in my head more than just about anything else she tried to censor during my childhood.

I got up every morning, a bit early, in order to read the funnies (that's "comics" to the Yankees here ;) ) and Ann Landers, since they were on the same page. (A tad ironic, now that I think about it...but anyway...)

One morning, I was reading a letter from "WhaddoIdo In Muskogee" or whomever, and it concerned somebody having or planning to have an abortion. I was about ten or so at the time. That word had no meaning to me at all, which was pretty uncommon, because I was an avid reader, and thought I knew the meanings to just about every word there was.

I looked up from the paper, and said, "Mama. What does "abortion" mean?"

Well, that was a huge error in judgment on my part. Sparks flew from her eyes, and she threw down her section of the paper in disgust.

"WHAT? Where did you hear that word??"

"Um, right here in Ann Landers...why?" At this point I thought I'd said a really bad cuss-word and was getting ready to duck.

"Don't. You. EVER. Use. That. Word. AGAIN. Do you HEAR me??" She was absolutely beside herself by this time. I was thinking, Good God, why did Ann Landers use a cuss word??

"But what does it mean?" Stupid, yeah, but I realllllly wanted to know what that word meant, even if it meant my mother was going to throw me through the plate glass window.

"Only horrible people use that word. Don't worry about what it means! I never want to hear that word in this house again..do you understand me??

Nodding quickly, and getting the hell out of there as fast as I could, I went on to school. Of course, I went straight to the dictionary and never could figure out why she was so upset I had used that word. It wasn't nearly as bad as she had been carrying on!

I can only surmise the reason she was so upset (read: pissed) about it was her ten year old daughter was wondering what abortion was. Good girls would never have asked that question, back then. She wanted me to be a "good girl", I guess.

[Eliahna]

My father recorded a movie for my brother, but obviously had misgivings about the love scene, because when it finished he rewound it and taped the closing credits over that part of the movie.

[Dijon Warlock]

My mom wouldn't let me watch M*A*S*H during the first few seasons, because she thought Klinger was gay (he wore women's clothes, so therefore...), and if I watched the show, he would make me gay, too.

Needless to say, he wasn't and he didn't...not that pointing this out ever convinced her she was mistaken.

[kniz]

I grew up in the 50's and there wasn't anything available to be censored. An example is that there was a movie "The Moon is Blue", which was censored because someone said the word "virgin". Does that really qualify? I guess I was deprived and ill prepared to censor what my kids watched and listened to.

[Eva Luna]

Mom was usually very anti-censorship; in fact, I was a voracious reader, and once the branch librarian around the corner decided I shouldn't be able to check out Agatha Christie myseries unless Mom was with me, because they were in the adult section. (I was maybe 8 or 9.) When Mom found out, she had an absolute fit and immediately dragged me back to the library, where she chewed out the librarian and told her that her daughter should be allowed to read whatever she damn well felt like reading.

I think Mom figured my poor, sheltered little brain couldn't create mental gore out of Agatha Christie stuff, though, becasue she did refuse to let me see Jaws when it came out. I felt kinda left out, bu have always been kind of grossed out by that kind of thing even as an adult, so maybe Mom was right.

[ratatoskK]

My parents made a big deal out of the fact that I was "allowed" to READ anything I wanted. But as far as DOING or THINKING anything I wanted -- forget it! They taught me that it was not polite for a girl to wear pants in public (in the 60s). Eventually they lt em wear pants, but not jeans.

But my Dad had some books about WWII (The Last Battle, etc.) that had various scenes of rape, etc., and they were OK to read.

But TV? Twliight Zone NO!

Go figure.

[Manda JO]

The only thing my parents evre censored were a bunch of books my dad had on reincarnation and alien abduction and such. I've never entirely understood why my dad reads them, and I think my mom's reasoning was that there are a lot of rhetorical tricks in these books which are obvious to an intelligent adult, but which an intelligent 9 year old is particularly vunerable to: if you don't know anything about statistics or selective reporting, many of those books seem to have an iron-clad case for the impending attack of pschic-yeti-aliens. She wanted me to wait til my critical thinking faculties were a bit more developed, and I think that was the right thing to do.

We also weren't allowed to watch any TV except on Sat. mornings, but that wasn't about censorship, that was about keeping us from devloping a TV habit.

When/if I have my own kids, I hope to keep them from ever seeing a commercial until they are 12 and their own critical thinking skills are established. I really think "consumer values" are a great deal more dangerous than sex OR violence.

