Back during the WSJ YA flareup, someone made a comment on an agent's blog about how she appreciated clean YA books. She cited one in particular that was exciting, but had no sex or cursing. It did, however, have someone getting stabbed in the eye (among other things).
Likewise, I've also seen reviewers describe THE HUNGER GAMES as clean/safe for children to read. Again, no cursing or sex. Just people getting their faces melted off.
Perhaps these are clean books b/c kids don't make a habit of killing, whereas swearing and
It's old-school people wanting the purity of "The Wizard of Oz" in a world dominated by Grand Theft Auto (Is that still popular? I'm not a gamer, so I don't know. I'm kind of winging this.)
ReplyDeleteInteresting point. This makes me think of TV and movies. The ratings seem to be much more focused on sex and language than on violence. I think violence is such a big part of entertainment in our culture that we don't see it the same way. It is very odd.
ReplyDeleteRick, I can already see a mashup of Dorothy in the driver's seat, Toto with a machinegun riding shotgun :).
ReplyDeleteAnna, violence is definitely an industry in and of itself. Though I'm ambivalent on the side FX, I'd bet a whole lot of money I don't have that they're more severe than those of rampant realism of sexuality and colloquial language (though perhaps one begets the other).
I was just pondering this the other day after reading an article about the Supreme Court's ruling on video games falling under the First Amendement--they do.
ReplyDeleteWhy is a nipple obscene but decapitation is roaring good fun? Not that I dislike violence in my cinema--in fact I enjoy a good shoot 'em movie. But I do not understand the attitudes about sex and sexuality being such taboo subjects while people explode on TV. Maybe it's our Puritan history?
I'm not sure. But then I consider that while sex is hush-hush at family dinner time, the exploitation of the (most often female) body is rampant in advertising and entertainment.
Example: There's a giant billboard on a nearby major interstate that is nothing but cleavage. Large boobs, proudly displayed to everyone who passes by. Do they need a rating for that? It's certainly not G, but any kid in the backseat can see it.
Anyways, I'm not sure where I'm going with this except to say: I feel ya, bro.
Stephanie, great commentary, especially the parts about advertising. As long as it sells, right? Not sure if that's the sway of capitalism or humanity's predilection for hypocrisy. Probably a nice globby mess of both.
ReplyDeleteDitto, Stephanie :) I hate the amount of sex in advertising, and it doesn't matter what you're watching on TV or listening to on the radio. I'm no prude, but certain products shouldn't have exposed female body parts. I've been personally turned off from buying products because I couldn't get the visual of the over sexed girl out of my head.
ReplyDeleteI do think seeing too much violence is bad for our kids. That said however, my 13 yo plays some pretty violent games with my permission . .
........dhole
Christian publishing is the same way. Can't curse, can't have sex, but shooting someone in the face is fair game.
ReplyDeleteAnd Thailand has sort of taken this to the extreme. In TV and movies, they will fuzz out cigarettes and alcohol and cut anything worse than kissing (sometimes kissing too). And yet my daughters' teachers think nothing of showing them some random horror flick during freetime.
I agree with you, that we should be rating based on sex, language, AND violence. That said, my pirate and ninja novels have violence all over the place, with hardly any sex or (severe) language to be seen.
So I guess I write clean YA :-D
- Donna, I hear ya on the sexploitation front, and definitely don't encourage gratuitous sex/cursing/violence in any form... just wonder why violence is more acceptable, when in my mind it's equally (if not more - see PTSD) psychologically damaging.
ReplyDeleteRE: video games - my experience with the more violent ones is that they tend to also have buxom women in them... in the vid game Rick mentioned, for example, you can go around abusing (quite violently) hookers.
As stated in the post, I think some of it has to do with reality. Your kid's probably not gonna go out and chainsaw somebody (i.e. Gears of War), whereas sex is a more viable option. Perhaps that's why violence is less taboo than sex (the basic primal act) in the YA world. Still beyond my comprehension.
- Adam, thanks for the perspective. I'm not knocking 'clean' YA by any means, I just don't like the currently accepted definition. If your pirates/ninjas slash people with swords/kill people, yeah, I'd qualify it as mild/clean, but if the details become more graphic (eviscerations, beheadings etc.), then I think we've crossed into Bane territory :). And yeah I think cutting cursing or coming up with a new cursing language w/o changing other aspects of the language... well, I kind of get pissed off.
KD has no sex, but there's some language, and some very dark violence. And you know what, I was more worried about the language, and I think that's part of the reason this has been a bee in my brain.
I didn't think you were knocking clean YA. I just think it's funny that I write it (by this funny definition :-).
ReplyDeleteThe language in my pirates world was changed not to make it "clean," but to make it unique. Cleaning it up was a bonus (though it's not clean in the strictest sense: plenty of damns and bastards in there still).
Adam, true - just knocking the reviewers who think stabbing someone in the eye is clean, ha!
ReplyDeleteAnd frankly, I'd have trouble seeing a pirate drop one of the big 4s (sailors curse, dammit, not pirates).
I'm so desensitized I'm not the best person for advice. I will say clean is subjective, and you can't make everyone happy. I heard SPEAK by Laurie Anderson was banned from libraries for the sexual content. (Do you remember the word SPEAK people added to their twitter avatars?) I promptly purchase the book and was TOTALLY disappointed, in the sexual content that is. They had to kissing scenes in her room secretly but not even first base. Who the hell knows what's clean? I say write from the heart and let the publishers sort through it.
ReplyDeleteI have always said: don't blame the writer, blame the society they portray. And as a YA contemporary writer portraying a society that's not so clean, they can have a field day if I'm ever published (I'll send them a highlighted copy with everything they won't like).
ReplyDeleteDana, amen!
ReplyDeletePaul, based on the comment alone (never mind your outstanding blog) , I hope you are pubbed very soon, my friend.
Personally, I'd prefer my kids reading something that has curse words than a book full of morbid things and violence.
ReplyDeleteSo yeah, what the hell is clean?? :P
For the record, I'm just as opposed to graphic violence in kid books (I still haven't let my kids read Hunger Games, even though I adore the books. When they're teens, we can renegotiate.).
ReplyDeleteA lot of hypocrisy. I don't understand why violence is okay for kids, but cursing and sex is not.
ReplyDeleteAgree. I'm pondering a semi-YA concept right now, and am trying to decide if I keep it PG, G, PG-13, R, or what.
ReplyDeleteIt's hard to write around the violence, because that's a key point-of-action. Sex and cursing are easy to clip, but a good gunfight or knife fight or such, you can't clip that without detracting from the story.
- Eric