Knitting in the Shadows

When is it Censorship?

As often happens in this wonderfully interconnected world, a blog post has prompted some wonderful savvy responses.  This time, it happened here in ShadowLand.

I posted about my surprise and frustration that my 15 year old was able to check out a movie from the library that was either originally rated NC-17 and then defined as unrated, or was the alternative version, rated R. Until I actually put it in the DVD player and watch it, I can't tell which version we have in the house, because it didn't come with the full box.

Janna said:

"As a librarian, here's what I think their policy probably is: it's up to you, as the parent, to be aware of what your children are reading and watching. This is the policy behind NOT banning books. It's not up to them to decide what is suitable for your child. And I know you're going to say "But movies have ratings!" But it's a slippery slope and if the library isn't already on that slope by policing movies, they won't find themselves being shoved into policing books. What if an R or NC-17-rated movie is based on a book? Should access to the book be controlled, too? Where do you draw that line? By not having a line at all, that parent who doesn't want their child reading The Great Gatsby isn't going to be restricting your child, too. (http://www.ala.org/advocacy/banned/frequentlychallenged/challengedclassics)."

That gets me thinking along several lines:

First off, I agree with her, generally.

If we let the library decide who can check out what, we're inviting them to censor our reading.  I don't want anyone else deciding what I can read, or even what my kids can read. I don't want them deciding what we can watch, either.

On the other hand, I figure if a library follows the same policy as the theaters do, using the ratings that are out there, they won't go wrong.   If the ratings rules mean that a 16 year old can't get in to see a film, period, then the library is reasonable in saying she can't check the film out.  Mom (or frankly anyone over 17) can always check it out and let her watch it, of course.  (The fact that they now call it NC-17 (in part because it can be assigned for violence, drugs, or exceedingly aberrant behaviors in addition to sex or even pornographic scenes) and not X is irrelevant here). Ditto, if the ratings rules say you need a parent or guardian to take you in, the library can say she needs a parent or guardian to approve  her rental of that movie.  Heck, the library policy could state that teens have to have a parent or guardian sign a release to clear them to check out R rated movies. 

It takes a village to raise a child.  That's because parents cannot be by their children's side all the time.  And just like parents can't always there when the kid tries to get into the movies, parents can't always be there when the tween or teen goes to the library.  (Heck, around here, one of the middle schools is right across the street from the library; the kids go over to the library after school all the time).  A parent can always come later and say "yes, it's okay, she can see that," and then check out a movie.  But a parent can't always be there to say, "whoa, no.... not yet" before it's too late.  The theaters deal with this by assuming it's not okay to let a person under 17 see an R rated unless the parents, guardians, or other presumably responsible adult escorts them.

As I said, I don't want someone else deciding what we can read.  I'd rather my girls wound up reading pornographic literature before I thought it was a good idea than have someone else deprive them of the chance to read something because they'd put it on a banned books list.  I mean seriously, have you looked at the banned books lists lately?  China banned Alice in Wonderland!  There was a time when Chaucer's Canterbury Tales were banned.  Are You There God It's Me Margaret, which has it's place on the Top 100 Children's Books list, has been "challenged" in various places in the U.S.

On the other hand, There's something a bit different about movies.  Not that I want anyone banning movies, or limiting them generally.  But I do agree that there are some films that kids aren't old enough to see. There's something different about visuals.  It's one thing to READ that a stoned out woman is paying for her cocaine by  performing  a rather, shall we say "non-standard" sex act -- even to read exactly what she did.  (There is such a scene described in the synopsis fo the film that inspired my previous post - even reading the synopsis made me uncomfortable).  If you're reading something, and you have no experience to back it up, you're not likely to be ABLE to really visualize it.  It's even harder to give it not only sight but sound.  If you're watching.... it's right there in your face, with sound.  It's vivid and real in a way that books rarely are.  (Could potentially be traumatizing to some -- especially someone two, three, four years under the age indicated by the ratings.)  It's really hard to unsee something.

I don't see that restricting access to a movie has to mean restricting access to a corresponding book. Screenwriters are prone to changing books slightly (or a lot -- I've seen movies "inspired by" books that shared little more with the original book than the title and some character names).  What might have been a scene that wasn't played out in full in the book might become one that is very detailed in the film.  An assault scene can be written many ways -- in a book it might be simply presented, or referred to in memories - the character remembers a man's hand on her mouth.  In a movie, you see it, vividly, clearly; you see the hairs on the backs of his hands, the dirt under his fingernails, the way his fingers distort the flesh of her cheeks.... Almost no one describes such things in the detail that you can get from 5 seconds of film.  (Of course, the screen writer can also choose to omit a brutal scene too).