[StGermain]

My mother wouldn't allow us to have Barbies, only Madame Alexanders and baby dolls. And stuffed animals. I was allowed to pretty much read whatever I wanted or watch what I wanted on TV (of course, with only three channels, there wasn't much objectionable on). If fact, as with Eva Luna, when the library wouldn't let me check out "Call of the Wild", she went down and straightened them out.

My brother-in-law wouldn't let his daughters see "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" when it came out because he thought Jessica Rabbit was "too sexy".

StG

[ClairificC]

Ahhhh… I have so many of these, it's hard to remember most of them. I love my parents I really do, but they were long haored gronala loving hippie's and especially during the early part of my life, were always conviced mass media was going to kill me.
Lets see… I wasn't allowed to have any form of sugar untill I was about 5, and even then it was controlled with grat scrutiny. I didn't eat meat untill I was 8 or 9. (to this day have never had a hamburger) I wasn't allowed to join the cheerleading squad. My mother his all the magazines classified as "teen" or "pop" (YM, 17, ect.) Music that was classified as "unproductive" was banned untill I was in high School. I had a very strict dress code, and was constatly told I was "buying into the culture" by the clothes I choose to wear. We only had TV during the Olympics, and were constanly lectued on the brain washing powers of it.
True they loosed up as we (my siblings) got older, bt still. All I missed out on…

[dangermom]

Let's see. I was never allowed to have Barbie's since they're sexist and evil--but I did have a Cindy doll.

Was never allowed to watch TV after 9pm until I was a senior in high school--I was the oldest of 5, and if I watched TV, the younger kids in bed would want to as well. I never saw Battlestar Galactica. As a senior, I was finally allowed to watch a half-hour show at 9 on MTV called The cutting edge. I never heard of SNL until the end of high school.

I was allowed to read pretty much anything, but my mom would complain loudly about literary dreck if I had something like Sweet Valley High or Stephen King, etc. She's a librarian, and complained so much about people who only checked out Harlequin novels that I never touched them.

No name-brand clothes--I had a hippie mom too. Also no sugar cereal, and we used to get a big treat by sharing a can of soda between two kids.

[Guinastasia]

Dammit! I just lost my entire post!

I wasn't allowed pop often-only ginger ale or Pepsi Free at my grandparents' and absolutely NO CAFFEINE or sugar cereals, because it made me hyper. I was allowed pop at parties. Funny, she never restricted my eating sweets, like chocolate and cookies, but the sweetest breakfast cereal was Honey Nut Cheerios. I longed for Trix!

Oh well-my mom only really censored horror movies and stuff like that. Anything scary-I wasn't allowed to see or watch it. Because I'd get really bad nightmares, not sleep, and I'd scream and wake up the whole house. She didn't care if I read sex stuff, but horror movies and horror novels-no way. Not until I was about 12 and even then she didn't like me to.

But she had romance novels and Redbook magazine lying around and I'd read and giggle over the sex parts. If she caught me, she'd tell me I had a dirty mind and that there was nothing wrong with any of that-I was just being silly.

This was a woman who accused a nun of having a dirty mind. When Mom was in 8th grade, she was reading Peyton's Place and her teacher, Sister Immaculate Conception* took it off of her and told Mom it was pornography because in chapter such and such on page whatever so and so did this, this and this. My mother's reply?
"If it's such a dirty book, why did you read it and memorize all the sex parts? You have a dirty mind."

Sister Immaculate Conception gave Mom back the book and didn't say boo to a goose.

I love my mommy!



*generic name for a nun, not the actual name-she wouldn't remember!

[Fretful Porpentine]

My parents were not long-haired hippies, but short-haired suburban closet radicals. For quite a long time we were not allowed to have toy guns -- we had squirt Pac-Men instead (Pac-Mans? Pac-Manii?) They loosened up considerably as my brother got older (he pushed limits; I didn't), which meant I was still collecting action figures while other girls were learning how to use hairspray, because it was finally allowed.

They also viewed any form of popular culture more recent than the Beatles or less sophisticated than Masterpiece Theatre with deep suspicion. They didn't engage in much active censorship, but I still had a mostly TV-free childhood -- just knowing my parents disapproved was enough.

I suppose I was a little goody-two-shoes, really.

