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« on: April 09, 2008, 06:52:17 PM »
(WARNING STRONG LANGUAGE USED IN (I hope) A NONOFFENSIVE WAY)
I think it's a bad idea. My reasoning is probably not going to make sense to anybody but it does to me and that's all I care about.
With movies there's a very specific formula type system in place about what rating a movie gets. If it has more than X number of swear words it can't be PG. If it has X amount of blood and guts or naked body parts it can't be PG-13, etc. The formula goes all the way from G to NC-17.
With books I think that would be hard to do. Why? Because half of the story is made up in the reader's own mind. The author provides the words, but the reader provides the images. And what an image one word creates in one reader's mind is going to be different than the image in another reader's mind. To one it might be acceptable, to the other it could be unacceptable. And what would that do for the language of a book?
If you were reading a book set in the 1950s about how blacks were being treated by whites wouldn't you find it a little odd if a white character called a black character an "African-American" instead of a "nigger" or "negro". You'd want the language to fit the story. If it doesn't it would pull you right out of the story. But if authors are writing books worried about the rating that might get put on their book (and you know they'd put it right on the cover page for all to see) you might end up with stories that are "politically correct" but are not true to the story itself.
One specific example for you. My brother wanted desperately for me to read Lord Foul's Bane by Stephen R. Donaldson. It's the first book in the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, Unbeliever series. When I said I'd consider it he said "oh by the way there's a rape scene towards the beginning of the book". What? I wondered why my brother would read a book like that and why he'd recommend it. I decided I wouldn't read it. For three years he kept pestering me about it. When I told him why I wouldn't he explained to me why the rape scene is important to the story. He also said it wasn't graphic. I eventually read the book. And he was right.
Yes, the main character rapes someone and no it's not graphic but it is powerful. And it's crucial to the story. Had the author tried to change that scene (or take it out altogether) for a more pleasing rating not only would that book fail but the whole series would fail. So much in the series is riding on that one scene not for what the character does but how he reacts to it emotionally and intellectually. That is what the scene is about. (SPOILER: Covenant rapes the girl because in the real world he is a leper and can't feel anything in his hands and feet. When he gets magically transported to The Land he is cured with a mud that brings vitality (and a second sight) back into his body that he hasn't felt in so long. This overwhelms him and causes him to rape his guide.) The scene is not in the book to titalate or arouse anyone. It's there for the emotional upheaval the character goes through and the whole series is riddled with the consequences of that one action.
I wouldn't want a negative rating on a book cover to keep me from reading a good a book. And I wouldn't want an author to be thinking of what rating his work might receive while he's writing it. And I wouldn't want him to change his writing to get a particular rating higher or lower for some type of status or notoriety from the general public. I do think that more content warnings need to be given for books listed on line in places like Amazon or Barnes & Noble. At a book store you can handle the book and spot read pages. But buying online is buying blind. I would support a website that listed books and some objectionable contant that people could puruse. Something like:
Lord Foul's Bane by Stephen R. Donaldson
content: rape
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
content: racism
Or something like that. For me though most of the new books that I read have been recommended by someone who tells me up front if there's something there that I might not like.