I gather it’s not easy being gay in Tennessee. If you listen to country music, most of it seems to be about the value and nobility of small town life — hard labor, cheap beer, and church on Sunday. There’s not much room in there for difference, let alone anything not considered manly. It seems the rest of the state isn’t much different from Nashville’s music. The state senate has recently approved a bill that would prevent teachers from discussing anything related to homosexuality before the ninth grade.
Posts Tagged ‘censorship’
Don’t Say Gay in Tennessee
Saturday, May 21st, 2011Mark Twain Gets Cleaned Up
Wednesday, January 5th, 2011Some years ago, my mother-in-law, a theatre director, staged a production of South Pacific at a high school whose students were about 80% Asian, including many of Japanese heritage. Because it made no difference to the plot, she changed or eliminated the derogative term “Jap” from the script. Now, a new edition of Mark Twain’s classic novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, is about to get the same treatment.
Four-Letter Television Coming Soon
Friday, July 16th, 2010Like a lot of parents, I suspect, I try to curtail my use of obscenities when the kids are around. I’m not always successful, but I do try. It’s not that I think that hearing certain words will somehow turn them evil; it’s that I’d just as soon my kids weren’t introduced to such language and such a young age. I’m not going to completely shield them from rough language, but I’ll do my best to avoid adding to what they do encounter. Especially since, in the future, they may be encountering swearing somewhere they hadn’t previously: on television.