And so, I don't automatically equate a film with the book upon which it's based.  Reading the book might be no big deal, or it might be less appropriate than the film.  But if the impact is going to be a strong one, I'd rather my kids have the book in hand than watch the NC-17 film.

It IS a slippery slope.  And I would not want any library to take it upon themselves to make the decisions about who gets to check out what movies. But there is a system in place to determine how old a person ought to be before they can see certain movies.  And the library has a system in place that ties a child patron's age to his or her library card number. It makes sense to let them work together.  That system, working in tandem, would help parents know which things they need to weigh in on. (In this case, had I been alerted (either by my daughter whining that the library wouldn't let her check something out, or by the library sending an automatic email that a child was attempting to check out an R rated (or NC-17 rated) film), I would not have discovered the issue at 11:30 p.m. on a night before I had to be up early.

Now, ultimately, I don't intend to let the librarians decide whether my child can watch any given movie, or read any given book.  I do not even intend to let the ratings people make the ultimate decision on that.  I still think it's the parent's job to get in there and figure things out one child at a time.  I still read books I see my kids reading (even if I don't catch them before my daughters read them, I do read them, and if I think it's appropriate, I discuss them).  I still make my own judgements about films too.

I don't want the library to do my job.  I'm saying that where a system is in place to protect kids from things that they're not ready for, it should be used.  Kind of like we expect the shopkeepers to decline to sell them cigarettes and/or alcohol until they're old enough.  Just as I can choose to let my children smoke or drink in my own home (which I don't )... I can choose to let my children see movies with violent or degrading sex scenes.  Either way, the parent should be doing the choosing.  When the stores say no, the parent can choose.  When the theater says no, the parent can choose.  When the library doesn't say no, the parent may not be able to choose before it's too late.

I haven't decided whether to suck it up and watch a film that I've been told is beautifully made, but very depressing, or to join my child in watching it, but either way, I'm not banning her from watching it.  (I have told her she can't watch it with her friends without her friends' parents telling me it's okay for them to see -- I'm not making that decision for any other parents or their kids).  I've learned enough about the film from people I know who have seen it (doing my research a different way), that I think it won't scar her for life. But I'm glad I had an opportunity to find out enough about this movie to make an informed decision before she watched it.  Had she started watching it one half hour later, I'd not have had that chance.

Shocked to Find that I Want Restrictions on Library Access to Certain Materials

As many of you know, I'm a huge fan of the library.  Here in Shadowland, we have an entire bookcase devoted to library books -- the ones we've borrowed and are reading.  Yes, we check out so many books at a time that we need that book case.  And yes, its contents get rotated constantly.

We also use the library to check out movies, cd's, etc.  And lately, our library has gotten itself hooked up electronically with a massive inter-library loan system that means we can "order" books (or movies) from just about any library anywhere.

Until this evening, I thought this unfettered access was awesome!

This evening, I chanced upon one of the girls starting a movie she'd ordered through inter-library loan.  It was a movie I'd never heard of.  Requiem for a Dream.   It sounded creepy.  It looked kind of creepy.  When I asked what it was about, she said she didn't know, she hadn't seen it yet.

I got curious, and looked it up.  Wikipedia's initial description doesn't sound too awful.  They say,

"Requiem for a Dream is a 2000 drama film directed by Darren Aronofsky and starring Ellen Burstyn, Jared Leto, Jennifer Connelly, and Marlon Wayans. The film is based on the novel of the same name by Hubert Selby, Jr., with whom Aronofsky wrote the screenplay. Burstyn was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance. The film was screened out of competition at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival.^[1] The film depicts different forms of addiction, leading to the characters’ imprisonment in a world of delusion and reckless desperation that is subsequently overtaken and devastated by reality."

Doesn't sound exactly uplifting, and might even provide a cautionary tale.  I've always kind of liked Ellen Burstyn..... But further research (IMBD) revealed that it's rated NC-17.  Even so, the quick summary at the top of IMDB's page didn't sound that scary.  They said, "Drugs. They consume mind, body and soul. Once you're hooked, you're hooked. Four lives. Four addicts. Four failures. Despite their aspirations of greatness, they succumb to their addictions. Watching the addicts spiral out of control, we bear witness to the dirtiest, ugliest portions of the underworld addicts reside in. It is shocking and eye-opening but demands to be seen by both addicts and non-addicts alike."

