# Children's lit/film/whatever that's just TOO dated for safety **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 9, 2009, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-lit-film-whatever-thats-just-too-dated-for-safety/505887 "2009-08-09T23:26:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![ministryman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f6c823/32.png) [@ministryman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ministryman)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2009, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-lit-film-whatever-thats-just-too-dated-for-safety/505887/81 "2009-08-14T15:00:47Z")
> [@Cisco](#): > > I can’t speak for Little Black Sambo himself, but in my experience most old children’s fodder that has been censored in the last 20 years is not so much racist as just “insensitive” in the eyes of some very vocal bleeding hearts of today. For example I honestly loved and still love _Song of the South_ and don’t really understand why Disney is hiding from it. Really? Then maybe you should ask some African-Americans if their ancestors loved slavery. Contrary to Disney’s portrayal, slaves did not just sing and dance the day away. A “family-friendly” organization (a thread in and of itself) wouldn’t want to look like they were racists, would they? By the way, Splash Mountain (at DLand in Anaheim, California) features all of those characters on the ride. ---
**Author:** ![overlyverbose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/9dc877/32.png) [@overlyverbose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/overlyverbose)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2009, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-lit-film-whatever-thats-just-too-dated-for-safety/505887/82 "2009-08-14T15:38:19Z")
I was recently going through a stack of books from my mom’s childhood (she left them for me to rifle through for my son) and came across the How & Why series. I had read it when I was younger and at the time the references didn’t even register. But as an adult, I was looking through one of the books that had a section devoted to other cultures. It included some pretty broad generalizations about Asian and African customs and used the term “yellow” quite frequently to refer to Asians. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2009, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-lit-film-whatever-thats-just-too-dated-for-safety/505887/83 "2009-08-14T15:48:19Z")
> [@Freudian\_Slit](#): > > But didn’t you yourself say that “egregious” slurs/epithets should be changed to protect children? No. ---
**Author:** ![Cisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2009, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-lit-film-whatever-thats-just-too-dated-for-safety/505887/84 "2009-08-14T16:14:35Z")
> [@ministryman](#): > > Really? > > Then maybe you should ask some African-Americans if their ancestors loved slavery. > > Contrary to Disney’s portrayal, slaves did not just sing and dance the day away. > > A “family-friendly” organization (a thread in and of itself) wouldn’t want to look like they were racists, would they? See, and here I am thinking that you’re projecting your own latent racism onto the film, because that’s not what I (or any of my black friends who love it, FTR) got out of it at all. I don’t remember the movie saying anything at all about what all slaves did. Funny that you would make that inference. Did you watch Forrest Gump and receive the message that all mentally challenged people’s mothers are prostitutes? ---
**Author:** ![Jake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f475e1/32.png) [@Jake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jake)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2009, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-lit-film-whatever-thats-just-too-dated-for-safety/505887/85 "2009-08-14T16:28:10Z")
> [@Cisco](#): > > I say leave it all out there so kids can see how silly their ancestors were and learn from it. Hiding from history just increases your chances of repeating it. A-Men Brother. Censorship Sucks. ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2009, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-lit-film-whatever-thats-just-too-dated-for-safety/505887/86 "2009-08-14T17:31:23Z")
Can we include teen novels set in the future? Because **Little Brother** by Cory Doctorow is set in early 2010 and is already completely out of date. He makes a ton of mistakes in regards to technology and video games, but his biggest muff was creating a future where not only did the Republicans win the 2008 Presidential election, but they win in a landslide. And the President they elect (he goes unnamed) is considered more evil than Bush and gleefully orders the waterboarding of our teenage protagonists on American soul. Say what you will about John McCain (the Republican nominee, not just the frontrunner, when the book was published), but the man abhors torture and that inclusion (among many) made the book feel outdated the second it was published. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2009, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-lit-film-whatever-thats-just-too-dated-for-safety/505887/87 "2009-08-14T18:03:23Z")
> [@ministryman](#): > > Really? > > Then maybe you should ask some African-Americans if their ancestors loved slavery. > > Contrary to Disney’s portrayal, slaves did not just sing and dance the day away. > > A “family-friendly” organization (a thread in and of itself) wouldn’t want to look like they were racists, would they? > > By the way, Splash Mountain (at DLand in Anaheim, California) features all of those characters on the ride. There aren’t any slaves in _Song of the South_. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2009, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-lit-film-whatever-thats-just-too-dated-for-safety/505887/88 "2009-08-14T18:44:11Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > No. So then how else would you go about “shielding” kids from this stuff? Just not show it to them? ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2009, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-lit-film-whatever-thats-just-too-dated-for-safety/505887/89 "2009-08-14T19:51:28Z")
