SOURCE: Spider-Man Faces Being Banned In Nebraska Public School
While I usually make it a policy to support my fellow librarians and fight censorship in every form, this case is clearly the librarian's fault for having bought materials for an elementary school library without reviewing them first to see if they were appropriate.
Because stunningly - as this one library system is finding out - NOT ALL COMICS ARE FOR KIDS!
So I can't say that the outrage over Spider-Man comics of an inappropriate age-level being bought for an elementary school library is altogether inappropriate or shocking. What does shock me, however, is the particular graphic novel that has inspired this offense and the reason why it has been singled out.
Amazing Spider-Man Vol 2: Revelations. Seriously.
Not the Todd MacFarlane Spider-Man books featuring bondage play with the web fluid.
Not the Mark Millar Marvel Knights: Spider-Man books featuring Electro, his shape-shifting prostitute girlfriend and the suggestion that Electro has a taste for being buggered.
Not even Spider-Man: Reign which is remembered less as a half-assed attempt to write a dark-future Spider-Man story in the Frank Miller Dark Knight Returns style and more for the revelation that Peter Parker has radioactive semen and that "his love" gave Mary Jane cancer and killed her!
No, it was Amazing Spider-Man Vol 2: Revelations.
What was it in the book that the mom found so objectionable? The graphic but realistic depiction of the 9-11 attacks and the effect on New York City? Aunt May joking, when she finds out the truth about Peter's secret identity, that she had always thought he was gay or a cross-dresser and that his being a superhero never occured to her?
No. Much worse than that...
Svendsen claims that when her son brought the book home he found an image of a woman in a bathing suit and went, as 6- year olds normally do, “Ohhhh!” The images about which Svendsen are protesting show a very shapely redhead in various states of undress. This woman is quite possibly Mary Jane Watson, long-time love interest to Spider-Man’s alter ego, Peter Parker. Lending credence to this idea is the fact that in one scene, the woman is being photographed on the beach during a photo-shoot.
A woman in a bikini?! That's it? That's the objectionable material that everyone is going crazy over?
*face palms* Good thing the kid didn't wind up taking Teen Titans home. I can only imagine what Mom would have thought of Supergirl's short skirt and Wonder Girl's belly-shirts.
Honestly, I agree that the librarian should have known better. But out of all of the many reasons why J. Michael Straczynski's Amazing Spider-Man should not be in an elementary school library, women in bikinis isn't even in the top ten!
I mean, Betty and Veronica wear bikinis more often than not now. Would anyone argue that those books contain inappropriate sexual content?
"The images about which Svendsen are protesting show a very shapely redhead in various states of undress. This woman is quite possibly Mary Jane Watson, long-time love interest to Spider-Man’s alter ego, Peter Parker. Lending credence to this idea is the fact that in one scene, the woman is being photographed on the beach during a photo-shoot."
ReplyDeleteUmmm...last time I checked MJ was still very much a model. This kinda goes with the turf, I would think.
I do agree with you, they probably should have checked it out better locally with that library first. However, huffing and puffing over some 'fake'(aka: comic book panels as opposed to real photos) bikini shots, really??
Thank the gods they don't have Victoria's Secret or Fredrick's of Hollywood in the part of Nebraska she lives in, huh...we may just have a riot on our hands if that was the case.
Good to know that in the very real world of problems that kids and adults are facing these days, protests like this make news more than some others.
I think I need a drink now, yeesh.
Yeah. I long to be in one of those communities where THIS is the biggest problem the local Helen Lovejoys can get worked up about.
ReplyDelete"I mean, Betty and Veronica wear bikinis more often than not now. Would anyone argue that those books contain inappropriate sexual content?"
ReplyDeleteBecause ... I'll go with my one line axiom for dealing with people ...
People are dumb.
Good axiom. I think I have a similar motto.
ReplyDeleteBut, but, but... Betty and Veronica are just CARTOONS! They can't be sexual!
ReplyDeleteIt's just like Furries! They're cartoons, therefore they can't be sexua-... Er, let me start over...
"Archie and Jughead were lovers..."
ReplyDelete