Minority censorship rules
Published by on August 25th, 2008
How many complaints regarding a book would a publisher require to justify editing and reprinting what some may regard as an offensive word? 5,000? 500? How about just one…
Dame Jaqueline Wilson’s My Sister Jodie, a book aimed at the 9 to 11 age group, has sold around 28,000 copies since its release in March this year. After a single complaint about the use of the “twat” in two instances, retailer Adsa pulled the book from its shelves and as a result, publisher Random House has decided to edit the word to “twit” in reprinted versions.
Anne Dixon (no relation) discovered the word when she purchased the book from her local Asda as a gift for her niece. She emailed the author and when she did not get a response (there is no information about how long she waited for a response from one of the top children’s authors around), she complained to Asda who immediately removed all copies from their shelves.
This is not about censorship, it’s about retail muscle
Asda - part of Walmart - have achieved around 23,000 of the total sales of this book. That is a lot of lost sales and so Random House buckled under that potential income drop. From a business viewpoint, I can almost empathise, but as an author it would horrify me.
However, this does not detract from the most important factor: all it took was a single person making a complaint. That is a very slippery path to hyper-sensitive, minority-influenced censorship. But there’s a twist…
Is this just a publicity stunt?
My natural, British cynicism surfaces with any story like this. What goes unmentioned in most accounts appears at the end of this Daily Mail version of the story:
However, the [Asda] spokesman said that Asda had since reviewed the matter and would continue stocking My Sister Jodie in all its UK outlets.
A severe knee-jerk reaction followed by a u-turn. I will leave you to make up your own mind on that call.