> [@Freudian\_Slit](#): > > So then how else would you go about “shielding” kids from this stuff? Just not show it to them? One would hope that a parent, or responsible adult, would be judicious in deciding what kind of information a child is ready for, at what age or period of mental and psychological development. Or are you advocating an absolute, uncensored free-for-all from birth, hardcore porn, gore, torture, whatever? A lot of people in this thread seem to cleaving desperately to a false dichotomy: either “censorship” is total, or it’s completely absent. That, frankly, is bullshit. I don’t have kids, but I’ve done an AWFUL lot of babysitting in my days, and I have a good sense, I think, of what kind of issues can be productively discussed with children at what stages of development. With a lot of individual variation of course. But the kind of judgment that allows us to accept or reject incoming information based on its respective value is a learned capacity. That kind of analytical thinking is not necessarily expected of, say, your average seven year old, so I hardly think it’s the kind of evil censorship the hysterics in this thread are lamenting to put such entertainments as, oh say _Last Exit to Brooklyn_ and _Birth of a Nation_ aside until I think the child in question is ready to take them in analytically. To indicate how generally opposed I am to censorship, even with children, let me tell you a story. Russell Hoban, one of my favorite authors, wrote a children’s book called _Big John Turkle_. (My copy was recently thrown away by a cleaning service; it goes for $430 on Amazon used. ☹ ) In it, a snapping turtle makes himself miserable by comparing everything in his life to his misty memory of a bite of lobster salad, which fell overboard from a rowboat one day long ago. No matter what it is, it’s \*not \*lobster salad. At one point, he sees a crow playing joyfully with a Willow Pattern cup handle (with quite of bit of the cup besides), and he tries to dampen the crow’s spirits–the crow calls it a Work of Art–by pointing out that, Work of Art or not, it’s not lobster salad. In the end, Big John steals the cup handle from the crow, takes it to the bottom of the pond, crawls into bed, and sets his alarm clock for Spring. As he rolls over, he takes one last look at the Willow Pattern cup handle, and says to himself, “Well, it’s not lobster salad, but at least Jim Crow hasn’t got it.” The End. I showed this book to my sister, who had 7-year-old twins. She was appalled, and forbade me to read it to them. I told her she was wrong: that if you limited your kids’ input to only POSITIVE examples, they’d never learn to think analytically; they’d only ever learn to accept what they’re given at face value. She agreed to let me read to her kids, under her supervision. I read them the story, and the first reaction at the end was, “Why is Big John so sad?” This led to a pretty sophisticated discussion about depression, and how to deal with your own negative feelings without taking them out on other people, and how to live with disappointment, etc. So I firmly believe in not “shielding” children from negative information. But I believe just as firmly in exposing them to it judiciously and conscientiously. Where I would read them _Big John Turkle,_ but not unexpurgated _Mary Poppins_, at least at a very young age, is because _Big John Turkle_ is specifically written to address such negative issues; _Mary Poppins_ presents them as perfectly acceptable, and as innocuous entertainment. The author of the former is “on your side,” in a word, whereas the author of the latter is working at cross purposes to you; there’s a second layer of meaning and intention to get through. Personally I’d wait till a child was a little more sophisticated in their analytical thinking before I tackled that with them. ---
**Author:** ![typoink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecb155/32.png) [@typoink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/typoink)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2009, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-lit-film-whatever-thats-just-too-dated-for-safety/505887/90 "2009-08-14T20:02:37Z")
Not exactly literature, but there was a book in my school’s library full of little arts and crafts projects for making homemade toys and magic tricks and the like. I remember it being full of using SCISSORS and a HAMMER and VARIOUS HOUSEHOLD CHEMICALS and being amused at the time (this being the late 80s) that it had no safety disclaimers. I mean, nothing in it was dangerous (we’re not talking Anarchist’s Cookbook, Jr.), but just a few things that would ALWAYS get an obligatory 'Ask your parent(s) or guardian for help!" nowadays. (btw, the book was called “How to Make a [nonsense word like Hoozle or Wuzzit]” and had an illustration style similar to Berenstain Bears – if anybody can identify it for me, I’d be very happy) ---
