Lawl. Let's hope this isn't so successful it's made into a Pixar movie!

I especially love the following paragraph in an article in the Wall Street Journal

So what she's saying there is she's okay with Christian ideas being fictionalised, but not Muslim? That's how it looks to me anyway.

The rest of the article is rather interesting too, as is the following article from Associated Content - The Jewel of Medina Censored - Associated Content

This is censorship, plain and simple. It also shows the abysmal ignorance and simple-mindedness of people like Ms. Spellberg.

"Set a new course. There's coffee in that nebula." -- Capt. Janeway, Star Trek: Voyager

We have to remember the publisher is only doing it for a prophet, sorry, couldn't resist

Just looking at the two stories cited, the Jesus relationship was with an adult, the Muslim one was a child. Thus the censorship. Now that raises an issue not of censorship, but of respect for culture over rights of children, and perhaps also definition of who's a "child". Child brides are culturally acceptable in some places.
What takes precedence? PC respect for culture, or some universal standards about child protection? Where does that leave movies like "Hound Dog", anyway? Would the tale of the prophet's child bride be classed as historical drama while the rape of Dakota Fanning's character be prurient smut? Or would we post protests about "Islamic kid sex is okay but not white kid sex"?

Stand in the corner, flaggelate yourself and say a cuppla dozen Hail Mary's.

The writer's and artist's right to self-expression takes precedence. Period. If we start telling writers, poets and artists that they cannot address certain subjects, we are in serious, serious trouble.

It does not matter whether the subject is child rape, the assassination of a public figure, or the life of a religious icon.

This has nothing to do with political correctness, or child protection, or religious rights. It is much more basic than that. A society's creative people -- its artists and writers - are who keep the society and its people honest, and who bring us into the future. They are the ones who have the courage and ability to point out the truth when everyone else is cowering in fear and ignorance. It's far easier to look away, and censor the messenger, rather than look at and think about the message.

In Communist Russia, whom did the authorities go after? The artists. The poets. The fiction writers. Because they held the mirror up to the truth. They held the mirror up to life, and asked us to think.

If you don't like what a particular writer says, then the answer is simple. Don't buy his or her books. But to say a writer cannot and should not practice their art because of offending ... no, no and no.

Edited to add: As a simple example, there is a big difference between allowing 50-year-old men to marry 12-year-old "child brides" and a writer writing a fiction story about a child bride.

"Set a new course. There's coffee in that nebula." -- Capt. Janeway, Star Trek: Voyager

All good, Kitty. Let's move on to clarifying what an "artist" or "author" is, and the nature of "publications", then.

Sam Clemens, Thomas Hardy, Germaine Greer, Karl Marx, and Terry Pratchett are recognised as authors, sometimes mainstream and in some times or places controversial.

What about the hypothetical "Anonymous" or "Uncle Nasty" and some generic titles which suggest my point, such as "Daddy's Girl" or "Rape 'Em and Kill 'Em"? Or the nameless authors of the genuine "Terrorist Handbook" or "Suicide Handbook" (now banned in many places)?

Then there are the "authors" and "artists" behind websites which we may typify by titles like "Youngest Legal Nude Nuns with Small Furry Friends in Leather do Snuff". Who defines a legitimate author or work? Market forces? An agency or government? Nobody?

Or should it be open slather to publish anything there's a demand for (check the past history of popular search terms), in which case, where is internet censorship going?

To the "if you don't like it, don't buy it" argument, mostly that's fine for cinemas and book stores. The issues about easy access fade into questions of accidental access in today's world of electronic information, typified by a friend whose 10 year old daughter had a project on Cleopatra, former Queen of Egypt. Her internet Googling (or Yahooing, I don't know) culminated in "Hey, dad, look at this!" and dad having to lecture on Madame Cleopatra's Bondage and Discipline site. (Wanna hear my own embarrassing manga experience?) Sure, "Net Nanny" might have helped, but what law says everyone must be computer literate? Especially that particular friend!

