Tag, your it!

Oh…heck no!

Now about the parenting thing….

I think it is more complicated than that. Parents get caught up in the middle of Hollywood/Madison Avenue and the so called Moral Majority tug of war. Once side wants to simply say “switch the channel” when in fact (as I mentioned above) it is they who create artificial boundaries about language, sex and violence, to appear to appease the so called Moral Majority while at the same time using “backdoor” advertising to sell the product anyway.

Its like going to the local bar or sports event. The bar may have a few scantly clad women pushing a brand of beer or cigarettes, but they don’t hand you free beers or packs of cigarettes, they give you T-Shirts, towels and other knickknacks with the brand’s logo on it. You buy first into the brand through the innocent looking hook and then the next thing you know Little Johnny is downing Buds while smoking a pack of Marlboro. Now I exaggerate, but the goal is the same and the results, predictable.

On the other hand you have the aforementioned Moralist who want to paint big bad Hollywood as Babylon on the West Coast. They don’t really care about the kids (at least many of them don’t) they simply want to holler and howl about the so called Culture Wars.

Caught in the middle are artist, actors, and writers who have to navigate the labyrinth of self-censorship, not knowing where the lines lie.

So both sides play this dirty little game and the parents, trying hard to be good parents do their best. Problem is that the labels are arbitrary and do not translate well (if at all) across the media spectrum. Is a YA television show the same as a PG-13 movie or a T rating on a video game?

The key here is responsibility.

Media moguls, stop playing the ratings game, knowing full well that you can drive whole herds of elephants between each rating classification.

Outraged citizens groups, stop with the false outrage and admit that the reason you don’t like certain books is that they might lead your kids to do such dangerous things as…golly gee…THINK!

And Parents, is time for you to take charge and educate yourself. Don’t leave the parenting to others. I’m not telling you HOW to parent, but I am telling you to do IT!

And Kids…oh what the heck…the kids are alright!

That’s quite a thorough answer! All of your points I completely agree with, which is why I’m against the age stamping. It’s just a means of allowing parents to let someone else parent their children while they get the easy way out and everyone else suffers. And Walmart’s a sucker for stifling so I could easily see them jumping on the banning bandwagon. Ick.

What do I think? Do you mind if I hijack your blog for a half an hour or so?

First of all I think it builds a false sense of security on parents, that a simple label will tell them enough to make a fully informed buying decision.

Second, who is in control of the labeling? The authors, agents, publishers, retailers? This brings the twin issues of responsibility in art and in marketing. Artist, especially writers are, in general, pretty responsible when it comes to engaging their audiences (with a few exceptions). They have an audience in mind and for the most part write accordingly. But once the book hits the retailer side, especially if it’s spawns a viable franchise, all responsibility goes out the door. Back door advertising kicks in. and by that I mean when other media is used to circumvent the self-imposed ratings system on the central product of the franchise. If your book has a +16 sticker on it, Madison Avenue suggest that an action figure of the MC, which is 8 and up. Mom may not buy the book (or see the movie, etc) but they will buy the action figure, which ain’t so bad, so then they will also buy the comic book and the DVD and…well you get the picture.

And as you rightly pointed out, it can easily lead costumers to believe that the sticker is about content and not the ability of the target audience, which considering all that you have written about YA and not underestimating a teen/pre-teen audience would be a mistake either way.

Then there is the issue of book banning. Do you want to give this kind of ammunition to people who believe that knowledge is dangerous, especially in the hands of children or teenagers? Expect Walmart and other major retailers to cave in and either put ridiculous ratings on certain books or refuse to sell entire collections that exceed a certain rating (just look on how profitable NC-17 movies are in the US…yeah exactly).

On a final note, which brings me back to who is in control, how about editing decisions. If editors or retailers control this system (which can only be arbitrary in the best of times) won’t they force authors to constantly edit books so that they fit under one type of rating category or another? Or worse, play Hollywood’s eternal titillation game of “How much is too much?” for let say 11+ or some such. Not that some of that doesn’t happen right now, but off all the current forms of media, books are still remain largely free of such artificial boundaries that please no one, yet serve only to squeeze a few more dollars out of an ignorant consumer base.

That’s everything I can think off regarding the subject. Thanks again for letting me vent!