"Videodrome is offensive"

[simplyanother]

There are people who wanted to ban "Happy Feet." Yes, yes, they did.

Why? Are dancing penguins really that offensive?

It's not offensive, so much as really really annoying. Granted, I didn't ban it, so much as try to hide the dvd so I didn't have to watch it for the nine hundreth time with my youngest child...who may or may not have a Mumble toy that dances and sings and and...I just really really really really HATE the movie. HATE it. I've banned Madagascar for the same reason.

I suck at banning things though. Somehow, just because I never actually get rid of the movies and keep them within reach of the kids... it means they think they can watch them whenever they want. I think, I've got to move it, move it.

As for banned books and movies, how many of the banned books are actually banned in places or were on lists of books that people wanted to have banned, but were never actually banned?

And my god, I hated The Grapes of Wrath, hated hated it. I wish it'd have been banned for me. I don't think I actually ever finished the book, when it was assigned in [public] high school. I tried. I still have my copy. It's on the shelf. My kids can read it. Or something.

There are all sorts of movies and things that I think have zero value, but meh, I'm not going to ban them. I will wonder about the folks who make them and the folks who enjoy them, but ban 'em, no. Just so long as such things are adequetely labelled--so that I don't accidently pick one up, then I don't care. Granted, I actually pay attention to the crap I pick up at the video store, or the library. Cause I have eyes. And the ability to read and comprehend. And if there is any doubt, my friend google will tell me all I need to know.

I would be pissed if I rented something that was mislabelled, or mis-categorized or mis-represented--that meant that I viewed something I found revolting--but from the complaints you guys post of the customers you have--that almost never seems to happen, it's always some dumbass who saw that something was animated, and ended up renting adult anime for their six year old, or picked up harry potter and was just damned surpirsed as hell that there were blatant references to witch craft in it. Or something.

I wonder what these people would do if they had a legitimate complaint. You also wonder if they don't have the ability to say "Oh crap, I wasn't paying enough attention, and accidently got soemthnig that I found offensive. I guess I learned my lesson now" instead of "it's all your fault! and this movie shouldn't be available AT ALL!"

My god, people annoy me.

(I also wanted to ban Thomas the Tank for being really really boring. Yo Gabba Gabba for tripping me out, Oswald for being voiced by Fred Savage, Spongebob for being stupid, Dora for screeching & Diego for screaming. Maybe my kids watch a bit too much tv. Hell, they definitely watch too much TV. Because I'm a baaaaaaad mom. )

[protege]

We have copies of Mein Kampf on the shelves. There was this one guy who came in and he called it "My Stuggle" and tried to spell "Mein Kampf" and I was being difficult with him. Not because of the book but because if he's not going to bother to spell "struggle" much less "mein" or "Kampf", then we are doing it the hard way. So I got him to type the author's name, but because how the catalog is set up every frickin' book about Hitler popped up. So I get him to scroll through the titles and he passes right by the book.

Speaking of that book, one of my college professors got himself into trouble over it. During our history of warfare class, he wanted to use sections of the book to show us what was going through Hitler's mind before and during WWII. He wanted to show us just what drove that madman, and how it could have possibly been prevented.

Didn't happen though. Even though you can get the book in the US, it didn't happen. Someone higher-up in the college's food chain found out, and cried foul. Too bad. Even though that book is extremely anti-Semitic, it might have been helpful to at least understand some of the ideology.

Still, that was an interesting class--several famous military leaders were covered: Alexander the Great, Wellington, Hitler, MacArthur, to name a few.

[Fenrus]

bring in my playstation and Xenogears to play.

<3 I suddenly love you.

(For those of you wondering, it pretty much insults any structured religion pretty solidly, as well as bringing up the debate between evolution and Creationism)

It's not so much the debate against evolution and creationism... It's more the complete throwing out of half the arguments most creationists use, as well and trying to buff the crap out of science...

Course the game was originally called "Project Noah" but were told it was too offensive... cuz the title would've TOTALLY put it over the edge... haha.

The only offensive thing about it was that you couldn't use Process Id til halfway through the game... >_<

[Ironclad Alibi]

I don't recall any banned books at my high school, but there was a censored book (this was in the mid-60s). We had to read some novel for an English class (I don't remember the name.) The teacher had a stack of the paperback novels to hand out to the class. Someone noticed a word in the middle of the book had been blackened with a magic marker. We quickly checked other copies of the book, and found the censored word. It was "belly." What a let down.

[MrSmiley]

Being awful does not mean it should be banned though. Besides, without MST, you'd never get character names like Crunch Biffsteak, or Manly Hardcheese.

