Censorship Books - Page 4

The Miracle Case: Film Censorship and the Supreme Court (Landmark Law Cases & American Society)

Laura Wittern-keller, Raymond J., Jr. Haberski

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Editorial Review:

It was only a forty-minute foreign film, but it sparked a legal confrontation that has left its mark on America for more than half a century. Roberto Rossellini's Il Miracolo (The Miracle) is deceptively simple: a demented peasant woman is seduced by a stranger she believes to be Saint Joseph, is socially ostracized for becoming pregnant out of wedlock, but is finally redeemed through motherhood.

Although initially approved by state censors for screening in New York, the film was attacked as sacrilegious by the Catholic establishment, which convinced state officials to revoke distributor Joseph Burstyn's license. In response, Burstyn fought back through the courts and won.

Laura Wittern-Keller and Raymond Haberski show how the Supreme Court's unanimous 1952 ruling in Burstyn's favor sparked a chain of litigation that eventually brought filmmaking under the protective umbrella of the First Amendment, overturning its long-outdated decision in Mutual v. Ohio (1915). Their story features a more formidable cast than did the film itself, with the charismatic Francis Cardinal Spellman decrying the film as a Communist plot, while outspoken film critic Bosley Crowther vigorously advocated "freedom of the screen." Meanwhile, movie producers stood by silently for fear of alienating the Church and its large movie-going membership, leaving Burstyn to muster his own defense.

More than the inside story of one case, this book explores the unique place that the movies occupy in American culture and the way that culture continues to be shaped by anxiety over the social power of movies. The Burstyn decision weakened the ability of state censorship boards and the Catholic Church to influence the types of films Americans were allowed to see. Consequently, the case signaled the rise of a new era in which films would be more mature and more controversial than ever before.

Focusing on this single most important case in the jurisprudence surrounding motion picture expression, Wittern-Keller and Haberski add a significant new dimension to the story of cinema, censorship, and the history of First Amendment protections.

This book is part of the Landmark Law Cases and American Society series.

Banned Books: 2007 Resource Book (Banned Books Resource Guide)

Robert P. Doyle

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The Dame in the Kimono: Hollywood, Censorship, and the Production Code

Leonard J. Leff, Jerold L. Simmons

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Editorial Review:

“The triumph of Leff and Simmons’s fine work is that they have reminded us of how fatuous and inimical a code of conduct can be: how tempting it is as a theoretical answer, and how intrinsically flawed it is as a working solution.”—Times of London

“A readable, intimate account of the rise to near-tyrannical power, and the fall to well-deserved ignominy, of the old Production Code Administration.”—Atlantic Monthly

The new edition takes the story of the Production Code and motion picture censorship into the year 2000, including the creation of the PG-13 and NC-17 ratings in the 1990s.

Forbidden Words: Taboo and the Censoring of Language

Keith Allan, Kate Burridge

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Editorial Review:

Many words and expressions are viewed as 'taboo', such as those used to describe sex, our bodies and their functions, and those used to insult other people. This book provides a fascinating insight into taboo language and its role in everyday life. It looks at the ways we use language to be polite or impolite, politically correct or offensive, depending on whether we are 'sweet-talking', 'straight-talking' or being deliberately rude. Using a range of colourful examples, it shows how we use language playfully and figuratively in order to swear, to insult, and also to be politically correct, and what our motivations are for doing so. It goes on to examine the differences between institutionalized censorship and the ways individuals censor their own language. Lively and revealing, Forbidden Words will fascinate anyone who is interested in how and why we use and avoid taboos in daily conversation.

Censorship and Selection

Henry F. Reichman

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Editorial Review:

Censorship! The word itself sparks debate, especially when the context is the public school. Since the publication of the second edition of this landmark book in 1993, wired classrooms, legal challenges, and societal shifts have changed the landscape for the free exchange of ideas. Completely revised and updated, this new edition remains the most comprehensive guide for protecting the freedom to read in schools: For school librarians and media specialists, teachers, and administrators, Reichman covers the different media (including books, school newspapers, and the Internet), the important court cases (including recent litigations involving Harry Potter, the Internet, and Huck Finn), the issues in dispute (including violence, religion, and profanity), and how the laws on the books can be incorporated into selection policies. An entire chapter is devoted to troubleshooting and answering the question of "What do we do if...?" Look no further for the best and most specific information on providing access and facing challenges to intellectual freedom. You'll find answers if you are asking questions like these: * What is the distinction between making selection decisions and censoring? * What are the legal constraints on schools offering electronic information sources and the Internet? * What rights and responsibilities does a school administration have when faced with censorship challenges? * What are the legal precedents that have been set in recent cases relating to popular fiction (e.g., Stephen King, R. L. Stine, J. K. Rowling)? Written by a long-time expert on the protections of the First Amendment and U.S. Constitution, the new Censorship and Selection will provide you with all of the need-to-knows for crafting a selection policy in the digital age.

