And to think I’ll never see it again on Mulberry Street.
Is The Chas in a tizzy over the antics of the dizzy who are using their writer’s tools to turn us all into fools?
You bet he is, just like nobody’s biz! He’s ready to bust a gut over the attempt to erase some “smut.”
Look here, people, we’re talking about Dr. Seuss, Dr. Seuss, for Pete’s sake!, who, in The Chas’ humble opinion, was the world’s greatest author of children’s books. He entertained three generations (and counting) of children, children-at-heart, and other folks, few of whom could possibly be considered racist or bigoted. How could anyone conflate his silliness and fancifulness with a rant about “inferior people”? It boggles the mind. And, yes, yours truly was a dyed-in-the-wool Seussist. (He still is, if truth be told.)
The six Seuss stories are not the first of his output would-be censors have targeted. The Lorax was on the hit list of the logging industry some years ago, because the title character opposed the chopping down of trees. The Good Doctor was, among other things, an environmentalist.
Many novels, now considered classics, were targeted by busybodies when they first appeared, and some of them are still taboo, for one reason or another.
For example, Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn irked African-American groups because of the use of the “N-word.” It should be pointed out, however, that only certain characters used that word but not the narrator; it was included because its use was the norm in Twain’s world, and he had to be realistic in order to make his point.
Similarly, Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird was called out because it contained racial slurs. As another Southern writer, she wrote about what she saw and heard.
Salman Rushdie earned himself a death sentence for writing The Satanic Verses, a satire of Muslim hypocrisy, and he has been incognito ever since.
The anti-war novel, All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, was part of the book-burning spree by the Nazis who considered it “unpatriotic.”
Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World irked the moralists of the day for its alleged anti-religious views and mockery of traditional family values (which were never explained).
John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath took it on the chin when officials in the county in which the novel was set complained that the vividly described brutal working conditions of the Joad family put the county in a bad light.
D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover may hold the record for being on the banned-books list the longest due to its unabashed sexuality.
And would you believe that the Judeo-Christian bible has no fans in the non-Judeo-Christian world because of its “religious views”? One could say that about other “holy books,” but one would be treading dangerous ground if one did.
The list of banned books is long and getting longer. The latest additions revolve about the LGBTQ controversy which has the moralists in a super tizzy.
Censorship for any reason (with the exception of child pornography) is, or ought to be, abhorrent to any reasonable individual. There are all together too many self-righteous, self-appointed, arbiters in these United States who think they know what’s good for you. It matters not whether they are being politically correct, morally correct, or intellectually correct; when they attempt to dictate other people’s reading habits, those whom they target are deprived of their livelihoods, their voices, their reputations, and ultimately their very humanity. In the case of deceased writers who no longer can defend themselves, it behooves the living to take up the gauntlet.
No one says you have to read anything which you think may offend you. No one puts a gun to your head and tells you to read this, that, or the other. What you must do, however, is to allow other people a choice in their own reading material.
So, leave Dr. Seuss alone. He is not the enemy.
Just a thought.