Pixiepalace

A recent School Library Journal article stated:

“Don’t expect to see Lauren Myracle’s new book Luv Ya Bunches (Abrams/Amulet, 2009) at Scholastic school book fairs this year. It’s been censored—at least for now—due to its language and homosexual content.”

This statement was thoroughly backed up:

“But Scholastic says the book, released on October 1, failed to meet its vetting process because it contains offensive language and same-sex parents of one of the main characters, Milla.”

“The company sent a letter to Myracle’s editor asking the author to omit certain words such as “geez,” “crap,” “sucks,” and “God” (as in, “oh my God”) and to alter its plotline to include a heterosexual couple.”

“Scholastic defended the move. “Authors are often given the opportunity to make changes in the books to meet the norms of the various communities that host the fairs,” adds Kyle Good, a Scholastic spokeswoman, explaining that the title will, however, be available in the Scholastic Book Club catalog.”

Scholastic responded to this article quickly. Their response gave the impression that they were having a very visceral reaction to having been called out for censoring a book:

“School Library Journal inaccurately stated that we censored the book. We review thousands of books each year and only a limited number can be carried in our channels.” – Kyle Good commenting on the SLJ article and the same comment was repeated verbatim on the Scholastic blog with pictures of their Book Club catalogs featuring the book to reinforce the statement

“Scholastic does not censor books. We review thousands of titles each year for our book clubs and book fairs, and we are committed to a review process that considers all books equally regardless of their inclusion of LGBT characters and same sex parents. In an interview with School Library Journal, Scholastic stated that we are currently carrying Luv Ya Bunches by Lauren Myracle in our school book clubs. We also said we were still reviewing the book for possible inclusion in our book fairs. Having completed our review of Luv Ya Bunches, Scholastic Book Fairs will carry the title in our spring fairs for middle school. Scholastic is proud of our long history of providing books that will appeal to the wide range of interests and reading abilities of children in the many diverse cultures and communities we serve. Luv Ya Bunches is just one example.” – On the Scholastic blog later, after much outcry arose in response to the SLJ article

The controversy over the book has been covered all over the internet, so I’m not going to go into it. Besides, as much as I wholeheartedly agree that it’s a really important issue, I don’t think that the reasons the book were censored are the most interesting part of this whole thing. I think that Scholastc’s knee-jerk reaction to a word is the most interesting part.

Scholastic repeated and vociferously claimed that they do not censor books, that they did not censor this book. But they have not countered or refuted any of the specific claims of the article, despite being repeatedly asked and given the chance to do so. Given that, it’s hard not to assume that they are, in fact, true statements concerning what occurred. And if that is the case, than Scholastic needs to dig out their dictionary (they publish several, so they must have some laying around they could check).

The word “censor” has a few meanings, but two particularly apply to how it is being used in this context. Seeing as I don’t happen to have a Scholastic dictionary on hand, I’ll provide examples of definitions from multiple other sources. The first is it’s meaning as a transitive verb.

- “to examine and expurgate” (American Heritage)
- “to examine and act upon as a censor or to delete (a word or passage of text) in one’s capacity as a censor” (Dictionary.com)
- “to examine in order to suppress or delete anything considered objectionable or to suppress or delete as objectionable” (Merriam-Webster).

The second is one of the word’s meanings as a noun.

- “an authorized examiner of literature, plays or other material, who may prohibit what he considers morally or otherwise objectionable” (American Heritage)
- “an official who examines books, plays, news reports, motion pictures, radio and television programs, letters, cablegrams, etc., for the purpose of suppressing parts deemed objectionable on moral, political, military, or other grounds” (Dictionary.com)
- “an official who examines materials (as publications or films) for objectionable matter” (Merriam-Webster).

So now that we’ve got a good definition, let’s look back at the evidence stating Scholastic was censoring Love Ya Bunches.

1. The publisher has a “review process”, which rejected Love Ya Bunches on the grounds that it had “offensive language and same-sex parents”. According to our definition, any “review process” that rejects a book on the basis of “offensive” content of any kind, whether it offends them or not, is censoring.

2. Scholastic says “authors are often given the opportunity to make changes in the books to meet the norms of the various communities that host the fairs”, which implies that they want the author to “expurgate”, “suppress”, or “delete” whatever it is that the “review process” determined needed fixing. Again, that matches our definition of “censor”.

