So Sad For Us
How can one country be both a den of hedonism (as the terrorists apparently believe)and simultaneously the most ass-backward, uptight place in the world?
This story makes me so very sad - hot on the heels The Higher Power of Lucky setting off an uproar because it used the word scrotum, now a German book for kids is not getting distributed because of some art featured in the book.
As it turned out, there were a couple of changes that had to be made before the books could be unleashed on the America public. First off, smokers had to be removed from the illustrations. But that wasn't all. One image shows a scene from an art gallery -- and for realism's sake, there is a cartoonish nude hanging on the wall along with a tiny, seven-millimeter-tall statue of a naked man on a pedestal.
American kiddies, obviously, could never be expected to handle such a depiction of the human body. The US publisher, somewhat awkwardly, asked if they could be removed.
The author, not surprisingly, considers the request to be absurd. The statue's mini-willy, the author points out, is hardly even a half-millimeter long. And the naked woman hanging on the wall? Hardly a realistic depiction of the female anatomy. The US publisher, says Berner, was embarrassed to ask for the changes, but they were even more afraid of how American mommies and daddies might react if junior were exposed to such pornography.
The shocking, horrifying pictures?
Yes, the boobies and the "mini-willie" were deemed too shocking and inappropriate for children.
Sometimes I think if people could really go back and live in Pleasantville, a lot of people would do so gladly.