The difficulty of course is that if we make rules in one direction, history has shown that we usually err in the other. Policing can be protective or repressive.

Or, to close with an appropriate quote - There ain't no answer. There ain't gonna be any answer. There never has been an answer. There's the answer. -- Gertrude Stein

The idea under discussion seems to be that we develop a system, either governmental or commercial, whereby writers and artists must qualify as "legitimate" in order to avoid being censored. My comments in this post are made in that context.

First, define "legitimate".

A writer is someone who writes. An artist is someone who uses two or three-dimensional media to create aesthetic works. It may or may not be "good" writing or artwork, but that's in the eye of the beholder. It has nothing to do with whether the writer or artist is legitimate. Neither does the commercial viability of the artist's or writer's work. As a matter of fact, a legitimate writer doesn't need to have published anything at all.

Who is going to decide? The political authorities in power at the time? The public, which usually goes for the lowest common denominator? What should the guidelines be? Is a "legitimate" writer someone who has published ... oh, let's say, ten books? Appeared on the "Oprah" show at least once? Had a book made into a movie? Has visited the White House and been personally blessed by George W. Bush? Has never said anything controversial, or conversely, is extremely controversial?

My answer is "nobody". Hmm. Let me correct that. The writer or artist himself/herself decides. Nobody else ... because nobody else can, nor has the right to.


A great many artists and writers from the past whom we admire today were not recognized or appreciated while they were alive. So the value in the marketplace is limited in determining the true value of a piece of writing or art.

I suspect that the US publisher of the "Prophet's Wife" novel isn't thinking of what they did as censorship. They are focused on their bottom line, which is money. That's the world we're living in, which is about the moolah and PR and "the spin". It is an inadvertant form of censorship, where the market makes the decision. Unfortunately, in our world, things commercial and governmental are becoming so intertwined that you can't tell the difference, and religion is often involved, too.

(A hint: take a moment to look up the definition of "fascism".)


If it comes down to a choice between 1) putting the burden on parents to educate themselves enough to know about "Net Nanny" or 2) curtailing the rights of writers and artists, I know which side I will choose. Freedom of expression is just too damned important to give up because some folks don't take personal responsibility for their lives and that of their families. I realize that paying attention to what the kids are doing on the Net may be difficult, but so be it. We're making some big choices here. What is important to us?

(And if you say, protecting children is the most important ... then that gets us back to our fear-based "wrap 'em in cotton-wool" model of the universe that we've been discussing in other threads .)


Hmm. I thought something looked familiar about your post.

Well, at least not easy answers, in this case. These are tough questions, with major implications. The Internet has done a "fruit basket turnover" and created all sorts of issues and complications that need resolving.

"Set a new course. There's coffee in that nebula." -- Capt. Janeway, Star Trek: Voyager

Who defines "legitimate" artist or whatever is pretty much what I asked, too, and that led inevitably to me quoting your sig. The nearest I would come is that self-declaration of something as "art" is IMHO not quite enough in itself. I suggest that by way of a reality check, peer review is appropriate. Certainly some artists would bite the dust, and perhaps some people now thought of as artists, even as great artists, would have been nipped in the bud. Was Kerouac an artist, or Ginsberg? The mainstream would have screamed "No!" but they did have peer review, even if it was not then mainstream peer review.

The last thing we need is books burning in the streets. But it's not simple (did anyone say that recently?) I was always fond of the naive concept of the internet providing free access to information and an exchange of ideas regardless of culture, class, politics, etc. The information superhighway was close to that, for a glorious, short, Camelot-like period, but it didn't take long for the exploiters on one hand and the thought nazis on the other to move in. Now one practically needs a Batman suit to explore it. Net Nanny or not, hostile things happen that the unwary traveller didn't ask for.

