By Christa Protano
When the trailer for the film-adaptation of Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret dropped in early February my social feeds were all abuzz. Mom friends were counting down the days until the film’s release so they can take their daughter and make it a generational event. But I couldn’t help but wonder … (cue Carrie Bradshaw’s sex-columinst voice): Were the morality police going to descend upon movie theaters everywhere come April?
After all, Judy Blume is one of the most frequently challenged authors of our time, with Margaret and four other of her novels challenged or banned in the nineties alone. And since signs of this edgy decade are popping up in current fashion and music trends, is it possible that Blume’s popular coming of age tale will soon find itself back on a banned book list? Well, if Florida has anything to say about it, it just might.
According to the American Library Association (ALA), the rise in book bans and book challenges is unprecedented, with more than 1,200 challenges being filed in 2022. And while LGBTQ+ themes and characters of color are the top two reasons for these challenges, sexual content comes in third, as reported by the non-profit PEN America.
Now, we know you can’t really compare a 1970s book about puberty and teen sexuality to, say, a modern-day Fifty Shades of Grey, but the reason for both books being banned is the same: most people are still afraid to publicly talk about sex (unless you are a member of a certain 90s rap duo). But just because something is banned from the classroom or your local library, doesn’t mean it’s going to go away. In fact, because of the increased media coverage of current book bans, many challenged titles actually see an increase in sales. At the end of the day, sex definitely sells. So if like me, you want to know what all the fuss is about, consider adding these provocative — and once banned — classic novels to your TBR list.
As if an extramarital affair were not enough to raise eyebrows, Fitzgerald’s backdrop of drinking and excess landed this classic novel on the top of the challenged list many a times, according to the ALA. Most recently, Gatsby was challenged at the Baptist College in Charleston, SC, in 1987 because of language and sexual references.
When English author Tom Hardy wrote what is now regarded as his greatest work, the Brits were not pleased. Upon publication in 1891, Tess of the D’Ubervilles was immediately censored by the British government for its disconcerting take on Victorian society’s moral code.
Another classic work that managed to offend those of the Victorian Age is Walt Whitman’s collection of poems and essays. Published in 1855, libraries dismissed the work because of its sexual overtones and Whitman lost the respect of critics and peers for many years.
Hemingway’s very first — and some say finest — novel was published in 1926 and banned in Boston, MA, less than five years later. The story, which follows a group of ex-pats as they travel around a post-WWI Paris and Spain, was last banned in California in 1960s due to the characters decadent behaviors and use of profanity.