#341 Ado- Connie Willis
It’s springtime and the English Lit teacher is about to
begin her section on Shakespeare. However, in this period of time, due to
oversensitivity, most literature has been banned or halted by injunction. Just
by announcing the start of Shakespeare, protests sprung up.
“Delilah was outside the school when I got there, wearing a
red Seniors Against Devil Worship in the Schools t-shirt and shorts. She was
carrying a picket sign that said ‘Shakespeare is Satan’s spokesman.’ Shakespeare
and Satan were both misspelled.”
Trying to figure out which works were still allowed, the
teacher and principle sifted through the objections:
-The Royal Society for the Divine Rights of Kings objected
to Richard III because there was no proof that he has killed the princess…they
in fact objected to all the plays about Kings.
-Angry Woman’s Alliance objected to the Taming of the Shrew,
Merry Wives of Windsor, Romeo & Juliet, and Love’s Labor Lost.
-The American Bar Associating objected to The Merchant of
Venice…as did Morticians International due to defaming of the word casket.
-The Sierra Club objected to As You Like It because Orlando
carves Rosalind’s name into a tree.
ETC.
They settle on Hamlet but now must go line-by-line taking
out any and all objectionable lines. What they have left amounts to a few lines
of nonsense.
“Hamlet…is that the one about the guy whose uncle murders
the king and then the queen marries the uncle?”
“Not any more.”
Somewhere in here is a great idea for a satirical look at
censorship in education, but this widely misses the mark. It follows a
formulaic spiral down the slippery slope of the rabbit hole. The end, where
another group gets a court order to make Delilah change her sign and she
angrily asks: “What’s happening to our right to freedom of speech”—is so cliché
it’s, almost a pun. I guess with such rich subject matter, I was hoping for a
little more edge, a little more bite, more nuance. Maybe the editor cut those
things out.
No comments:
Post a Comment