Well, some people are just out of their depth with just firing up the PC. I am astounded but there it is. We cannot dictate that to be parents they must be computer literate among everything else - I would dictate that they be dieticians, first-aiders, counsellors, taxi drivers, sanitation engineers and generally nice people way ahead of technical savvy. To that extent, the parent I used as example was computerly challenged, but perfectly capable of rolling with the punches of that site popping up in front of his kid and talking to her about it. That to me is a more important, and portable, skill.

I also have some distaste for making parents responsible for the actions of some of those we loosely include as "authors" and "artists" which impinge on those we hold dear. Parents do have responsibilities, plenty of them. So do artists and authors. We all claim freedom of speech, but if challenged about what we say (or create) must be able to say "my political view is thus because ..." or "I consider this art and not porn because..."

But here on this forum we are adults, I like to think both tolerant and sensitive to things like personal attacks and so on. We still have rules right here in River City which place the onus on the creator or purveyor of offensive content, as does society at large in its own heavy handed way. I will grant that if I was chastised for offending another member, it would not be difficult for me to appeal if I disagreed, compared to "censorship" in the larger society, but it's a matter only of scale.

A little more fuel on the fire of debate over where to put the dividing line occurs over the photographic works of an Aussie artist called Henson (not the Muppet Henson) depicting nude adolescents, and another called Papapetrou (pics of of her daughter) found for example here, here or here.

I agree the photos (such as were published) looked artistic as photographs go. I disagree with wrapping kids in cotton wool to avoid learning to handle situations it's in their power to handle. A little playground horsing round, the slings and barbs of their peers, criticism, and so on are useful to come to terms with. But power differentials are critical, whether they derive from physical strength, status or skill sophistication.

I noticed two things during the media feeding frenzy about the two collections. Firstly, Mr. Henson (I'd never heard of him before) was now familiar by reputation. And Ms. Papaetrou suddenly publicised her photos when Henson's publicity peaked. I was left with the impression that any publicity was good publicity if your work was unnoticed.

The other thing was when Olympia, the now-11-year-old whose nude six-year-old pics were published, was interviewed on television alongside her dad. After he answered a couple of questions, the interviewer turned to her, asking what she thought of the photos.

She said there was nothing wrong with them, they were artistic. Then the interviewer, for once halfway astute, asked, "What's artistic about them?" She looked lost, and turned to her dad. "Um... help me out here..." Whatever her parents were teaching her, the coaching for the media hadn't covered that one. At best I saw the whole thing as a cynical attention-grab by unrecognised "artists".

A long but hasty post, I may have to come back to this to see whether I said anything coherent...

I'm only commenting on a couple of points that have been made at the moment as I was gloriously woken up by the girls at stupid o'clock when they burst into the bedroom to announce Shannon needed the toilet. As the baby had been awake half the night I was less than impressed... but anyway.......

I agree with John, go stand in a corner and whip yourself til you bleed!

Okay, how to explain this...... I was not actually thinking about the age issue on this one. Simply her statement about how she walked through a metal detector to see The Last Temptation but had the arse over this book. I haven't seen the film, btw, so couldn't tell you what was in it. I remember the uproar by Christians all over the place about it because, let's face it, Jesus just couldn't have normal lusts

My point really is that both the film and the book are interpretations of events - in one (The Last Temptation) it's not actually known for sure whether there was a relationship between Jesus and Mary Magdalene. For the second, the relationship was recorded (whetherh Muhammed actually existed and isn't just another variation on a recurrent theme, I really don't know). So the author of the book is using the basis of, for argument's sake let's call it fact, the written story of Muhammed for her work. He married a child bride, and back when this happened it was also the norm for girls to be married at young ages. Let's be honest here, it was only a couple of centuries ago that under 16's were still being married off to older men. I'm not saying it was right or clever, but it is (regarding age of child brides) historical fact - so as far as I'm concerned the author broke no rules bringing it up in her book.

The rest of what's been said I'll have to read a few times.. I've tried a couple of times but my head is pounding and the painkillers haven't kicked in yet.