So now they have produced a bowdlerized version of The Martian with all of the naughty words removed so that it won’t hurt the delicate sensibilities of middle school students.
I’m again’ it.
(This may end up moved to GD of even the Pit, but since it is about a book, I’m starting it in CS.)
From the article, the edited version was made at the the request of the author in response to educators who wanted to use the novel in class. I’d feel differently perhaps if his publisher just took a knife to it without his input.
I’ve never read the book but saw the film and, while I had no objection to the language, I don’t think it’d lose much by making a “That jerk screwed this crap up” version over “That asshole fucked this shit up” if the gain is getting kids interested in class.
I agree those aren’t words that your average middle schooler hasn’t heard before.
Then again, they’re using the book to teach science, so that’s a plus.
Kind of gets a “meh” from me. Don’t remember all that many F-bombs in the Heinlein I grew up reading. (Although my 13 year old mind was blown by the extra-marital whoopee in Farnham’s Freehold. But that book was in the Adult section of the library.)
George du Maurier’s original ****The Martian****shocked a few old fusties in it’s time. Definitely not one to take home to one’s parents.
This wouldn’t be the first time they did this.
After The King’s Speech won it’s Oscar, it was rereleased with the language “sanitized”.
In this day and age when we have multiple versions of dozens of movies released, as long as the original version is always available, I have no problem with this.
So today, kids can watch the “sanitized” version at school. They can enjoy and learn from it. When they get older they can watch the original version and enjoy it as well.
No harm, no foul.
On the one hand, it’s no different than the TV broadcast edits, and I watched tons of them.
On the other hand, I watched enough fucking movies with all their shit still in them, and it didn’t fucking affect me, no shit.
Just for fun I searched my Kindle copy:
Shit: 65 times
Fuck: (and variations) 57 times
Asshole: 6 times
Zero cunts
It’s hopeless to “protect” middle school students from these words, but it’s hardly surprising. It might be a bit awkward if they’re reading all those fucks out loud, though.
Agree.
And whatever you think of “the delicate sensibilities of middle school students,” all it takes is a significant minority of them, or their parents, or their teachers, who feel uncomfortable reading the kind of language in class that until relatively recently would have been considered shocking in popular entertainment aimed at adults, and it becomes problematic to use an otherwise worthwhile book in a school setting.
Everyone is aware that the inside phrase of the day among test pilots and early astronauts was not ‘screwed the pooch,’ right? No matter how famous Tom “Wrong Stuff” Wolfe made that version?
No, everyone is not.
So what was the “insider phrase”?
I thought it was obvious. Perhaps not.
“Gus Grissom was thought to have [del]screwed the pooch[/del] fucked the bitch [or dog].”
One of the few service bits ever told me by my father, who had flight engineer wings for the last year of the war. He was embarrassed in telling a story that ended, “…and everyone thought Breezy had really fucked the dog on that one.” Just slipped out.
There used to be a company in Salt Lake City (Cleanflicks) that did this for all movies – Utah being the Land of the Family-Friendly LDS – until Hollywood found out about it and made them stop.
There’s even a film about it:
I wonder if anybody ever tried to clean it up?
It’s likely not for the benefit of the middle schoolers themselves, but for their parents. It seems much more likely to get a batch of irate parents at the PTA complaining about language than for kids to get offended and complain.
I let my then-12-year-old read it after a friend of his really liked it and recommended it. I had read it a while ago and couldn’t remember anything inappropriate. My kid reads the first page and says something like, “Mom, he uses the s-word in the first paragraph like seven times! Can I still read it?” I thought about it, decided that it was not going to traumatize my kid for life, and said, “Sure.”
He loved the book and has read it over several times. I think his favorite part is when Mark is broadcasting to the world and they’re trying to get him to clean up his language and is he texts “Look! Boobs: (.Y.)”
I guess I can see why they would sanitize it for use in middle schools, although given the choice I would still let my kid read the original version. I am still annoyed that they Americanized the Harry Potter books.
Given the context, my mind keeps wanting to insert “gravity” between these two words.
I’d agree that as long as the original remains available there’s no harm. Heck, at that age I remember it was the presence of words like that that kept our interest piqued in otherwise mundane literature, etc. And yes, also that this will benefit the sensibilities of far more parents than harm those of our youth.
When he repairs a pump without waiting for NASA, does Capcom not say to him, “You’re a dick!” ?
they even changed it so Greedo shoots first
The book (or movie) does not contain any inappropriate language. When you’re the sole survivor stranded alone on a lifeless planet years away from the possibility of rescue, that sort of language is entirely appropriate. At most, you might want to preface the movie with a reminder that your students are not stranded on a lifeless planet, and so that language is not necessarily appropriate for them.
Makes me wonder how many books have been re-published in “classroom editions” (as they’re calling this one). Tough thing to search, as publishers would have used a variety of phrases to describe the bowdlerized versions.