Rant Alert - An Indiana Teacher Gets My Vote

[eileen from OH]

For integrity.

Okay, first off, my company sells scripts and production rights to Audience-Participation Mysteries (www.mysteriesbymoushey.com).

So on Wednesday I get a call from a frustrated, rather panicked teacher in Indiana, who's done my shows in the past. She was 3 weeks away from presenting "To Kill A Mockingbird" when her principal, under some pressure from the local NAACP, tells her she has to cut the use of the word "nigger." Now, as you all well know, this word is used within the book, movie, & play to point out the hatefulness and ugliness of racism. No matter, it must come out. So the teacher does the right thing and contacts the company holding the rights - Dramatist Play Service - and asks for permission to cut the word. They say (rightly) "No." What does her principal say? "Cut it anyway." Despite the fact that this is illegal, and immoral, and wrong, and STOOPID. Instead, this brave teacher cancels the production. It even makes (yeeps) Fox News.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,99714,00.html

I was very happy to help her schedule an alternate show, and moved heaven and earth to make it as easy and fast and painless as possible.

In a world where "copyright" doesn't seem to mean a whole lot anymore, and where the work of others is used and copied and abused - whether it's in the name of political correctness or pirate copies or censorship . . .it was really neat and inspiring to watch, firsthand, someone do what was RIGHT instead of what was just EASY.

eileen from OH

[mdvet]

1. kinda dumb

I hate when censorship is used in situations like this, kinda like revisionist history. I hated the fact that Tom Clanceys book when it was made into a movie the bad guys were changed from islamic terrorists into neo nazis.

[TreasonousBastard]

2. Makes me wonder...

if Conrad's "The Nigger of the Narcissus" has been retitled. Or just disappeared.

And, where's the latest of the weekly bannings of "Huckleberry Finn"?

I personally despise that word, and can only imagine what black students feel when they hear it in a classroom, but I can't see whitewashing it from the lexicon as the answer.

[trof]

3. So, am I about the umpteenth person to tell you

that you look a lot like Shirley McClain?
I thought so.
Wow, what an interesting career you have.

Yes, the term "nigger" has come to be an incredibly loaded third-rail do-NOT-touch word. I think it's downright juvenile to see/hear something on TV like "Mr. Blank was overheard to use the "N" word when referring to Jesse Jackson". You're more likely to hear the "F" word than the "N" word on television now. :shrug:

Censorship of literature makes no sense at all. Huck and African-American Jim doesn't carry the same flavor or reflect the times that Twain wrote in. I would even submit that the term was not necessarily a pejorative then.

And to have the redneck, racist character in TKAM sneer "goddam African-American" is just ludicrous.

Good for you sticking by your guns.
BTW, what is the "Ballot Busters" about?

[JitterbugPerfume]

4. Do not F@@K with

Literature You have no right

[eileen from OH]

6. Never got Shirley McClaine before

but maybe in that pic?

"Ballot Busters" was one of several shows I wrote (and sometimes directed) for PBS station WNEO/WEAO (Northeast OH)that were about voter education. That particular one was about a group of 8-9 year olds (the show was for that age group)holding a mock election at school. One kid had an older brother - known to one and all as "Trucker" and at the same time the kids were doing their election they were dragging this doofus through the process of registering, etc. for real. By the time they got through with him he had not only voted but had decided to run for local office. It was actually quite a lot of fun.

eileen from OH

[trof]

7. thanks

I may do a "separated at birth?" pic.

[BiggJawn]

5. I think this speaks more to artistic integrety.

It's good that she could pass the buck to the copyright holder and let them take the heat, but what I hear is more "The "N-word" is critical to the mesage of the whole play" more than "it violates the copyright to cut words"...
Glad that you were able to help her save the day, Eileen!