[dead0man]

The made for TV movie The Day After was censored. I was maybe 9 so that was probably a good idea. When I was 18ish my mom threw away Cypress Hill and Gwar CD's. When I was 15 I wasnt allowed to buy Aerosmith's "Gems" because it had a sticker that said "All your Aerosmith HARD ROCK favorites including Chip Away at the Stone and Rats in the Cellar(or something like that)". There will be no HARD ROCK in this house. Other than those and a few other things I had a pretty open childhood. I watch 3's Company and Carson with my parents when I was little. I still curse them for this (joking)
dead0man

[Ruby]

When my son was a hormonal teenager, he was surfing the net for porn. After sitting him down and explaining the virtues of waiting until he was older to experience porn, he agreed to stop.

A few weeks later I checked his internet history and the entire file had been deleted (or moved, I sure couldn't find it!). He forgot to delete the cookies, though. When I saw several cookies from various sex sites, the poor kid was busted. I lowered his access to "kiddie" settings. We were on AOL at the time and they had a different access page for children under a certain age. All primary colors and pretty stuff. Totally not cool for a young boy! :D

[DarkWriter]

My mom became fanatically religious when I was in high school. After that happened, she started forbidding me to read almost everything I liked. I kept a lot of books in my locker at school, but she'd still search my room and throw books away (like Judy Blume).

The thing that pissed me off the most, though, is when I was 18 and had my own car. I had two cool books in my trunk (not hiding them, just put them there at some point after letting someone borrow them) - a book on the Rocky Horror Picture Show and an extremely cool Beatles book. All their lyrics were illustrated, using the techniques used in the Yellow Submarine movie. However, some of the pictures featured - GASP - nudity.

So my stepdad discovered them when putting a jack in my trunk and took it upon himself to throw them away. The Rocky Horror book didn't bother me as much as the Beatles book, because I've never been able to find another one, and I don't remember the title. I treasured that book. I'm still angry about it. :mad:

Sheri

[pepperlandgirl]

My parents didn't care much. By the time I was 9 I was reading romance novels that my Grandma gave me. I was basically allowed to read any and everything I wanted, they didn't care. She didn't like me watching Rated R movies unless she saw them first. Also, and this alway struck me as odd, when I watched movies with dad, he'd let me watch the "fucking" scenes (think the scene in Road House "You're going to be my regular Saturday thang") but he wouldn't let me watch the "love making" scenes.

THe only thing I was not allowed to watch ever was The Exorcist. When it was rereleased, I snuck out with Jaime and saw it--but she still doesn't know that. I guess she was worried that we'd lose our soul or something if we watched the movie--inviting Satan into our lives and all of that.

[Baker]

When I was in 5th or 6th grade I turned on the TV(my younger sister was there too) and the movie coming on was Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds" Mom heard the music and commercial announcement from another room, and came in to tell us we couldn't watch it. It's been almost thirty five years and I realize I still haven't seen the movie, just a couple of clips.

[evilbeth]

My mom signed my permission slip letting me check out and read Slaughterhouse Five every year from elementary school until I was in high school and could check it out on my own.

When the local movie theater wouldn't let us see The Doors even accompanied by parents (I was almost 17, BTW) she stood up for me and my friends. Of course, the guy at the door told her there was drug use in the movie which she said she understood but his big objection was that there was excessive female nudity in the film. Um...we had never seen naked female bodies!

She only objected to nudity in movies when it had nothing to do with the plot--that's what she told us. Gratuitous nudity was wrong but if it had a place in the story it was okay. By that rationale, I guess we could have watched porn if we wanted to...too bad we never pushed it.

However, she threw away my Me So Horny cassette tape.

Go figure!

[LifeOnWry]

DarkWriter : Off topic, but I remember that Beatles book. It's called The Illustrated Beatles, and you should be able to look it up on Amazon or half.com. IIRC, only a few pics were done in Yellow Submarine style. I remember the illustrations for Lady Madonna and Martha My Dear vividly -- the first was a sort of Heironymus-Bosch-meets-Boris-Vallejo thing, the second was a simple photo of Paul McCarthy sitting on a stoop with an English sheepdog.

[Rushgeekgirl]

I don't believe my mom ever refused me anything! I've thought and thought on it but I can't think of a single incident. I could read, watch, and listen to anything I cared for, although I remember she wasn't particularly fond of Ozzy.
Mom was cool!

