Banned book: Anne Frank's Diary
January 29, 2010 2:25 PM   Subscribe

School system in Va. won't teach version of Anne Frank book The school system didn't follow its own protocol concerning book complaints, opting to hastily ban it after just one oral complaint.

Please refresh my memory: which other group was into banning books?
posted by Neekee (29 comments total)

This post was deleted for the following reason: Please no editorial gotchas in posts. It's a terrible way to frame stuff for metafilter. -- cortex



 
Oh good god.
posted by boo_radley at 2:26 PM on January 29, 2010


Please refresh my memory: which other group was into banning books?

You were right at the goal line!! And then you tried to showboat a little and you fumbled the ball and now you've just brought shame on your entire family.
posted by xmutex at 2:27 PM on January 29, 2010 [20 favorites]


Please refresh my memory: which other group was into banning books?

The Texas school board? The Catholic Church? The followers of Savonarola? The godless commies?

Help us out, here.
posted by kenko at 2:28 PM on January 29, 2010


The Okefenokee Glee 'n Perloo Union held a weekly book-ban, I think.
posted by kenko at 2:29 PM on January 29, 2010 [1 favorite]


Small community does something outlandish. News at 11.

This isn't Texas changing the Nation, it's a small community banning a book in an apparent knee-jerk reacation.
posted by filthy light thief at 2:31 PM on January 29, 2010


If I could, I would ban Dan Brown.

Does that make me a Nazi. All right. I'm a Nazi.
posted by Astro Zombie at 2:32 PM on January 29, 2010


it makes you a Dan Brownshirt.
posted by kuujjuarapik at 2:33 PM on January 29, 2010 [19 favorites]


One record dating to 1983 from an Alabama textbook committee said the book was "a real downer" and called for its rejection from schools.

Yeah, that's a good reason.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 2:34 PM on January 29, 2010


let me turn the oven up to 411, I'll take care of this for them...
posted by HuronBob at 2:36 PM on January 29, 2010


Didn't they ban oral complaints?
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 2:38 PM on January 29, 2010 [1 favorite]


Ah, this would be the version that Anne Frank's father suppressed, until 50 years after her death.

So, the school system is just like Anne's father, Otto Frank!

What do I win?
posted by UbuRoivas at 2:39 PM on January 29, 2010


They're not totally removing the book. They're using an older version that excludes the hot lesbian stuff. It's a very cruel thing to do the boys in the class, but the central message of "Nazis are very bad people and you don't want to be one" will still be there. The "you should ask your same-sex friend if you can feel her up" message is what's being censored.

Don't get me wrong, I'm outraged. That passed for "hot" when I was young, and I believe the children are our future, and I weep for those adolescent boys.
posted by Mayor Curley at 2:40 PM on January 29, 2010 [6 favorites]


It's easy to go overboard when Holocaust deniers are everywhere, trying to put the lie to the most documented genocide in history, when survivors and witnesses are still alive to tell about it.
posted by toodleydoodley at 2:41 PM on January 29, 2010


I had read that the patents complained about the use and description of the word "vagina."
Now I can understand how godless people would talk about such things and how religious people might not this sort of thing discussed, but after all, we know that girls have such things cause we know too about Intelligent Design.
posted by Postroad at 2:43 PM on January 29, 2010


> One record dating to 1983 from an Alabama textbook committee said the book was "a real downer" and called for its rejection from schools.

If I'd been on that committee I would have facepalmed so hard my hand would have gone through the back of my head.
posted by The Card Cheat at 2:43 PM on January 29, 2010 [1 favorite]


kuujjuarapik: "it makes you a Dan Brownshirt."

thread... redeemed... temporarily.
posted by boo_radley at 2:43 PM on January 29, 2010


wait, we haven't yet heard from the people who claim that Otto Frank fabricated the whole thing
posted by toodleydoodley at 2:49 PM on January 29, 2010


To be fair the book IS a bit of a downer...
posted by anti social order at 2:50 PM on January 29, 2010 [2 favorites]


Whoever complained needs to be sent to a death camp.
posted by Jimmy Havok at 2:50 PM on January 29, 2010


wait, we haven't yet heard from the people who claim that Otto Frank fabricated the whole thing

Not that any of those denial loons inhabit these parts, but Wikipedia has a nice little bit crushing those claims.

Getting back to this post: I will never understand book banners of this sort.
posted by Sticherbeast at 2:53 PM on January 29, 2010


You know who else liked to send people to death camps?
posted by UbuRoivas at 2:54 PM on January 29, 2010


> They're using an older version that excludes the hot lesbian stuff. It's a very cruel thing to do the boys in the class...

I was once a teenage boy, and as such I could read all sorts of shit and get turned on. Sex ed textbooks, John Updike novels, comic books...even Dragonlance books.

But The Diary of Anne Frank?
posted by you just lost the game at 2:54 PM on January 29, 2010


"which other group was into banning books?"

TONIGHT I GOTTA CUT LOOSE, FOOTLOOSE, KICK OFF YOUR SUNDAY SHOES

Wrong one?
posted by mr_crash_davis mark II: Jazz Odyssey at 2:54 PM on January 29, 2010


Who's Anne Frank?
posted by deacon_blues at 2:55 PM on January 29, 2010 [1 favorite]


let me turn the oven up to 411, I'll take care of this for them...

So you're anti-book burning but pro-lightly toasting them?
posted by turaho at 2:58 PM on January 29, 2010 [4 favorites]


deacon_blue, I think she's some relative of Paul Frank. If this is indeed the case, I would consider the book bannable because of its tenuous relationship to Paul Frank alone.
posted by filthy light thief at 3:00 PM on January 29, 2010


An oral complaint?

Dude, some of us are at work!
posted by box at 3:06 PM on January 29, 2010


They should replace it with Lisa Frank. She's never a downer.
posted by scrutiny at 3:07 PM on January 29, 2010


Is Anne Frank anything like Ze Frank? Cuz I just don't get that humor.
posted by blue_beetle at 3:08 PM on January 29, 2010


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