Shopping the 'vicious compliance section': Stores see sales after Alberta book ban

[Scoob]

I went to a Christian private school for the majority of my youth. The school library was small but had a lot of everything but was more geared to engage the younger kids and get them to build a reading habit. For the older kids it was pretty much whatever you wanted to read you could bring. My school cared more that you were reading something and actually interested in it rather than what the book was. For example many a kid in the 8th grade were openly reading LGBTQ books. It was just when that wave was happening but no teacher ever told them to hand it over or put it away. One teacher even used to read her bodice ripper romance novels and leave them out on her desk.

I was a precocious voracious reader as a kid so anything I could get my hands on I read. Hell I even taught myself to read in Spanish when I was 12 from old Tijuana Bibles (not an actual bible its a smutty but not always comic book with soap opera type stories) I'd find at my grandmas house.

The only time I had a limit to what I could read was when I had a child's library card and could only use it in the kids floor. I remember being upset I couldn't check out a book about the Waffen SS (learned about them from old History Channel documentaries I'd wake up early to watch) I had found in the regular floor of the library. I was maybe 8 or 9 when that happened. I also was never limited in what I could watch on TV or what video games I could play.

I'll never support book bans and I sure as hell will never support book burnings which I unfortunately can see some zealot trying to say is the only was to keep certain books from "poisoning" the youth. A local bookstore around me has a few tables of "banned books". I always see those tables with more people around them reading the backs or inside jackets than I see doing the same in the stacks and around the bestsellers tables. Not all banned books are what I'd want to read but someone else probably does and I won't stop them but I will support them. I've bought a few for clearly interested parties that put them back due to price. I'll also buy someone an extra book of two if I see them trying to choose which to buy and which to put back. If it's a kid I'll ask the parent if the parent says no I tell the kid sorry and thats that. Only one time has someone actually gotten mad at me but another customer just told the kid to get the book off that internet library we don't talk about here. The vast majority of people allow it and are thankful. I get it money is tight and books are pricey but books are important too damn it.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by Sarmat89

So what? It is not the government that spends money on that filth, that's what matters.

That's the way I see it. Win-win. People who want to read these books can still get them at a bookstore and the public isn't forced into paying for books they don't want their kids to read in public schools.

I think sometimes people forget that public schools are paid for by the public. And, usually, the public is more conservative than the school administrators, who often seem to be on the cutting edge of "Woke" ideology.

[pdurrant]

Moderator Notice

A reminder that this thread is in News, not P&R, and political comments should be kept to a minimum.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Sarmat89

So what? It is not the government that spends money on that filth, that's what matters.

Yes, some of the banned books do have sexual content. But most do not and you cannot call them filth. I have read some of the banned books and I know that not all of them have sex.

The problem is that small minded bigots are doing the banning.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Terisa de morgan

1984 is filth? Really?

Jaws is not filth.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Quoth

I wasn't considering school libraries. I was considering actual Government bans on books for alleged "Think of the Children".

The UK used to ban books and other media much more than now and the Irish Government was worse.

Movies and the home marketed media get age ratings, some of which can be weird and there is little consistency between countries with swearing, any nudity and violence treated differently.

Censoring is a complex issue. Retroactive bans are always very suspicious.

The UK still bans things for the most stupidest of reasons. The movie The Abyss is banned in the UK for a really stupid reason. There is a scene of a mouse being submerged in a breathing liquid and it's not even a real mouse. It's special effects. I'm an adult and something like The Abyss should be my choice if I want to watch it or not. Parents could have turned on parental controls on Disney+ if they don't want their kids to see that.

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Jaws is not filth.

Nah, but all the characters in the book were jerks and at the end I was hoping for the shark to eat them. Along with the lame ending, I prefer the movie.

Originally Posted by JSWolf

The UK still bans things for the most stupidest of reasons. The movie The Abyss is banned in the UK for a really stupid reason. There is a scene of a mouse being submerged in a breathing liquid and it's not even a real mouse. It's special effects. I'm an adult and something like The Abyss should be my choice if I want to watch it or not. Parents could have turned on parental controls on Disney+ if they don't want their kids to see that.

UK version of Lilo and Stitch censored a scene with Lilo hiding in a laundry dryer, as they didn't want kids trying to do the same. At first they replaced it with a odd table and a pizza box. Later, for TV, they deleted the scene entirely, leading to an awkward cut in the action.

[Quoth]

Cows, crocs, hippos and maybe snakes and spiders kill more people than sharks. Jaws seems stupid rather than filth.

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Cows, crocs, hippos and maybe snakes and spiders kill more people than sharks. Jaws seems stupid rather than filth.

The original book had a subplot with an affair. Can't remember how explicit it was, but it was there.

At the end,

Spoiler:

the shark just suddenly dies of its injuries when it's about to eat the protagonist. It was... unsatisfying. Thankfully they changed for movie.