I do remember my dad taking me and my brother to the drive-in one night because there was this "really cool movie called The Groove Tube" that my teen brother was hoppin' to see.
I recall my father practically hurdling over the backseat to cover my nine year old eyes. We left about two minutes later.
I didn't care. We went ice skating instead! :)
I guess Dad was pretty cool too.

[Weird_AL_Einstein]

Ahhhh...this, this is the thread I've been waiting for all my life. In a game of parental censorship Can You Top This, I do believe I will be the winner. When I was seventeen...seventeen, a few months from being a legal adult...my parents tried, unsucessfully, to prevent me from seeing "Who Framed Roger Rabbit".



Top that.

[racer72]

The only time I remember any censorship growing up was my dad breaking the 45 single of the song "The Grass Don't Pay No Mind" by Mark Lindsey. He thought it was about pot. The wierd part about that is my brother and I were listening to a Cheech and Chong album at the time and he thought it was funny.

[delphica]

My parents were not really censorship types for the most part. I was allowed to read anything I wanted. Mom was strict about the R movies in the theaters -- we could watch them at home, or in the theater if she took us, but even though the local theater wasn't at all strict about unattended children in most R films, Mom thought it was important to follow the rules. So it was more about the rules than the film.

She loathed most of what was on TV, but let us watch almost everything because she felt that if she forbid it, it would just make us more interested in seeing it, and then no doubt we would grow up and fail out of college because we sat around all day watching Brady Bunch re-runs. There was one show, though, that made her absolutely flip her lid. She heard about two minutes of Three's Company once while we watching it, and put her foot down, with the claim that the show was literally sucking the intelligence out of our heads.

Not that it's censorship, but the thing that stopped us from watching movies and TV the most was that my parents didn't really run a TV-type household. We didn't see Mom and Dad watching a lot of TV, the TV was never turned on as background noise, and trips to the movie theater were an occasional treat, not a weekly event. The only cable station we had was HBO, and at the time, they only had programming in the evenings, most of which was after our bed time. (is this the part where I start talking about walking to school, uphill both ways, in a blizzard ...?) But anyway, my point is that I have a lot of sympathy for parents now, because it seems to me that it is harder to pay attention to all the television and movies that are out there, when it's so easy to get things on video, and on the internet, and that parents today have a much harder job than my parents did in the 70s.

[matt_mcl]

No real parental censorship, I have to say. I was restricted in the quantity of television I could watch, but not really its content.

One embarrassing moment occurred when I was in eleventh grade. My French teacher had us watch Death and the Maiden in French, if you please, and I had rented it in English to make sure I understood it.

My dad comes in. "What are you watching?"

Me: "Death and the Maiden. It's for a French class."

Ben Kingsley: "I have to piss, you c**t!!"

My dad: "Uh HUH."

[Dijon Warlock]

DarkWriter:

Is this it??? (http://shop.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?salesurl=Rshop.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/results.asp&isbn=157912058X)

[DarkWriter]

Originally posted by LifeOnWry
DarkWriter : Off topic, but I remember that Beatles book. It's called The Illustrated Beatles, and you should be able to look it up on Amazon or half.com. IIRC, only a few pics were done in Yellow Submarine style. I remember the illustrations for Lady Madonna and Martha My Dear vividly -- the first was a sort of Heironymus-Bosch-meets-Boris-Vallejo thing, the second was a simple photo of Paul McCarthy sitting on a stoop with an English sheepdog.

Hey, thanks! I was able to find one on Ebay. Actually, there are several listed, so hopefully I'll get one!

Sheri

[DarkWriter]

Originally posted by Dijon Warlock
DarkWriter:

Is this it??? (http://shop.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?salesurl=Rshop.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/results.asp&isbn=157912058X)

I'm pretty sure it is - but my copy looked like this. (http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=882088028)

Thank you for taking the time to look it up! :)

Sheri

[MannyL]

Growing up I never had anything censored by my parents. I had my own TV and could watch whatever I wanted on the pay channels we received. I didn't have a radio though so I didn't listen to over the air music, but I'd listen to my friends Metallica tapes. I was allowed to play any computer games I wanted even strip poker on the C=64. I guess since you couldn't really see anything on them my parents didn't care.

[Sunshine]

Originally posted by dead0man
The made for TV movie The Day After was censored.

Reading this thread, I was thinking "Wow, my parents NEVER censored ANYTHING!" and then I got to dead0man's post here and remembered when this movie came out.

