JMS' Spider-Man causes controversy, to be removed from school library?

[vakie]

This is pretty funny..

"Mom Protests 'Sexual' Spider-Man Comic"

http://www.ketv.com/video/19030628/index.html

http://www.ketv.com/education/19030671/detail.html

[babylonlurker]

This is pretty funny..

"Mom Protests 'Sexual' Spider-Man Comic"

http://www.ketv.com/video/19030628/index.html

http://www.ketv.com/education/19030671/detail.html

Yep ... absolutely ridiculous ... she even contradicts herself in the interview ...
first "explicit" - then "undertones"

[Jan]

I can only be glad that woman has nothing better to worry about.

Jan

[Joe Nazzaro]

And the worst she can find is a woman in a bikini? Hopefully she's never watched that new piece of technology called, what is called again?- oh yeah, television. Five minutes of the CW and she'd probably be comatose.

[Jan]

What I thought was really funny is that the kid was behind her looking on as she paged through the book pointing out the 'naughty bits'. Anybody wanna bet that the kid's favorite new word is 'sexuality'?

Some people...

Jan

[vakie]

I can't offhand remember how much violence there is in those issues, but I bet there's a lot of punching and blood splattering everywhere, maybe even people dying.. guns, knives, etc. And the thing she wants to protect her kids and others from, is a girl in a bikini. I guess they can never go swim on a public beach, because they might see something inappropriate.. but I guess she wouldn't have a problem taking them to see a crime scene where people have been shot and stabbed.

[Jan]

That's one of the things that bugs me a lot, too, Vakie (though I don't recall much in the way of blood in the Spidey comics). I don't remember if it was Robert A. Heinlein or Spider Robinson who made the point that there's something wrong with a society that finds a naked blade less obscene than a naked breast.

Wonder what video games her kids play, for that matter.

Jan

[OmahaStar]

Don't you love it when idiots from your hometown make the national news?

Ugh.

[frulad]

Five minutes of the CW and she'd probably be comatose.

We should be so lucky...

[frulad]

She said she's especially concerned about her 6-year-old son, who's still developing reading skills.

More worrying is that the kid is also developing social skills, which are very probably being damaged by his over-reactionary mother.

Svendsen said she plans to hold on to the book that her son brought home while the review process takes place.

And what if this review requires the book as part of the reveiw process. Will she give it up or still hold on to it, lest the reviewers become 'tainted' by its inappropriateness? If she doesn't give it up can the scholl have her arrested for theft?

[Doom Shepherd]

If she doesn't give it up can the scholl have her arrested for theft?

They should do that immediately... as part of the "negotiation" process.

I'm glad this didn't happen in my hometown. I'd feel compelled to make a citizen's arrest. With considerable police brutality.

The only approprate response to censorship is a beating.

Lady, YOU are not qualified to decide what OTHER people's kids read. You don't want YOUR kid reading it, fine. (You're still an idiot, but that's your right.) You don't have the right to remove it from the library so that other people whose moral fiber isn't as weak as yours can't let their kids read it.

I take it back. No beating. Instead, buy up a bunch of copies of the comic book and distribute them FREE to any kid who wants one.

On the street in front of her house.

[Garibaldi's Hair]

I'm more intrigued by the idea that an elementary school library would have comic books in the first place.

My primary school (30 year ago it has to be said) never had anything like that and neither did the library at the primary school my own two children attended up until last Summer.

That said, my son read and very much enjoyed JMS' run on AMS, including that very issue ... and since there is no actual sexual content in AMS (barring occasional innuendo between Peter and MJ - who are of course married - that went right over his head), more just an attractive redhead who can occasionally be seen walking around her own home in her underwear and posing for photographers in a bikini (being a model and all that) I really didn't have an issue with that.

It has, of course, become noticeable in the last couple of years (as they have reached teenage) that that same level of innuendo passing between their mother and father is now "disgusting" where it previously went completely unnoticed.

[Darth_librarian]

MJ is just as hot now as she was when I was reading Spiderman at aged 11. There is also a big fat 12+ rating on the book. Heres a few fellow Librarian's take:

http://lisnews.org/mom_protests_librarys_sexual_spider_man_comic

Totally agreed on the violence vs nudity thing. To generalise for a second, that does seem to be a fairly U.S. lead approach to censorship though. In Europe, its much more about censoring violence and allow adults to enjoy adult entertainment.

Even us stiff-faced brits are more easy going than this.

[Doom Shepherd]

I'm more intrigued by the idea that an elementary school library would have comic books in the first place.

They're actually a pretty effective tool for attracting what are known as "reluctant readers," the kids who normally think of reading as a chore (often because they have difficulty at it), or simply don't like to do it much - like the kids who have to do a reading assignment... and choose their book based on how thin it is.

The idea is to use whatever means you can to get them to read.

[Marsden]

I think a part of it could be the boy is more likely to get horny and want to go have sex than suddenly start shooting criminals with a skull on his chest. I really agree that the notion it's ok to show mind numbing violence but not any cleavage is flawed.
However, who are these books made for? If adults then there shouldn't be a complaint with either, but a 12 year old is a different animal.

I remeber seeing violent images in comics when I was that age and younger and I was really disturbed, I didn't even realize it at the time how much but I look back and I still have images of some of those panels in my mind and while it wouldn't really bother me now, being 38, I remember how I felt. I especially was scared of dismemberment type things, and being a little kid losing your arms is scary. I'd like to spare the current generation of children that but I can only protect my daughter, I often worry I'm overprotecting her but I don't have her waking up with nightmares every night like I went through at times in my life.

I'm sorry I'm rambling, this isn't an issue to wave away as silly and it's easy to prey upon the shortcommings of someone who isn't a public speaker being interviewed on tv. I think this woman is over doing it but I can understand where she's coming from and drivel about beatings and platitudes about censorship don't really help.

I remember when I was in my twenties and Spidey first got married, it seemed like anytime he was feeling down then (which is a very important part of Spiderman, he is a complex emotional character and that often causes reflection and possible recrimination) MJ would say "Oh, Peter looks down, I know I'll show him my tits" and that happened a lot. Poor writing in my opinion but something I think I'd refrain from letting a child of mine see.
I remember an X-man annual, the one where the Impossible Man is on a scavanger hunt and stealing lots of major things and one of them is Nick Fury's eypatch. In a page of the book the panels show him and his girlfriend or whatever she was hardly covered in a robe and were starting to have sex, I was surprized at the time they'd put that in a comic. If it was intended for adults, then it should have been so, but there was no indication of such and I didn't think it was necessary as it didn't forward the story other than he ended up taking the eyepatch. That woman would have pissed her pants if she saw that issue, and that was in the early 80s. Man I feel old.

In closing, I think many of the times sex is in things like comics it's gratuitous and really doesn't forward the story where the violence is the action of the plot. How do you have conflict without some kind of action? But violence can be just as gratuitous and that is somehow not condemend as much, and that is hypocritical.