My local library carries MST3K dvds... and years ago they carried the MST3K "movie" on VHS which is how I started watching them in the first place.

I remember "banned book week" in high school. That may be one of the only things I remember about school.....

Who in their right mind would ban classic American literature like Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn?

For every person who might ever call a book a classic, there's someone else with a different opinion. The same thing goes for the tripe that I don't read that's on the best seller lists and flies off the shelves.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_banned_books & http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...ks_in_the_U.S.

On the other hand, the book I'm currently reading technically came from the Juvenile Fiction section (I'm much older), but I didn't put it there!

I'm surprised the Mission Impossible sequels weren't on the list Seriously, towards the end of the second one, did they run out of things to shoot? That damn chase/fight scene bored the hell out of me. Kill him already!

I can't believe there are 3 of them, I didn't like the first one and then they made 2 more! But then, I may also be biased because any film remake that starts out by KILLING ALL THE CHARACTERS except one.... just doesn't appeal to anyone who may have been a fan.

[Geek King]

Course the game was originally called "Project Noah" but were told it was too offensive... cuz the title would've TOTALLY put it over the edge... haha.

Player1 attacks Jesus

Player1 hits Jesus for 12 points of damage.

Player1 has killed Jesus!

[KhirasHY]

It's not quite a banned books list, but I got a version of it. While working for hotels, I have gotten DEMANDS from people that I ban/remove the following groups of people from the hotel (and no, I'm not kidding, they wanted me to empty out rooms with threat of arrest for these groups):

Black people
Latinos
Asians
Gays/Lesbians
Drag Queens
Furries
White people (this one made me laugh since I'm the whitest whitey out there)
Impure Imbibers (and I quote, "How dare you cavort your devil juice to these heathons!? Alcohol is the gateway to hell!" I don't think I ever posted that one, it would've been a good one if I remembered all the details)
Republicans
Democrats
Librarians ()

and finally, the most confusing one I've ever gotten...

Jugglers. We had a group come in that had a few guys who liked to juggle as a hobby...and someone demanded that we kick them out for that.

/facepalm

[depechemodefan]

Funny thing about Grapes of Wrath. My dad loves reading Steinbeck. I got him Grapes of Wrath from the H.S. library and he returns to the public library. I had to go get it back. He told me not to read the book because it was obscene (or nasty, or had cursing, I forgot what). I have to read that book someday.

My dad did give me a copy of The Choirboys by Joseph Wambaugh. It's a book about cops in the LAPD in the 1970's-which should have alerted him that it's not reading material for a 12 year old- that has such characters as Spermwhale Walens, which I think it's the cop who beats up his kids if they don't get straight "A"s and is pissed that his wife is about to drop another rugrat. A lost gay boy who gets shot by the cops by accident (which involved one cop suffering from PTSD from a stint in 'Nam, where he nearly got fried by a flamethrower), another kid who was physically abused. Also, two women who "service" the cops in the park.

Yes, where I came across terms like "hairy box", "diamond cutter" and "frog" (last referring to an unwanted kid a prostitute can't wait to "drop").

Jugglers. We had a group come in that had a few guys who liked to juggle as a hobby...and someone demanded that we kick them out for that.

Maybe he's afraid a juggler will drop a cannon ball on his head.

[Salted Grump]

Still, that was an interesting class--several famous military leaders were covered: Alexander the Great, Wellington, Hitler, MacArthur, to name a few.

Completely Off-Topic

If Hitler Had just stayed with the Ideological 'Rabble-rousing' And not tried to Micromanage the Wehrmacht, Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine, Most people think World War 2 Would have had a vastly Different Outcome, even if Germany would have eventually lost due to attrition.

However, he was once famously (Mis?)quoted as saying 'I have a Communist Navy, a Wiemar Army, and a Nazi Airforce.' Simply because of the degree of integration between each 'arm' of the Military and the poilitical leanings he had.

[Mordecai]

Jugglers. We had a group come in that had a few guys who liked to juggle as a hobby...and someone demanded that we kick them out for that.

Ah, wha????? What exactly was their rationalization for that?

[Reyneth]

Every year my part-time job bookstore has a table of banned books. Right now though we have a small display of "books Amazon doesn't want to sell you." Some customers have remarked that they were impressed that our book lead got it up so quickly. It's been a hit.

[wagegoth]

Back in the 70s, when I was in high school, every year the American History teacher would get a copy of "Triumph of the Will" to use as an example of propaganda and how it was used in Germany to get the country to start a campaign of conquest and the attendant horrors of the Third Reich.

The year I took American History we didn't get to see the movie, as it was decided it was too dangerous and it was removed from the available movies for schools. I don't know if it's still unavailable.