**Author:** ![Cisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2009, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-lit-film-whatever-thats-just-too-dated-for-safety/505887/91 "2009-08-14T20:04:12Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > That kind of analytical thinking is not necessarily expected of, say, your average seven year old, so I hardly think it’s the kind of evil censorship the hysterics in this thread are lamenting to put such entertainments as, oh say _Last Exit to Brooklyn_ and _Birth of a Nation_ aside until I think the child in question is ready to take them in analytically. Bad example. I’ve known college kids who couldn’t comprehend why Birth of a Nation was racist. And somewhat beside the point but, don’t I remember from another thread you saying you’ve never seen it? ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2009, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-lit-film-whatever-thats-just-too-dated-for-safety/505887/92 "2009-08-14T20:21:26Z")
> [@typoink](#): > > Not exactly literature, but there was a book in my school’s library full of little arts and crafts projects for making homemade toys and magic tricks and the like. I remember it being full of using SCISSORS and a HAMMER and VARIOUS HOUSEHOLD CHEMICALS and being amused at the time (this being the late 80s) that it had no safety disclaimers. I mean, nothing in it was dangerous (we’re not talking Anarchist’s Cookbook, Jr.), but just a few things that would ALWAYS get an obligatory 'Ask your parent(s) or guardian for help!" nowadays. > > (btw, the book was called “How to Make a [nonsense word like Hoozle or Wuzzit]” and had an illustration style similar to Berenstain Bears – if anybody can identify it for me, I’d be very happy) In the 1970s, my father and I built a cross-bow from a pattern in his boy’s own annual-type magazine from when he was a kid in the 1940s. The article was aimed at 10-12 year olds; not a word about safety, in either making or using the thing (I was 12 myself at the time). The only part to mention parents at all was that you needed to get dad to cut the car-spring for you to make the bow, or pay someone to do it; this was the only step involving tools generally unavailable to a 12 year old. The thing was very powerful, if not particularly accurate. It could certainly kill a person. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2009, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-lit-film-whatever-thats-just-too-dated-for-safety/505887/93 "2009-08-14T20:21:59Z")
> [@Cisco](#): > > Bad example. I’ve known college kids who couldn’t comprehend why Birth of a Nation was racist. Hmm. To my thinking that makes it an even BETTER example. > [@Cisco](#): > > And somewhat beside the point but, don’t I remember from another thread you saying you’ve never seen it? Seen it several times. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2009, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-lit-film-whatever-thats-just-too-dated-for-safety/505887/94 "2009-08-14T20:26:35Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > One would hope that a parent, or responsible adult, would be judicious in deciding what kind of information a child is ready for, at what age or period of mental and psychological development. Or are you advocating an absolute, uncensored free-for-all from birth, hardcore porn, gore, torture, whatever? A lot of people in this thread seem to cleaving desperately to a false dichotomy: either “censorship” is total, or it’s completely absent. That, frankly, is bullshit. I don’t have kids, but I’ve done an AWFUL lot of babysitting in my days, and I have a good sense, I think, of what kind of issues can be productively discussed with children at what stages of development. With a lot of individual variation of course. But the kind of judgment that allows us to accept or reject incoming information based on its respective value is a learned capacity. That kind of analytical thinking is not necessarily expected of, say, your average seven year old, so I hardly think it’s the kind of evil censorship the hysterics in this thread are lamenting to put such entertainments as, oh say _Last Exit to Brooklyn_ and _Birth of a Nation_ aside until I think the child in question is ready to take them in analytically. Well, to be fair, most kids probably aren’t going to come into contact with the really freaky stuff till they’re older. My parents, though, never controlled what I read or saw. I remember reading a lot of Enid Blyton stories that today are considered quite racist/sexist. (Actually, I don’t recall so much the racism as the sexism. Even when I was a kid, it always bothered me that the girls were so willing to cook and clean while the boys would be the first to do something fun or adventurous. Same with those damned Boxcar children.) I do get wanting to know what your kid is reading, but how many kids are just going to accidentally stumble upon Birth of a Nation? ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2009, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-lit-film-whatever-thats-just-too-dated-for-safety/505887/95 "2009-08-14T20:40:44Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > Russell Hoban, one of my favorite authors, wrote a children’s book called _Big John Turkle_. (My copy was recently thrown away by a cleaning service; it goes for $430 on Amazon used. The hardcover starts at $2.75 [here](http://www.amazon.com/John-Turkle-Hoban-Russell-Ponders/dp/003069499X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1250282222&sr=8-2). Don’t know if the other seller is a greedy asshole or what. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2009, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-lit-film-whatever-thats-just-too-dated-for-safety/505887/96 "2009-08-14T20:46:21Z")
