For years, Art Spiegelman's acclaimed graphic novel has been taught in schools across the world, both because of the digestible, but chillingly authentic way it depicts the horrors of the Holocaust, and because it is one of the masterpieces of the genre. Academics have used it to teach history, psychology, and more because it is the only graphic novel to ever win a Pulitzer prize. This doesn't mean anything to the school board of McMinn country, Tennessee.
The 10-member board voted unanimously to remove Maus from its eighth-grade literary curriculum because of its nudity and objectionable language. The content of the series was in the minds of the board. According to the minutes of the meeting, board member Tony Allman said that they don't need to promote this stuff. Why does the educational system promote this kind of stuff? It isn't wise or healthy.
Why promote a person? It's important that everyone learns about the Holocaust because it was real and no one forgets it. There are two things that make this a special way to teach to young teens. The depiction of Jews as mice and Nazis as cats makes the narrative so realistic that it can be processed by young readers while still depicting the atrocities committed during the Holocaust. Maus is a biography of his father, as well as a memoir of his talks with his father during World War II. The nudity comes from a single panel of Art's mother, who committed suicide by cutting her wrists in 1968. It couldn't be less salacious.
During an interview on CNN's New Day about the banning, Spiegelman said that he was trying to wrap his brain around it.
The events in a single Tennessee country school board meeting are reported on by dozens of news outlets around the world, and they all agree that taking Maus off its teaching curriculum is a bad thing. It comes at a time when there are several high profile pushes by Republican lawmakers across the country looking to empower parents to influence reading material in educational curriculums, tied to a wider push back on the right-wing scapegoat of Critical Race Theory. Will the international uproar change the minds of those 10 board members? Probably not. Maybe there are other small towns who will think twice before banning a book.
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