I guess I was prolly 8 or 9 years old too, and our school sent home a note warning parents of the upcoming movie and recommending that we NOT be allowed to watch it because it would be too scary. My parents debated it for a while and finally decided that they would follow the school's advice and not let me watch it.
I can distinctly remember the REST of my family sitting down to watch it and me having to go to my room for the duration. They way they explained it to me made me actually afraid to leave my room and accidentally catch a glimpse of something so horrifying that it would scar me for life. And then after it was on, at school half the kids got to watch it anyway and told us all about it.

[Balance]

I can't think of a single case of censorship during my childhood. My life practically overflowed with books of all kind, and none of them were off-limits unless someone else was actively engaged in reading them at the time. Likewise, my brother and I were allowed to watch anything we wanted on TV, although we were required to negotiate scheduling conflicts in a civilized manner. We didn't watch that much TV though--we all had "whole box of cigars" syndrome; we spent so much time in the family TV shop that the last thing we wanted to do was look at the boob tube when we got home. As I recall, we watched M*A*S*H fairly often, and my brother and I watched Saturday morning cartoons and a couple of nature shows regularly. We spent the rest of our leisure time reading and fiddling with computers.

My brother and I watched The Day After but frankly, after some of the things we had read, it didn't impress us much. We knew the current theories about the effects of a nuclear war quite well, and spent more time critiquing the production than listening to the "message".

[wring]

Originally posted by Weird_AL_Einstein
Ahhhh...this, this is the thread I've been waiting for all my life. In a game of parental censorship Can You Top This, I do believe I will be the winner. When I was seventeen...seventeen, a few months from being a legal adult...my parents tried, unsucessfully, to prevent me from seeing "Who Framed Roger Rabbit".



Top that.

hell, I think I already did.

I was 21/22 years old, and wasn't allowed to go to a JOan Baez (http://baez.woz.org/jbchron.html) concert

[Duckster]

Unofficially counting most of these posts come from post-Baby Boomers ...

Unofficially counting most of these post-Baby Boomer posts endured censorship at home ...

No wonder you guys are so screwed up!

:D

[Melandry]

I wasn't allowed to see a single movie that wasn't by Disney until I turned 13 and could 'legally' see PG-13 movies on my own.

[Melandry]

Oh, and when I was 8 or 9 and started reading Are You There God, It's Me, Margaret (I was an advanced reader) my mom clamped down on that real quick. Still haven't read that book.

[heresiarch]

When I lived in Santa Barbara there was this beautiful girl that lived about a block away from me. Every day, on her way to school, she would stop and take off her bra!

I got a little thrill out of waiting for her every morning and watching her through the curtains. But then my Mom found out and made me stop. :(

I always wanted to talk to that girl, but I was too shy. I wonder what happened to her. Her name was Lisa-something...

[Sublight]

My Mom wouldn't let me go see Star Wars when it first came out (6 years old), and I had to wait for the pre-ESB re-release to see it. I did get some of the action figures for Christmas, though. Looking back, I don't think I would have gotten much out of it at that age.

I was also forbidden to watch The Day After, but other than that my TV viewing wasn't very censored, and my reading and listening material not at all.

Of course, I did plenty of sneaking downstairs late at night to watch the Cinemax Friday Night movies. By the time I went away to college, I had an encyclopedic knowledge of the softcore porn genre.

[El Elvis Rojo]

One of my friend's dad used to make copies of every movie they wanted to watch and would edit out all the sex, violence, and majority of profanity from them before allowing the kids to watch them. They have hundreds of VHS copies of rated R movies butchered worse than anything network television could do.

I find that hilarious.

[Hamadryad]

I'm thinking really hard and I can't recall any actual censorship at all. We were only allowed to watch PBS when I was little, but game shows and soap operas (the only other things available in the '70s) bored me anyhow. I don't recall my parents censoring any movies, books or magazines.

How weird.

[Caricci]

Top this: I wasn't allowed to speak the name of Simon Bar Sinister, who was a villain on Underdog. Apparently his name was a take off on some famous guy in Jewish history and my mom was the Hebrew Reader at her seminary and all full of herself. She now admits that it was dumb. I am working on convincing her it was idiotic.

Oh, and my dad took us to see Woodstock in the Drive-In and drove around during the scenes of nude bathing. Not nearly as stupid, butI will say that he only took us to see that movie because HE wanted to see it.