> [@Freudian\_Slit](#): > > Well, to be fair, most kids probably aren’t going to come into contact with the really freaky stuff till they’re older. My parents, though, never controlled what I read or saw. I remember reading a lot of Enid Blyton stories that today are considered quite racist/sexist. (Actually, I don’t recall so much the racism as the sexism. Even when I was a kid, it always bothered me that the girls were so willing to cook and clean while the boys would be the first to do something fun or adventurous. Same with those damned Boxcar children.) > > I do get wanting to know what your kid is reading, but how many kids are just going to accidentally stumble upon Birth of a Nation? My point in mentioning _Birth of a Nation_ was not a point of likelihood, which appears to be the only aspect you’ve addressed. I brought up \*BoaN \*to point out that surely there are some works that require “supervision.” The free-for-all advocated by the hysterics upthread is an abdication of parental responsibility, IMO, and is the educational, or perhaps cultural, equivalent of being raised by wolves. Leaving a child to completely fend for themselves when taking in works of moral, cultural, or simply conceptual complexity is, well, bad parenting. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2009, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-lit-film-whatever-thats-just-too-dated-for-safety/505887/97 "2009-08-14T20:49:04Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > My point in mentioning _Birth of a Nation_ was not a point of likelihood, which appears to be the only aspect you’ve addressed. I brought up \*BoaN \*to point out that surely there are some works that require “supervision.” The free-for-all advocated by the hysterics upthread is an abdication of parental responsibility, IMO, and is the educational, or perhaps cultural, equivalent of being raised by wolves. Leaving a child to completely fend for themselves when taking in works of moral, cultural, or simply conceptual complexity is, well, bad parenting. But how many really racist things are there? Pretty much everything I read was pretty progressive and non racist. The stuff that I did find questionable (mostly sexism and examples of liberals trying so hard to not to be racist that they come off looking weird–see Jessi Ramsey!) I was able to do on my own. I think kids can figure out a lot of this stuff on their own without their parents reading every single thing they read to make sure they can process it. I guess since for me, reading was a way of escaping, of not having to deal with the outside world, I would have felt annoyed if someone had tried to monitor the stuff I was looking at. That kind of supervision–it just wasn’t for me. ---
**Author:** ![Cisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2009, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-lit-film-whatever-thats-just-too-dated-for-safety/505887/98 "2009-08-14T20:55:44Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > Hmm. To my thinking that makes it an even BETTER example. To me, a film like Birth of a Nation, which is presented pretty much completely through symbolism (though it does have some intertitles including the Woodrow Wilson quote) is “dangerous” to those sharp enough to grasp what it’s really saying, and yet still agree with it. To the average person today, especially under 25, Birth of a Nation is just a boring movie about stuff and stuff. I can’t imagine a 7 year old getting anything out of it at all, much less being able to grasp complex social and historical issues that pretty much require an education to understand and walking away with a racist bent. > [@lissener](#): > > Seen it several times. I must’ve been thinking of _Intolerence_. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2009, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-lit-film-whatever-thats-just-too-dated-for-safety/505887/99 "2009-08-14T20:56:20Z")
> [@Freudian\_Slit](#): > > But how many really racist things are there? Pretty much everything I read was pretty progressive and non racist. The stuff that I did find questionable (mostly sexism and examples of liberals trying so hard to not to be racist that they come off looking weird–see Jessi Ramsey!) I was able to do on my own. I think kids can figure out a lot of this stuff on their own without their parents reading every single thing they read to make sure they can process it. Well then that’s your answer to the OP. Where do you get the notion that I was advocating censorship of anything that was remotely sensitive, or ambiguous, or whatever? I specifically asked about those rare examples of truly egregious racsim, or violence, or whatever. Read the OP again and see if you aren’t arguing with strawmen that you’ve brought into the discussion all by yourself. > [@Freudian\_Slit](#): > > I guess since for me, reading was a way of escaping, of not having to deal with the outside world, I would have felt annoyed if someone had tried to monitor the stuff I was looking at. That kind of supervision–it just wasn’t for me. Interesting. Irrelevant, an entirely unrelated discussion, but interesting nonetheless. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2009, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-lit-film-whatever-thats-just-too-dated-for-safety/505887/100 "2009-08-14T21:08:19Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > Well then that’s your answer to the OP. Where do you get the notion that I was advocating censorship of anything that was remotely sensitive, or ambiguous, or whatever? I specifically asked about those rare examples of truly egregious racsim, or violence, or whatever. Read the OP again and see if you aren’t arguing with strawmen that you’ve brought into the discussion all by yourself. I’m not saying you want to censor them. I’m just saying that I think that in general, kids are pretty good at spotting things that aren’t appropriate. Anyway, if you weren’t monitoring what your kids were reading, how else would you know that your kid was reading something “dangerous”? > [@](#): > > Interesting. Irrelevant, an entirely unrelated discussion, but interesting nonetheless. How is it irrelevant? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-lit-film-whatever-thats-just-too-dated-for-safety/505887.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-lit-film-whatever-thats-just-too-dated-for-safety/505887.md?page=6)