Debasing the word “banned” into meaninglessnes
Reading into the comments section regarding the Tennessee school district removing Maus from the curriculum unless it finds nothing better, I see stray comments that it is damnedable that a comic book or picture book in entered into this Literature class where all focus ought be on the written word. Word that Maus won the Pulitzer or that this represents a breakthrough for the comic book medium into the field of literary endeavors has not reached everyone, or have been shoved aside for greater currents of educational theory.
To be sure, Harvey Pekar found fault with Maus, the Aesopian or Animal Family trope of creatures making wrongheaded ethnic divisions whether Spiegelman likes it or not. Ted Rall, meantime, either shares some of the assessment or simply finds Spiegelman and his New Yorker clique obnoxious gatekeepers.
I have no opinion on whether Maus should be in this school’s curriculum, and even find some credence in the “stick to the written word” thought. I gather that that Toni Morrison book ought be on that Virginia “smart kids’ class” list, and doubt that the parents objecting have a better option. In both cases the cries of “censorship” and headlines shouting “banned” fall apart — though I suppose Morrison has a firmer claim for the “spirit” of the concept.
Funny thing, I recall the Jason Lutes’s book Berlin getting a negative review in The Comics Journal with the snide observation of “what you are looking for in your bookshelf comic book.”. Maybe the great ” comics as art” journal itself drags the comics field back. But, somehow I turn into a 1962 (or is it 1963?) Archie comic book story that shows how some concerns in the educational curriculum wars land in a wash.
So the big star athlete, lunkhead Moose, was unlikely to make The Big Game because he was unlikely to pass the math test that would grant him academic eligibility. Hijinks ensues as Archie tries to take the test for him, but gets beaten to a pulp by the athlete who was mad at Moose for beating him in a previous football game. In the end Moose surprisingly passes the test and leads the team to this overwhelming victory. And here the math teacher (or History, or English, or home ec — all very arbitrary) Ms. Grundy (probably still Mrs. — or is she an old maid and it is Miss?) divulges to Mr. Weatherbee that she committed academic fraud and loosened the standards to allow Moose to play — and lead the school team to its rousing victory. To which Mr. Weatherbee responds by leading a crowd cheer for Ms. Grundy (which, would imply letting the school student body know that this happened, as too the opposing school team — but they probably do the same thing.)
All might be evidence that Riverdale is located in Texas, where “Friday night football is Sacred”, and such acts are codified and required in law.
Or, one of the ways Archie Comics does not represent reality — at my high school (and this appears a pretty routine arrangement) they solve this problem by having an unofficial class for the athletes taught by coaches.
I suppose there is one virtue to this narrative, as later decades the amorality of the Vaudeville sketches Archie and the gang enact on the page turn to a preachiness and After school Special lessons — and so a reader now suffers there multiple accounts where Grundy takes a stern approach to a failing athlete to grumblings of students and coach, then a lesson is taught when she shows a past graduate let by in lax standards now making a living pumping gas or whatnot, as opposed to the flatlined realpolitick from the first half of the 1960s.
And I guess I overstate the spot in my high school. I only noted one class that was an obvious club spot for jocks (probably not enough of a sports’ program to really and seriously clear anything out) — a Senior year History course by a teacher largely despised by the students who took him in a Sophomore history class, teachers standing by seeming to silently nod an ascent. There is one bizarre note with his class — on some day where a superintendent was in attendance supervising he acted like a serious teacher — and on that one day the class turned to group discussions leafing through various materials — the first time we touched Anne Frank since reading her in sixth grade (and who the He’ll knows what we needed to grasp out of her diary?), ad he made high minded educational and political to the superintendent wholly out of character. The next day we all slid back to the routine which, to be sure, did lazily followed the textbook curticulum enough.
Literature did present a problem. I gather one teacher did think we needed exposure to Wuthering Heights, but — and I can’t guess which — that we were either too deficient in education to read the thing or there wasn’t enough time to read it, so… naturally we watched the movie. Cute and common short cut.