Again, a cautionary tale, but that bit about being shocking and eye-opening... bearing witness to the dirtiest ugliest portions of the underworld hints at why it was originally rated NC-17.   When I discovered why it got that rating, I interrupted my daughter to talk about why she ordered it, and whether she knew what she was getting into.  She didn't really answer me, saying only that a friend had said it was good.  I'm not sure she DID know, but either way she shut it off.

It got that rating because of scenes later in the film in which one of the addicted characters essentially sells herself for sex, engaging in orgies, including some on camera sex acts that would make me more than a little bit uncomfortable to watch.  You can read for yourself here, if you're so inclined.

Now, according to Wikipedia, " In the United States, the film was originally rated NC-17 by the MPAA, but Aronofsky appealed the rating, claiming that cutting any portion of the film would dilute its message. The appeal was denied and Artisan decided to release the film unrated. An R-rated version was released on video, with the sex scene edited, but the rest of the movie identical to the unrated version."  Note... edited, not deleted.

And I can't tell from the box containing the disc which version my daughter brought home. I suppose I could watch it myself, and then tell her what's there and let her decide if she's really ready to see that, but frankly, I don't want to watch it.  It sounds horribly depressing.

This is where I start wanting libraries to exert a little more control over who gets to borrow what. Our library already exerts what I consider to be appropriate control over who gets to look at what on the internet while at the library. 

Upstairs, where the general stuff is, in a space between regular fiction (for grown ups), and non-fiction, there's a bank of computers.  I think you have to be at least a teen, but maybe even an adult, to use these computers.  It can tell because among the information they have keyed into your library account is your age.  On these computers, you can pretty much access anything on the internet.

But...

Our library has a wonderful space on the first floor just for kids.  There are computers there that you have to have a child's library card to use.  Those computers don't access any sites that would be questionable for someone under the age of 12.  Parents of four year olds can feel safe letting their kids use the computers (assuming they know how).  They have age appropriate games on them too.

They also have a room just for teens.  This room also has computers.  In this room, you have to have a teen's library card to access the computers.  These computers will go to a broader range of internet sites, but do not go to "adult" sites.  I'm guessing that you can't even get to many sites that deal with recreational pharmaceuticals.

And yet, my 15 year old daughter was able to use her teen library card to check out an NC-17 film???  Or even a film that was originally NC-17, but that had one scene "edited" to sneak it into an R rating.

Really?  Had she gone to the theater, she would not have been allowed to go in to see that film.  After all, the R rating means that no one under 17 can see the film without a parent or guardian (note, that means I'd have to take her), and the NC-17 rating means that no one under 17 can go in at all, even with a parent or guardian.   If she can't see it alone at the theater, why can she check it out of the library?

I'm not saying that I haven't let her see R rated films.  But there's an R rating and an R rating.  Some I have no problem with; others ... well, I prefer to discuss the issues, and/or scenes, with my daughters either before, during or after the film.  It's what I consider to be part of responsible parenting.

I've written to the library, hoping that this was a bizarre event, and that they do, in fact, have some system in place that prevents teens from checking out films they'd otherwise either not be allowed to go in to see, or would at least need their parents along to see.   (Heck, I think they should also have a system in place that prevents 8 year olds from checking out PG-13 movies withou their parent's permission).  After all, we know they know how hold they are -- it's in their account.  Should I have been worried that the girls could bring home Caligula when they were 9? 

Have I become a fuddy duddy?  Have I leapt off the bridge into ultra-conservatism?  Or am I being a reasonable person here?

 

Countdown ... T minus 4 Days....

So.. now that I've found my camera (it was sulking, having been put away for much of WindyCon because I wanted to enjoy the con, not just photograph it), I can show you progress on Golf Pro's sock.

Here's where I am as of 5:00 Wednesday --

Last night, I started just before the decreases and cable crossings began,

The dpn marks where I quit last night, having figured out the cable etc. (It included some frogging, and reknitting).

This afternoon, I snuck in a viewing of the movie 3-Iron.  Very strange flick, but compelling.  The two main characters don't speak.  I'm serious.  She has one line -- very near the end -- and he has none.  For most of the movie, only people who are themselves violent, or who have witnessed violence have any lines at all.

Anyway, despite the subtitles (it's a Japanese film), I managed to finish off that cable, and knit on into the leg.  Then the Mom-Bus was on duty, so I had to stop. The dpn in the next picture shows that spot...

