America is known as the land of the free, the land of opportunity. So, censorship should be pretty limited, right? Citizens are allowed to say, do and put out what they want on anything they like as long as it’s not hateful, harmful or threatening.
That should be the case, but digging deeper into the topic shows that media censorship can definitely be a problem when people abuse it, as seen in multiple different areas of its reach.
As human beings, we have opinions and personal beliefs, and sometimes, people in higher areas of authority censor things that they don’t believe in personally. This happens in education, politics, religion and human rights.
In politics, media censorship can be harmful because some use it to silence opposition and stifle people’s engagement with certain information. It can also silence people and criticism so others aren’t fully aware or informed of important, sensitive information that could otherwise change their opinion or have them looking at other options.
The same thing can happen in education about information students should be aware of. If historical events were being removed or pieces were omitted from the curriculum, students could develop a potentially wrong and different understanding of the past.
In some schools, in certain states like South Carolina, West Virginia and Alabama, slavery is censored and minimized in lessons. The significance of it is downplayed, as is the sheer brutality that people had to go through. Abolitionists, mainly Black abolitionists, are often underrepresented, and their contributions are downplayed or omitted because of the abuse of media censorship in education.
A lesson for second grade that was reported on by The Tribune praises and approves of Gen. Robert Lee’s skill and capability on the battlefield and his peaceful preferences surrounding disagreements during the Civil War. However, it fails to mention that Lee was a slave owner, well-known for his punitive ways with them, according to the San Antonio Current.
However, media censorship can also come in much smaller forms and variations. It can come in smaller genres, like what musicals can be performed in schools, what movies students can watch, what books they read and what they learn in certain classes.
Many musicals are deemed too inappropriate to perform in schools, and the ones that aren’t have inappropriate parts and lyrics censored to acceptable terms. There are high school versions of musicals for this very reason.
“Pretty much every show that I’ve had any sort of hand in directing or helping with, there is always some content that we have to tone down,” choir teacher ,Jaclyn Richardson said. “Musical theatre is full of innuendos … (and) political jokes. There were things in Addams Family and Mean Girls that we were like, ‘Okay, we need to pull back on this.’”
Even books like “The Catcher in the Rye,” “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “The Bluest Eye” are banned in some schools due to them dealing with sensitive topics. For the same reason, movies like “Schindler’s list,” “Train Spotting” and “Boys Don’t Cry” aren’t shown in schools either. All of these books and movies deal with topics such as genocide, concentration camps, drug use, abuse, death, sexual assault, racism and sexism, which makes schools weary of showing them to students.
“The Catcher in the Rye” was first challenged and banned from different schools all across the US.S. in 1977, and it’s been continuously banned since for the topics it covers, such as racism and offensive language.
The banning of these books can lead to students being out of touch with history and personal issues, as it might lead them to have little understanding of the past or believe that they’re alone if they’re going through a similar situation a character went through.
This is the land of the free, and it is full of plenty of opportunities. However, society does have to be cautious of media censorship and when it is taken too far.