[Kieran Seymour]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

The UK still bans things for the most stupidest of reasons. The movie The Abyss is banned in the UK for a really stupid reason. There is a scene of a mouse being submerged in a breathing liquid and it's not even a real mouse. It's special effects. I'm an adult and something like The Abyss should be my choice if I want to watch it or not. Parents could have turned on parental controls on Disney+ if they don't want their kids to see that.

The Abyss isn't banned in the UK.

The problem has always been that it was a real rat and not an effect.

James Cameron thought it was okay to subject an animal to what was effectively drowning for the purposes of entertainment. The law here in the UK says that treating animals in that manner is unacceptable, so that scene had to be cut for cinema release in 1989 and it was also cut for the VHS and DVD releases. Disney were apparently fine with the cut being retained for the planned Blu-ray and 4K UHD release last year, but it was Cameron himself who put his foot down and refused to allow it. End result: it wasn't released in the UK.

Your choice to watch The Abyss unedited is fine - I've imported the Blu-ray myself as the home media history of it after the Special Edition VHS in 1992 was just one fiasco after another - but for that scene to not be cut for a UK release or screening, you're first gonna have to explain to the rat in words that it understands that being immersed in a hyper-oxygenated fluid isn't actually drowning it and you're also gonna have to get it to sign a consent form.

Why Cameron chose that particular hill to die on is just one of life's more bizarre mysteries. He could probably have created a replacement CG model for a fraction of the money it cost to destroy the grain structure using his AI 'enhancement' technology.

And, er, someone should probably write a book about it. Or something. And please announce it here as news - quickly!

[issybird]

I have to call a certain amount of FUD here. Two days before the OP, Alberta paused the order as reported in the New York Times as well as other highly reputable news media.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/02/w...smid=url-share

Gift link; click freely.

So. While I have no objection to discussing potential/putative/temporarily halted book bans, I can help feeling that linking to dated news materially altered by subsequent events is a scooch intended to direct the discussion.

And then, I also can but deplore letting a post obviously also intended to stir the pot define the discourse, as in the use of the word “filth”, which was picked up by many subsequent posters and ought, in my opinion, to have been eschewed.

I’m glad the point was made upthread that the Edmonton list of books was poking the bear, apparently successfully. No, the school system didn’t really think 1984 should be banned. I see the Alberta premier has retreated to using the Justice Potter Stewart definition of pornography of knowing it when she sees it, which is good enough for gross distinctions but will still leave plenty of room for argument at the muddled middle.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by Kieran Seymour

The Abyss isn't banned in the UK.

The problem has always been that it was a real rat and not an effect.

James Cameron thought it was okay to subject an animal to what was effectively drowning for the purposes of entertainment. The law here in the UK says that treating animals in that manner is unacceptable, so that scene had to be cut for cinema release in 1989 and it was also cut for the VHS and DVD releases. Disney were apparently fine with the cut being retained for the planned Blu-ray and 4K UHD release last year, but it was Cameron himself who put his foot down and refused to allow it. End result: it wasn't released in the UK.

Weird.
I wonder when real liquid breathing came out? It does exist now. A snag is the density of current working liquids, so uses are limited.

There is a long history of cinema killing animals, if they drowned the rat.
I think 1950s Disney killed lemmings, who don't migrate over cliffs as the Disney supposed documentary showed.

Defining "filth" is even harder than "pornography". Explicit sex is easier to define and not all nudity is pornography, except maybe in USA TV & movies?

Perhaps this thread is nearly pointless.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by rcentros

That's the way I see it. Win-win. People who want to read these books can still get them at a bookstore and the public isn't forced into paying for books they don't want their kids to read in public schools.

I think sometimes people forget that public schools are paid for by the public. And, usually, the public is more conservative than the school administrators, who often seem to be on the cutting edge of "Woke" ideology.

It's not a win-win. Banning books is always a big huge lose for everybody.

As a tax payer, I don't want any books being banned. As a human being, it's abominable.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

Nah, but all the characters in the book were jerks and at the end I was hoping for the shark to eat them. Along with the lame ending, I prefer the movie.



UK version of Lilo and Stitch censored a scene with Lilo hiding in a laundry dryer, as they didn't want kids trying to do the same. At first they replaced it with a odd table and a pizza box. Later, for TV, they deleted the scene entirely, leading to an awkward cut in the action.

Do you know if the dryer scene is edited from Disney+ in the UK?

[PeterT]

From W8kiPedia

Altered scene

A scene where Nani chases Lilo was modified for the UK release so the film could secure a*U (Universal) certificate*from the*British Board of Film Classification.[43]*In the original, Lilo hid in a clothes dryer, which was changed to a commode with a cupboard that has a pizza box used as a "door" to avoid influencing children to hide in dryers.[44][45]*The UK edit has since become the standardized version of the film across all regions, as it would be used for the film's digital and physical releases onward.[44]

which I take to mean that all streaming versions have the dryer scene removed.