If a censor is someone who “examines” media “for objectionable matter” (such as offensive language and same-sex parents) “in order to suppress or delete” said objectionable material (like, for example, asking the author to change it or refusing to carry it in a certain venue), then it seems that Scholastic has no leg to stand on in their claims of not censoring. In fact, it sounds like Scholastic censors everything they carry, it’s just that not everything is found to have “objectionable material”.

Words matter, and as as publishers and proponents of education Scholastic should know that. In fact, they should be among the first to stand up and defend language and encourage proper usage and respect for words. You can’t pick and choose – if you’re going to be a champion of something, you have to defend it even when you don’t like it. That means that even when you come up against a word you don’t like, if you claim to care about language the way Scholastic tries to through it’s educational publications and programs, then you have to accept and even defend it anyway.

That’s not to say that review processes and boards don’t have their place, because they do. But don’t rail against it when someone accurately calls them on being censors. Being a censor doesn’t have to be a bad thing A mom censors a TV show when she decides her three-year-old shouldn’t watch The Sopranos and changes the channel, but that doesn’t make her wrong for having done so.

Words are important and it’s worth defending them, even the ones you don’t like.

I have a new blog! It’s called An Ad a Day and that’s what it does – it looks at one piece of marketing a day. Commercials, print ads, banner ads, anything that catches my attention for good or for ill. Check it out and feel free to comment on the ads and to send me any interesting ads you see as well (or places you think I should link to from there, since it’s blogroll is a little sad right now)!

This past week I wrote a two-part article for Examiner.com about how to start and run a book club for kids or teenagers. I think that it turned out quite well and I wanted to point it out to my Pixiepalace readers as well! The first part (about how to get started) is here while the second part (with activity ideas and more) is here. Let me know if you have more ideas or suggestions!

Let’s play a game! Pretend you’re a girl and you’ve decided that you want to buy a handheld gaming system. You like gaming and would really like a system that’s portable and versatile (it has to have more and better gaming options than your cell phone, anyway). Luckily for you, Sony recently came out with a special campaign and product deal aimed at girls – Girlz Play Too. This is a special website to highlight a new PSP designed with girl gamers in mind! Sounds like just what you’re looking for, right? Let’s check it out!

There are several parts to the website, which is set apart from the rest of the Sony product website and not easy to find from there (because clearly the boy part of the website needs to be kept completely unaware that this girl part even existed or the industry would collapse). To start with, there are the products themselves, which is nice since you’re here to shop. The Lilac colored PSP is only available in the “Hannah Montana PSP Entertainment Pack”, meaning you get the Hannah Montana: Rock Out the Show game and a video with three episodes from the Hannah Montana show with the system and there isn’t any way to buy a purple PSP without them. But that’s such a girly game, I certainly can’t imagine there being anyone who might not want the mediocre Hannah Montana game but still want a Lilac colored PSP, can you? Ok, so the game is cool and you’re excited about the cute color of the system, but this is a fairly major purchase so you should make sure it’s worth it before you buy.

So, you like the look of the Lilac PSP, but need a little more convincing. You probably want to be able to play more than just the Hannah Montana game, right? Not much point in buying the $200 system for only one game, anyway. So what other games are available? Well, Sony is happy to tell you! The Girlz Play Too website has a section called “Games Girlz Play”. (For some reason, “girls” is perpetually spelled with a “z” – I have no idea why, but it’s a common and annoying thing in the gaming world and seems to be a misguided attempt to seem cool to girls while really being incredibly patronizing.) Unfortunately, there are apparently only six PSP games that Sony could find in their entire PSP library that are appropriate for girls: the aforementioned Hannah Montana game, Patapon 2, LocoRoco 2, Petz Dogz Family, Ponyo Fantasy Golf and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (the movie tie-in game). No other games are listed, nor is there a link anywhere to the library of PSP games suggesting that there even might be more options.

Well, it’s starting to look like this wouldn’t be such a hot $200 investment (a library of six games, and not even six super awesome games, hardly makes it worth the price). Maybe it has other cool features, right? So you click on the tab labeled “Explore the Features of the PSP “. This page is lilac colored and draws itself out as if with pencils before resolving into photographs of a girl surrounded by PSPs doing different things. Hovering over the images one at a time tells you that your PSP can “download games, movies and more” (no details are provided), “view your photos in a cool slide show” (no idea how the photos get on the PSP in the first place), “talk to friends with Skype ” and there are some video trailers of games that play when hovered over. No details are given for any of this and, considering the pages of features listed for PSPs on the regular (for boys) site, you start to wonder if your PSP is somehow less powerful than those, because even your cell phone has a better list of features than this.