Once the driving duties were over, I snuck in a bit more knitting while watching the first half hour or so of Harry Potter and The Sorcerer's Stone (who? us preparing for the opening of the Deathly Hallow's Part I? nahhh... couldn't be) (and no, Bookworm isn't reading through them all at a prodigious rate either).

Then, Golf Pro and I managed to go out for a moderate dinner just us two! (Bookworm went to a friend's to watch Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets - part two of their Movie Marathon this week, and Kitty went to a French Club dinner, and suddenly we were all alone!).  I snuck in some knitting while waiting for food to arrive -- Golf Pro didn't even notice <evil wicked grin>.

After dinner, there was more driving, but I did get in a few more rounds, leaving me here:

Which felt like real progress until I laid it down to pose with the finished sock.

Suddenly, I feel doomed.  See that cable coming up?  yeah, I have to "read" that one too, and figure out what I did, because the notes are still hiding.  I seem to recall doing something fancy about the heel too.  I hope not :-)

Ahh well, there are two doctors' appointments today, which will give me waiting room time to knit in. We finally get to see Kitty's "Primary Care Physician" for a follow up after her little "incident" last Wednesday.  She really needs to hear from someone other than me that it's actually normal for her brain not to work as well following a concussion -- and that it really truly will get better, but that it will take time.

It's not making things easier for her that she appears to have post-concussive syndrome -- a condition whose symptoms include:

• Changes in your ability to think, concentrate, or remember.
• Headaches or blurry vision.
• Changes in your sleep patterns, such as not being able to sleep or sleeping all the time.
• Changes in your personality such as becoming angry or anxious for no clear reason.*

According to Mayo, these symptoms can last for weeks or months... or even up to a year or more. This will not make Kitty happy.  She's a mentally oriented person, and having her brain act like it's not receiving her radio signals is frustrating and scary.  I'm really hoping that the docs today can at least set her mind at ease, even if we don't get promises of a rapid fix.

*WebMd Concussion Overview

Sunday Mutterings and a few more cables

Well, by golly, it's Sunday(or at least it was when I started this post) -- and so time for Unconscious Mutterings

1. Take :: Five
2. 350 :: (I cheated --- I had NOTHING, so I googled and the number one answer was this. I wonder how many people knew and thus could link it w/o the google?)
3. Stand :: Tall
4. Raspberry :: Vinaigrette
5. Turnstile :: Beatles
6. Infomercial :: irritant
7. Dejected :: glum
8. What’s the word? :: Qu'est-ce que sa veut dire?
9. Awestruck :: Moonstruck
10. Smashed :: bananas

It's also time to show some progress. I've not made a lot on Laminaria since I last posted... but I have reached the point on the Must Have Cardi's sleeves that I have to determine how to make it work to match the size Large front and size Medium back that I'm knitting to make it fit ME.

 

And look, ma, no miscrossed cables! 

While I'm exposing progress, I thought I'd bring out my slowly growing sock.  I'd started to the heel flap on Wednesday, but when I tried it on, just to be sure, I discovered that it stretched a LOT width wise, and thus shrank quite a bit in length, and would be too short to be comfortable.  So, I ripped the flap back, knit a bit further on, and am now much happier with it.

 

This particular cable rib is soooo stretchy (or perhaps pulls in soooo much) that it feels equally snug on my wrist and my ankle.  I had a brief moment during which I considered bailing on socks, and turning these into mitts.  But... this is nice sock yarn; plenty soft for feets, but not soft enough for my delicate (cough) wrists.  Besides, I recently had to wholly retire a pair of socks.  The sock drawer is light!

And finally, it's time to unveil my truly mindless knitting.  I took it out to see Inkheart yesterday, and actually knit so far that I had to tink back half a round.

Moebii are rather like lace in that they look like a wad of nothing while still on the needles.  This one looks like this when you can actually see it.

 

I'm far enough along that I've actually measured how much yarn a round takes so that I can be sure to reserve that much plus a bit for a bind off.  It worked wonderfully well in the movie though... I knit along merrily, my hands doing their thing, and keeping themselves out of the popcorn tub that the girls were diligently emptying.   If I'd paid a scoche more attention, I'd have remembered to start purling at the right spot and no tinking would have been necessary.  Then again, I was marvelling that Paul Bettany could look so attractive -- the last role I saw him play was Silas in the Da Vinci Code, wherein hes was suitably creepy and not at all appealing to me.  Here... he reminds me of Viggo Mortensen.  No wonder I got distracted.

Laminaria has not been forgotten... but I've yet to finish a full chart, so she refuses to pose for a picture.  I'll see what I can do about that.