The existence of an official Presidential reading list, about which rumors surfaced last week, seems the perfect invitation for jokes about the President's mastery of the English language. Are the collected works of our dear old Dr. Seuss on the list, or has he graduated to The Hardy Boys, for instance? However, most of the resulting snarkiness has not focused on the existence of the official list but the reputed existence of an unofficial list, prominently featuring Tom Wolfe's latest satirical opus "I Am Charlotte Simmons." According to Elizabeth Bumiller in the New York Times, Mr. Bush has been enthusiastically recommending the book. While I agree with our President that "Charlotte Simmons" was worth reading, primarily as a social commentary, I find it interesting that he would recommend such a risqu book in the wake of the recent wave of moralizing that has swept both the Bush administration and the country at large. This preference for this particular novel is an interesting contrast to recent attempts to control morality by members of President Bush's party and administration.
"I Am Charlotte Simmons" is a morality tale turned social critique that focuses on the adventures of a backwoods valedictorian at fictional Dupont University, widely held to be modeled on Duke and Stanford. The novel is filled with pages of expletives, endless accounts of drunken debauchery, and other events similar to those that have been objected to in everything from Oscar-nominated films to children's cartoons. Thus, the novel seems to be an interesting choice of bedtime reading for Mr. Bush, especially considering the similarity between Charlotte's college experience and that of both the President himself and his daughters.
An attack on "Charlotte Simmons," however, would be in keeping with the rash of small-scale moral controversies that have been in the headlines recently. What is interesting about these various attempts to protect our children and legislate morality is that they seem to all be over trivial issues. It seems a waste of energy and resources to target cable or public television shows that have a comparatively small audience. Indeed, such attacks appear foolish and trivialize the issues. While the ostensible motivation of protecting children seems legitimate, the overall ridiculousness of the claims makes more worthwhile efforts seem just as silly.
The first instance of the recent string of purported immoralities on the national scene was an accusation that Nickelodeon favorite SpongeBob SquarePants was gay. The objection was raised by Focus on the Family chairman James Dobson after SpongeBob appeared in a tolerance-promoting video produced by the We Are Family Foundation. According to CNN, Dobson alleged that the real purpose of the video was "to desensitize very young children to homosexual and bisexual behavior," which in turn could confuse children and impose ideas of unconventional family structures. The same allegations could be extended to the television show itself, since SpongeBob, like many cartoon characters over the years, lacks a visible family structure, has a male best friend -- a starfish named Patrick -- and watches a television show about two superheroes named Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy. To make such allegations, however, assumes that SpongeBob's fan base is going to be able to see these nuances, an assumption perhaps as ludicrous as the charges against SpongeBob himself.
Similar allegations of promoting homosexual family structures were lodged against another children's cartoon, the PBS television show "Postcards from Buster," in which the character from the popular program "Arthur" travels around the United States meeting children and their families. In an episode objected to by Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings, Buster visits two lesbian couples and their children in Vermont. In the wake of the controversy, PBS has decided not to distribute the episode, although a number of its affiliates have decided to air it. PBS's decision to withhold the episode is troubling, partly because it belies the organization's vaunted commitment to educational and diverse broadcasting, but also because it takes this latest skirmish in the culture wars so seriously. By doing so, it validates these trivial objections and gives them more credit than they are worth.
Ultimately, the debate over SpongeBob and Buster is only part of the larger debate over the extent to which public authorities and opinion leaders, and by extension the government they influence, should be able to legislate morality. The problem with the allegations against these cartoons, however, is they bring the debate down to a level of ridiculousness that trivializes the larger issues of promoting diversity and allowing artistic freedom while still preserving a parent's right to control what their child sees. For now, though, "Charlotte Simmons" is safe from this debate because, at a whopping 676 pages, it is probably not accessible to the same audience as the controversial cartoons, or, some would contend, even to the President. Just wait until "I Am Charlotte Simmons" the movie comes out. We'll see how eager Mr. Bush is to endorse it then.