Ok, so it’s not looking good for your lilac PSP. But there are two more tabs, so maybe Sony can still convince you. It seemed like a good idea, right? The next tab is “Customize Your Very Own PSP System”. That sounds cool. If you could really design your own case for the handheld system that would be awesome! There are lots of patterns and overlay images and colors to choose from and you really can make your own design. Unfortunately, it doesn’t mean anything. All you can do with it is upload it to a gallery. The real PSPs all look the same (although supposedly they come with stickers to personalize them). So, no luck there.

One more tab, one more try. The last tab says “Which game character are you?” Um… ok. It’s a quiz full of questions like “you’re planning a weekend with your friends, what sounds like the most fun?” and “when you fill out your diary, you…” At the end, you are told what game character (from the six girl games) you are most like. So, the quiz is cute, but also really stereotyped (BFFs and shopping and all that) and seems to have no point other than to suggest a game you should play (out of the only six girl games that exist in the PSP library).

Hmm… well… ok… so as cute as the lilac PSP is (and it is pretty cute), and even though you’re a girl and you do play too, it just doesn’t seem like this is going to work. I mean, why spend the $200 on a PSP which has only six games you could play and so few features when you could spend less than $150 on a cute pink or blue or red or whatever color you want Nintendo DS which has tons of games that are good for girls? The lilac was nice, but there just isn’t enough there to make it worth it! Being a girl doesn’t mean you need fewer or less awesome games and features. Maybe if Sony makes or finds more good games or includes a more widely appealing game with the system it would be worth it, but right now it feels like they’ve aimed for a very specific target and still missed the mark. Oh well, no big loss for us since right now there are other options!

I guest posted over at The Learned Fangirl this week. Go check it out! And while you’re there, read through some of the other awesome stuff on the blog. It’s full of great posts and I highly recommend it!

Power fantasies are a big deal these days. As much as videogames might come under attack from the media and activist groups, they also draw in new players from all around the world every year and many games are understood to be such fantasies. Tons of research has been done on power struggles in social interactions and communications (Deborah Tannen is the best writer I know of on this subject) and superheroes like Spider-Man and Superman are often seen as healthy male power fantasies. In short, we understand that men want to be strong and able to beat up bad guys and save the world. And if you think about it, the appeal is pretty easy to see. Why wouldn’t a guy want to be someone who’s able to be always in control, always able to protect the people he loves and unquestionably always on the side of right? So here’s the tricky question: what is a woman’s power fantasy?

The feminist answer would be “the same thing”, but the reality is always more complicated than that. Yes, women want those things too. That pretty much goes without saying. Except, sadly, it needs saying because many people don’t understand that a woman would want to protect her loved ones and be able to retain control of a situation and be always doing the right thing as well. So the question becomes, why do women want those things too? More than that, why do women need them?

Something that I forget a lot of times is that while women live lives always having to be somewhat on alert, always careful, men not only don’t have to do that, but they very often aren’t even aware that women do. Jennifer de Guzman wrote a brilliant post on her LiveJournal about this that really articulates it well:

As I wrote in my reply, I am kind of astounded that some men don’t see why physical empowerment would clearly be attractive for women. I think it’s intriguing to note that women often like the hot women who kick ass as much, if not more, than men do. Here’s what I think is behind that: As women, we are nearly constantly aware of physical threats. And those threats often are of being violated sexually. When I used to go to campus for night classes and people warned me to “be careful,” what they are saying was, essentially, “avoid getting raped.”

Now, what if, what if, as a woman, you could walk around, be sexually attractive and not have to feel threatened? What if all the rage you feel about women being victimized and brutalized could be channeled into pure, righteous ass-kicking? And, because you’re a woman, you could possibly do that ass-kicking without being seen as a testosterone Steven-Seagal-esque meathead. Ass-kicking fantasies for men are more about proving and retaining power, I think. For women, they’re about finding and asserting power when they’re not expected to have any.

