an editorial by our writer, Circa24, author of Silent Consent
Now, in 2022, the Tennessee school board wishes to ban Maus by Art Spiegelman (1980). It claims that it doesn’t mind people learning about the Shoah, as long as it’s sanitized! “A naked” picture in the Pulitzer-winning graphic novel Maus displays one character after her suicide, naked in the bathtub with a breast showing.
Did I mention that the offending character is a mouse? A cartoon mouse?
They objected to the profanity in the book. I doubt that the board members could believe that any of the language in the book remains unknown to their children. Perhaps they think that the Nazis were always polite and refined as they humiliated and tortured people.
Apparently, they don’t mind teaching about the holocaust, as long as it is sanitized to hide the true horrors of what happened. May I suggest that if they are that concerned with the comfort and sheltering of children that they turn their efforts to reducing the endemic of bullying in schools? It could be far more significant to their welfare if they addressed the current humiliations of children rather than preventing them from knowing about history through a culturally accessible medium.
Right after I heard the news, I ordered my fresh copy on Amazon.
Given the great sales that bans the work created for Maus (A. Spiegelman), and the television show Lucifer (based on Neil Gaiman’s graphic novel), I can only hope that our current bonfire of the vanities gives Silent Consent the same free publicity boost. It too contains graphic descriptions of the indignities endured by enslaved people, and as in Margaret Atwood’s A Handmaids Tale (also banned in places for its sexual and violent content), Silent Consent’s indignities are based on historical atrocities committed against enslaved peoples.
(Personal note to the members of the Tennessee school board: if you are turned on by the breast of a cartoon mouse, get help now! You might have a very kinky fetish that you are projecting onto kids.)
Read Banned Books– Circa24