Some parents in Illinois are irate that Angels in America has been made required reading. So, they did what any irrational American would do: they protests the "Racist 'Gay' Porn". And they won. [Earned Media via GNW]
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sad…..
The letter is a bit hysterical – the work is not "racist pornographic smut."
It is an adult work, though, and I can't imagine this being required reading in High School. The parents included a link of all the swear words (221 – they counted!), but also some excerpts that, well … here's one:
Man: What do you want?
Louis: I want you to fuck me, hurt me, make me bleed?
Man: I want to.
Louis: Yeah?
Man: I want to hurt you.
Louis: Fuck me.
Man: Yeah?
Louis: Hard?
Man: Yeah? You been a bad boy?
That's just not for kids.
Sometimes it's not about the content but the overall moral message. Kids understand the subtexts and meanings of movies, music and books. Adults tend to get their panties in a twist over content.
that excerpt provided by HISURFER would indicate to me this is not a work for high school students. I can't imagine what the parents at my country school would have said a number of years ago! On the other hand, why do we worry about words on a page and not the actual pregnancies, diseases and illnesses? There are 50,000 unwed births a year in my state. Seems to me that is MUCH more worth getting upset about than words on a page….But I hear nothing in the news about THAT.
My town would have died en masse from a collective heart attack. I come from farm country, and they wouldn't let us perform Grease because of all the cuss words, and made Daisy Mae cover up when we performed L'il Abner.
Yet for all that, we still got sex ed classes, still learned all about herpes and syphilis and gonorrhea (HIV was still "GRID" and we hadn't even heard of it yet in the midwest), and still learned where to get condoms and when to use them.
There's a balance, yeah?
This is definitely not a play for kids. I love the play, but it is definitely not a play for High School students. It is certainly not racist per se, just one of the characters, a noted racist and noted closet case in life, is. Anybody remember Roy Cohn?
I can't say I'm too broken up about them banning it, because what is more attractive to a teenager. That which is forbidden. Now that they're not allowed to go near that wicked, wicked book, they're sure to read it. Where as if it were required they probably would have gone out of their way not to.