That’s exactly it. That’s a really big reason why women, and even little girls, need power fantasies and superheroes of their own. But as brilliant as this post was, what made me really think about this was the reaction it elicited from Michael May over at Amazon Princess:

That makes so much sense I’m ashamed I never thought of it, at least not in those terms. I’ve been operating under the hypothesis that the attraction of Wonder Woman for women has a lot to do with confidence (and argued that that also makes her attractive to men – or at least to men like me), but Jennifer’s thoughts go deeper than that and explore at least one of the reasons why Wonder Woman can afford to be so confident. She’s gorgeous and she can damn well take care of herself.

So, yes, women do want and need superheroes. Little girls need superheroes. This isn’t to say that boys don’t need them, but why can’t we have both? If there can be three ongoing comics at the same time about Batman’s adventures in Gotham, surly there can be a little more room for real superheroines! There are so few comics highlighting superheroines (and at the rate Marvel’s going, fewer all the time) and the ones that do exist often feel like the neglected side projects that either got hastily put together while the writers focus on their real stories or are assigned to second-string artists and writers and never promoted in any way, giving them no chance to gain a real following. Even flagship characters get dropped and forgotten (how many times has Spider-Girl lost her book? when was the last time one of the DC editors even mentioned Wonder Woman’s book publicly?).

Women deserve more heroes. We deserve more games with heroes we can see ourselves in (and yes, if you read the above you’ll see that we do like them beautiful, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they all have to be naked and have DD-cup breasts, beauty is more complicated than that). We deserve more comics with kick-ass heroines. We deserve heroines with real female friendships, since women do occasionally interact with each other. I’d love – *LOVE* – to read a comic that passed the Bechdel Test, but since Birds of Prey ended I haven’t found one. I’d love to see as many little girls running around pretending to be Batgirl, Spider-Girl, Wonder Woman and Supergirl as I see little boys running around pretending to be Spider-Man, Superman, the Hulk and Batman. Maybe if more guys saw that girls could be heroes, more women would actually be safer in real life too. You never know.

I am now the Austin Children’s Book Examiner! I’ll be writing articles for Examiner about all things related to children’s books and any kid’s book related happenings around Austin, TX. Come check out my articles at my page at Examiner! So far I’ve only got two articles up there and both are news pieces, but hopefully I’ll start putting up reviews and recommendations soon as well. I’m excited about this new venture!

I’ll still be writing here at Pixiepalace, too, but my focus here is probably going to shift a bit. I guess we’ll see what happens as I settle into this and figure out how it’s all going to work for me. I’m excited, though, and I think this is going to be great!

On July 15th, a position paper by former president Jimmy Carter was published that discussed his reasons for severing all ties to the Southern Baptist Convention. It’s an amazing piece and I highly recommend reading it. Mr. Carter explains that he can no longer be a part of a religion that views half of the population of the world as inferior to the other half. He explains that this institutionalized sexism is used far too often as an excuse for atrocities.

There is a whole section of the paper briefly touching on some of the ways that sexism around the world is affecting lives and he states that “It is not women and girls alone who suffer. It damages all of us. The evidence shows that investing in women and girls delivers major benefits for society.” He goes on to say:

“It is simply self-defeating for any community to discriminate against half its population. We need to challenge these self-serving and outdated attitudes and practices – as we are seeing in Iran where women are at the forefront of the battle for democracy and freedom.”

Carter acknowledges how difficult it is for current leaders to challenge such deeply ingrained social mores, but he calls on them to work to change these truths anyway. He calls the cherry-picking of bible verses to justify sexism selfish and “in clear violation not just of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights but also the teachings of Jesus Christ, the Apostle Paul, Moses and the prophets, Muhammad, and founders of other great religions – all of whom have called for proper and equitable treatment of all the children of God.”

To be honest, I never thought much about President Carter before. I knew that he was involved in human rights issues and that he won a Nobel Prize, but he was out of office before I was born and so I never paid that much attention. This kind of a call for action is well worthy of attention, though. I hope that it helps to make the difference in the world that it asks for. It certainly made a difference to me.

Buffy Summers is probably one of the strongest female characters ever written for television (and I don’t mean because of her supernatural strength). She’s a teenage girl who goes through perfectly normal teenage girl experiences, but she also fights real monsters. She doesn’t let herself be manipulated easily and never lets anyone else direct her life for her. She is her own master, even at sixteen. She is definitely her own person and has her own distinct personality.