Kindly Inquisitors: The New Attacks on Free Thought

Jonathan Rauch

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Editorial Review:

Tracing attacks on free speech from Plato's Republic to America's campuses and newsrooms, Jonathan Rauch provides an engaging and provocative attack on those who would limit free thought by restricting free speech. Rauch explores how the system for producing knowledge works in a liberal society, and why it has now become the object of a powerful ideological attack. Moving beyond the First Amendment, he defends the morality, rather than the legality, of an intellectual regime that relies on unfettered and often hurtful criticism. Kindly Inquisitors is a refreshing and vibrant essay, casting a provocative light on the raging debates over political correctness and multiculturalism.

"Fiercely argued. . . . What sets his study apart is his attempt to situate recent developments in a long-range historical perspective and to defend the system of free intellectual inquiry as a socially productive method of channeling prejudice."—Michiko Kakutani, New York Times

"Like no other, this book restates the core of our freedom and demonstrates how great, and disregarded, the peril to that freedom has become."—Joseph Coates, Chicago Tribune

"The philosophical defense of free speech and free thought that seems to have been forgotten. . . . A powerful argument."—Diane Ravitch, Wall Street Journal

MOVIE CENSORSHIP PB (Smithsonian Studies in the History of Film & Television)

COUVARES FG

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Editorial Review:

From the earliest days of public outrage over "indecent" nickelodeon shows, Americans have worried about the power of the movies. The eleven essays in this book examine nearly a century of struggle over cinematic representations of sex, crime, violence, religion, race, and ethnicity, revealing that the effort to regulate the screen has reflected deep social and cultural schisms. In addition to the editor, contributors include Daniel Czitrom, Marybeth Hamilton, Garth Jowett, Charles Lyons, Richard Maltby, Charles Musser, Alison M. Parker, Charlene Regester, Ruth Vasey, and Stephen Vaughn. Together they make it clear that censoring the movies is more than just a reflex against "indecency," however defined. Whether censorship protects the vulnerable or suppresses the creative, it is part of a broader culture war that breaks out recurrently as Americans try to come to terms with the market, the state, and the plural society in which they live.

Censorship: The Knot that Binds Power and Knowledge (Communication & Society)

Sue Curry Jansen

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Editorial Review:

Most Americans tend to view censorship as a repressive aspect of other societies or historical eras, one that touches on our lives only in relation to national security or certain cold war considerations. In this provocative history of censorship, Sue Curry Jansen challenges conventional thought with a bold new view: that censorship, an embodiment of the relationship between power and knowledge, is as much a feature of liberal, market societies as it is of totalitarianisms. Building on an analytic tradition laid out by such thinkers as Marcuse and Foucault, Jansen addresses the notion of "market censorship" and shows how the marketplace has become an arena for liberal "power-knowledge." She also analyzes Marx's critique of bourgeois censorship, examines censorship at various levels of Soviet society, and takes an incisive look at economic censorship within our own capitalist nation. The book concludes with a discussion on strategies of resistance to this powerful, and indeed universal, form of social control.

Censored 2005: The Top 25 Censored Stories

Project Censored

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Editorial Review:

Praise for Project Censored:

"Buy it, read it, act on it. Our future depends on the knowledge this collection of suppressed stories allows us."-San Diego Review

"Devastating evidence of the dumbing down of mainstream news in America. . . . . Required reading for broadcasters, journalists, and well-informed citizens."-Los Angeles Times

"A terrific resource."-Library Journal

"A distant early warning system for society's problems."-American Journalism Review

Project Censored highlights the year's 25 most important underreported news stories, alerting readers to deficiencies in corporate media. And this year, for the first time ever, Censored 2005 will add some original reporting of its own, breaking a major news story in its pages. Censored 2005 additionally features essays by Stephanie Dyer, Ph.D., (on cross-ownership of U.S. broadcast media), and Normon Soloman (on the state of media in the US).

Peter Phillips, director of Project Censored, is an associate professor of sociology at Sonoma State University. He is known for his op-ed pieces in the alternative press and independent newspapers nationwide, including Z Magazine and Social Policy. He frequently speaks on censorship and various sociopolitical issues on radio and TV talk shows, including Talk of the Nation, Public Interest, World Radio Network, and Democracy Now!. He lives in rural Sonoma County, California.

Project Censored, founded in 1976 by Carl Jensen, has as its principal objective the advocacy for and protection of First Amendment rights and the freedom of information in the United States.

The Media and Democracy

John Keane

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Editorial Review:

In this essay, John Keane rethinks the relationship between the media and democracy. He opens up and explores a cluster of vital questions: where did the modern ideals of republican democracy and 'liberty of the press' originate? Have they been destroyed during the twentieth century by new forms of state censorship, or the emergence of transnational media conglomerates, or the growth of electronic media? Do the new digital technologies, satellite broadcasting and the convergence of broadcasting and telecommunications hinder or help these ideals? Is the free and equal communication of citizens through the media a feasible ideal at the end of the twentieth century?

While these questions have long been neglected in social science and in the high-pressured world of print and electronic journalism, Keane restores them to the centre of political analysis and debate. He challenges many conventional assumptions of journalists, academics and policymakers. His essay sets out a radically new account of the importance of the media to democracy and elaborates a new conception of the public service model of communications - a model which would expose invisible power, publicize risks and facilitate 'a genuine commonwealth of forms of life, tastes and opinions'.