Funny this story should show up today. I was preparing a similar story, which I’ll get to later in the post.
Porn or Art at the Library?
From WANE.com
(Fort Wayne – WANE)Â A Fort Wayne man is on a mission to ban what he calls pornography at the Allen County Public Library.
Mike Hinkle says he was surprised and mortified at what he saw on a movie that he checked out of the library, along with a handful of others. “I can’t tell you what’s on it because… it’s just sick!” he tells Newschannel 15.
The movie he’s talking about it called “Short Bus”. It’s an unrated film that includes explicit sexual content, as advertised on the front of the DVD.
“It is about sex in modern day America,” explains Justin Roebuck, another long time patron of the library. He defended the film, when he overheard our interview with Hinkle in the library on Thursday. “I think it was an important film, actually,” says Roebuck.
“This is not a movie,” Hinkle says, holding the movie which he has re-checked out to show it to the Associated Churches in Fort Wayne, “It has no point, nothing… it’s just different types of sexual acts.”
The online trailer for the movie touts a critic from Variety Magazine’s quote: “”Unquestionably the most sexually graphic American narrative feature ever made outside the porn industry.” Clearly, the movie doesn’t claim to be acceptable to any audience.
I went to the web site for the film. It’s about group sex, anal sex, gay and lesbian sex, etc and yet it’s unrated?
ABOUT THE FILM
John Cameron Mitchell’s SHORTBUS explores the lives of several emotionally challenged characters as they navigate the comic and tragic intersections between love and sex in and around a modern-day underground salon. A sex therapist who has never had an orgasm, a dominatrix who is unable to connect, a gay couple who are deciding whether to open up their relationship, and the people who weave in and out of their lives, all converge on a weekly gathering called Shortbus: a mad nexus of art, music, politics and polysexual carnality. Set in a post-9/11, Bush-exhausted New York City, SHORTBUS tells its story with sexual frankness, suggesting new ways to reconcile questions of the mind, pleasures of the flesh and imperatives of the heart.
Now comes this letter.
So I throw the question out there for our readers.
Is this a matter of censorship, or of responsible citizenship in choosing which books, magazines and movies (at taxpayer expense), would be most appropriate to wide audiences in Fort Wayne. Is the library correct in their decision to purchase and shelve “Ultimate Gay Sex”? I wonder if they have National Review or the nation’s largest political subscription item, the Limbaugh letter?
Comments appreciated.
DT
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here we go again. and again. and again. its his right to complain. Its our DUTY AS AMERICANS to protect our freedoms and liberties from the thought police.
be subversive. read banned books AND
read X-WIRE
http://x-wire.blogspot.com
hmmm. google “sex”
that will drive the fundamentalists up a wall. sodomy for all!
Please, someone go through the entire ACPL card catalog and flag all the offensive materials for the good of Fort Wayne! Protect me from my own ignorance and inability to read reviews, synopses, or descriptions of items I might randomly check out!
Oh, and to Dan and everyone out there – you can find out exactly what the ACPL has by doing a search on their website – http://webcat.acpl.lib.in.us.
So, go ahead, see if they have National Review or the Limbaugh Letter – or a copy of the Constitution which guarantees freedom of speech! You might be surprised by how fantastic a resource the library can be for EVERYONE in our community!
The arguement could be made that if you are going to have anything in a tax-funded library, then you should have everything in a tax-funded library. A private not-for-profit library could censor or display whatever it wanted.
Hey cool they finally got the video in.
I asked for it six months ago to review it as part of my blog service and they couldnt retrieve it from another library so that was actually fast work on their part, awesome efficiency in processing a request!
Thank you for the heads up Dan!
Here’s an interesting idea………. If you are offended then don’t check it out. I sure dont need someone telling me what to read and what not to read. Believe it or not, I think that I can make good decisions on my own, without government or any other agency involvement.
As a parent, I have to wonder… are these types of videos available for kids under 18years of age to check out without an adult signing for it? If it’s rated X material, it should be in a separate area, just like at a video store. Good grief. Obviously, as adults, we can make up our own minds about what to view, read, watch, etc. I’m just thinking like a parent.
Thinking as a non-parent but rational ciitizen…
Parents should make up both their minds and the minds of their kids when it comes to what to view and read, not the library directors.
Like Carol I am thinking like a parent. I don’t think letting my child go to the library after school or on the weekend is irresponsible parenting. I want them to make use of the library for their reading and research projects. I also think censorship across the board is not the answer, but I guess I would like to think there is some control over the material my kids can check out or even view while at the library. And I also understand if its an unrated movie it could easily slip thru the cracks and into the hands of a child. And face it, kids are kids, when one discovers it, it will spread like wildfire and all the kids will be scrambling to get ahold of it out of curiosity. Just my two cents for what its worth.
So it would seem that the library is just as unsafe as letting our kids roam free on the Internet. I always thought the best Internet Parental Control was a parent. I guess I will have to check the materials my kids are getting from the library too.
Geez, when I said that I was thinking as a parent and made the comments I did, I in no way suggested “censorship” as part of the solution. All I’m talking about is having some control measures put into place at the library so that materials like this cannot get into the hands of young kids…. just like you try to put control measures on your computer so that they cannot easily view pornography there, why can’t they do something like that in a public place like the library? Come on… that is not an “irrational” idea Mr. Fort Wayne Anonymous. I hate that you imply that just because you are a non-parent that you are so much more rational than I or other parents.
Carol says: “Obviously, as adults, we can make up our own minds about what to view, read, watch, etc. I’m just thinking like a parent…
Come on… that is not an “irrational†idea Mr. Fort Wayne Anonymous. I hate that you imply that just because you are a non-parent that you are so much more rational than I or other parents.”
Carol, I agree with your statement and the implication that children can’t be expected to make the best decisions for themselves but I believe it is a parent’s role to be involved in shaping the child’s thoughts toward right vs. wrong, and inappropriate vs. appropriate. It isn’t the role of a librarian or a library board.
I did NOT mean to say anything along the lines that parents are irrational. I hope to have children of my own one day if my wife and I are ever so blessed.
For the record, I wouldn’t imagine letting a child (anyone’s child) roam the library unsupervised for any amount of time. As a public place, it’s just as dangerous as the mall can be and there are materials that i would consider inappropriate for anyone, but especially a child.
We saw the beginning of that at Cinema Center (not knowing what it was about) and walked out after 15 minutes or so. I am becoming a prude in my old age I guess. As long as it is marked CLEARLY that there is sexual content, and it isn’t allowed for kids to check out (like NC-17 or something?) who is to say what is offensive and what is not? It is not required viewing, after all.