Bella Swan of Twilight is not really any of these things. Not only is she passive to the point of being almost unable to do anything on her own, but she’s got so little personality that it’s hard to describe her without mentioning at least one guy. I don’t think she fell for Edward because he was special (he wasn’t unique in any way other than perhaps his ability to stalk disturbingly effectively). I think that she would have fallen for any guy who paid attention to her, and who could have paid her more attention than obsessive Edward?

So what would have happened if Edward had obsessed over a girl like Buffy instead of the willowy nothing Bella that he did? Through some creative editing, Rebellious Pixels has given a likely answer to that question.

Hmm… picking a girl with a backbone doesn’t seem to have gone well for Edward, does it?

The commentary this video makes is really interesting. While Bella seems unaware of the inherent creepiness of Edward’s behavior, Buffy notices it right away. She is bothered by him from the moment he walks through the door, although perhaps the moment when he introduces himself (something people do every day without being creepy) best illustrates how off-putting even the most innocent of Edward’s overture’s can seem. Buffy seems to decide that Edward is harmless, if annoying, and pretty much tries to ignore him.

I noticed two pivotal moments in this video. The first happens when Edward comes to talk to Buffy at the dance club. She makes it very clear that she doesn’t really want to talk to him and that he’s being creepy, but he really doesn’t seem to understand (or maybe he just doesn’t care) and he persists in talking to her. Here’s how I read the scene (Edward’s dialogue is unchanged):

Edward: I’m on a… special diet.

Buffy: Duh. Vampire. Now why the hell are you talking to me? You’re creepy and weird, even for a vampire. Go away. I’m letting you live, but only because you’re pathetic.

Edward: I feel… very… protective… of you.

Buffy: (Oh my god, you’ve got to be fucking kidding me. This guy is even more pathetic than I thought. This isn’t even worth my time.) *gets up to leave*

Edward: Don’t leave. I…

Buffy: *walking away* (I can take care of myself and if you’re too stupid to figure that out, that’s really your problem, isn’t it?)

He later follows her at night and she tells him flat out that being stalked “isn’t really a big turn-on for girls”, but he just storms away. Clearly he’s not getting the message. Buffy confides in Willow, her friend, a couple of times and both of them decide that this guy is bad news.

The second major pivotal moment, however, is when Buffy wakes up and finds Edward sitting in her bedroom watching her sleep. She, understandably, reacts very strongly to this and tells him to get out or she will “drop [him] out head first”. He seems to think this moment is sweet and romantic (reading his facial expression, body language and tone of voice), even after the threat is made. Of course, he’s thrown out the window. Edward is clearly not used to a girl who can hold her own.

He tries once more, telling her she’s like his “own personal brand of heroin” and that he’s never wanted a human’s blood so much before. Buffy points out that this is childish, overblown and a little disgusting. She also expresses boredom at all the drama. At this point, since Edward has proven himself to be not as harmless as he seemed (he invaded her bedroom if nothing else), Buffy stakes him. It’s a nice, neat ending to a very creepy stalker story. I have to say, this version was much more satisfying for me than Twilight actually is. I found Edward’s insistent stalking more than a little creepy and disturbing, as Buffy obviously did too.

Women are not prey to be tracked and bagged, which is how Bella is treated by Edward. They are people in their own rights who deserve privacy and respect, as Buffy shows in this version. This remixed version of Twilight was excellent and I hope that it illustrates to more people some of the problems with the story Twilight tells.

I really enjoyed this quiz. I’m not sure that I entirely agree with the results (my husband thinks I’m a little more like Batman than the quiz thinks I am), but I was happy with my result and happy to see that I scored so close to Robin and Supergirl too. Too bad only three female superheroes were included here. Nevertheless, it’s a pretty fun quiz!

Your results:
You are Wonder Woman

Wonder Woman 90% Spider-Man 80% Supergirl 80% Robin 75% Superman 70% Iron Man 55% Green Lantern 50% Hulk 50% Catwoman 45% The Flash 45% Batman 40%

You are a beautiful princess with great strength of character.

Click here to take the Superhero Personality Quiz

I found the quiz through Kelly from Big A little a. Thanks Kelly!