Call it the longest kiss in the history of pop culture: It started in 2010 and continues today.
The liplock between Hulkling and Wiccan, two characters in “Avengers: The Children’s Crusade,” originally was published by Marvel Comics in magazine form nine years ago. It was reprinted in the collected edition of the series in 2017.
But only last week did the smooch really start to turn heads.
Hulkling and Wiccan are both male, a fact that so concerned Marcelo Crivella, the mayor of Rio de Janeiro, that he ordered law enforcement agents to seize all copies of the collection from the city’s International Book Fair. The raid was a bust, however, since all copies were purchased by buyers ahead of the raid, likely in anticipation of how much the book would sell for on the secondary market now that it had been targeted.
Crivella is also a preacher, and he believes books like this “need to be packaged in black plastic and sealed” before purchase, making him the latest in a long series of misguided people who believe that just because something offends them personally it must be hidden away from view or restricted for the rest of the world.
Now the situation is worming its way through the Brazilian court system, with one judge ruling that Crivella could not seize books in the future or revoke the book fair’s permit, and another judge ruling that he could, according to the New York Times.
The situation is worth noting here in the United States, where similar attempts to restrict content are more common than readers might think. Later this month, the American Library Association will mark Banned Books Week, an annual effort to spotlight First Amendment rights of Americans to read what we want without censorship.
Many censorship attempts occur in public school libraries, where parents will protest the inclusion of particular books and request or demand their removal or restriction. Some school administrators and school boards, eager to head off bad publicity, will accede. When they do, the book has been banned. When they do not, the book has been challenged, based on the ALA’s definitions.
Hence, some readers found their right to read the following books jeopardized in 2018: “The Hate U Give” by Angie Thomas, seen as too negative toward police officers; the “Captain Underpants” series by Dav Pilkey, too encouraging of disruptive behaviors; and “Thirteen Reasons Why” by Jay Asher, too focused on teen suicides.
But far and away the No. 1 reason for the top books on the list to be challenged is the inclusion of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex and Asexual themes. LGBTQIA+ was cited in five of the top 11 most-challenged books last year.
Let’s be clear: Parents have the absolute right to restrict their own children’s access to any books, movies, or online content they find offensive. What they don’t have the right to do is to restrict other parents’ children from accessing those materials.
And censorship is that slipperiest of slopes: Once you start down the path of determining what is offensive to a community, it’s hard to know where to stop. One person’s vulgarity is another’s realistic depiction of life. The drawing of lines needs to extend no further than the door to each person’s home.
And a few points to keep in mind about Mayor Crivella’s attempts:
To my knowledge, no pop-culture depiction of two same-sex characters kissing ever made a reader gay. It might have made him or her aware that other people are gay, or that it’s acceptable in most social circles in 2019 to be gay, and that people shouldn’t judge other people for being gay, but it never made a heterosexual person say, “I think I’ll be that.”
Secondly, when you call attention to an alleged problem, be sure you’re ready to accept the unintended consequences. In this case, I’m sure Marvel Comics will be happy to accommodate readers who want to see what all the fuss is about by going back to press on a nine-year-old story.
And so the long kiss continues.
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cschillig on Twitter
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