This post takes as its starting point a comment from Jack Thomson’s seminal text, which, even though it was published all the way back in 1987, still resonates today: ‘We claim we are extending students’ understanding of life and enhancing their personal development, but we often choose books that don’t speak to our students about the issues that concern them,’ (p. 12-13 in Manuel & Carter, 2015).
A common thread has historically woven its way through the more difficult conversations I’ve had with occasionally disgruntled parents in my role as Head of English. This thread has to do with the appropriateness – or should I say, the perceived inappropriateness – of the texts studied that can be classified as popular culture. The most difficult conversations which spring to mind have only ever been the result of parental concerns about the content and value of popular novels and films – that is, in over 20 years of teaching, I’ve never once had a conversation about the place of Shakespeare in the curriculum. This despite the fact that the Bard’s plays are littered with sexual innuendos, murder, suicide, suggestions of incest, racism and sexism.
Wholesome reading, right?!
Don’t get me wrong, I am a bona fide Bardophile like most other English teachers, but what saddens me is that the presence of these themes are not considered to be problematic when they appear in texts lauded as classic and yet are lambasted when popular culture texts deal with them for modern, young adult readers. In some instances, it is apparently acceptable for English students to examine canonical texts about the grittier aspects of the human condition, but at the same time perceived by some as inappropriate that the same students to explore texts containing confronting issues relevant to their generation. This situation edges dangerously close to being a form of censorship, which according to Kidd, results in the censor (or in this case, concerned adults) missing ‘the major theme, the total purpose, the effect of a work as a unified whole,’ (2008, p. 201-202).
Giphy source: Wix
Let me turn to a specific example involving Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird and the film version of Craig Silvey’s novel, Jasper Jones (which many hail as an Australian version of Lee’s seminal text). Aside from the obligatory Shakespearean plays studied in Years 10 to 12 by most students of English, To Kill a Mockingbird is a firm favourite on text lists around Australia and the world – and rightly so. At my previous school, for instance, Mockingbird has been part of the Year 10 program for more than 20 years and it doesn’t seem as if there is much evidence in favour of knocking Ms Lee’s novel from its perch (pun intended). The novel’s searing indictment of entrenched racism and injustice, incest, bigotry and sexism has never raised an eyebrow amongst parent and student bodies at my current and previous schools and I’m quite positive there would in fact be an uproar if it was removed from the English course.
However, many of the same themes are also explored in the film adaptation of Jasper Jones which is studied as part of the Year 11 program. Like Tom Robinson, the titular teen character is falsely believed to be responsible for the disappearance of Laura Wishart, who in actuality, tragically took her own life as she was raped and impregnated by her father, the mayor of the fictional 1960s town of Corrigan in which the main action takes place. Jasper is the town scapegoat due to the fact he is Aboriginal and he suffers horrendous racism from the townsfolk, including a brutal beating by the local police sergeant.
Despite the sensitive, beautiful rendering of these young characters and events, the novel and film’s popularity amongst our student cohorts year after year and the educative value it has at both an aesthetic and critical level, it has on occasion been in the firing line for its content, much of which is also found in Lee’s novel. I suspect that the basis for such complaints (which thankfully rare, though nonetheless difficult to have, however sensitively they are dealt with) is that Jasper Jones offers a much more modern, overt rendering of issues that are very tragically relevant to adolescents. But isn’t this in fact an argument in favour of its inclusion?
For me, the fact that adolescent students engage with it avidly (as opposed to the more ‘vintage’ texts in our programs), engage in mature, considered reflections and genuinely empathise with the characters and the issues they battle is reason enough to keep studying it. We need to give our adolescents much more credit for their ability to engage with popular culture texts with critical minds, and not simply, as Jetnikoff posits, view them as ‘passive consumers’ but rather ‘recognise the nature and extent of students’ knowledge of and negotiations with their culture’ (2006, p. 38).
References
Kidd, K. (2009). ‘‘Not Censorship but Selection’’: Censorship and/as Prizing. Children’s Literature in Education, 40:197–216. DOI 10.1007/s10583-008-9078-4
Jetnikoff, A. (2006). Combating Cyclops: critical approaches to media literacy and popular culture in Senior English. English in Australia, 41(1), 37–45.
Manuel, J. and Carter, D. (2015). Current and Historical Perspectives on Australian Teenagers' Reading Practices and Preferences. Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, 38 (2). Retrieved from https://www.alea.edu.au/documents/item/1175