Exceptions to Reality (2008)
“That doesn’t mean I could not write a story about extreme sexual deviancy or serial murder or genocide or based on any one of a dozen other “dangerous” themes. In point of fact, I have written such stories. They are rejected with numbing regularity, like the one about the first humans to land on Mars. The crew is composed of multiple amputees afflicted with a variety of incurable terminal diseases, all of whom are eager volunteers for the one-way mission. Too much logic, I suppose, for the taste of editors charged with buying for the supposedly “daring” genre of science fiction.
Most of us have read about how really grim are the original versions of Grimm’s fairy tales. The bulk of traditional children’s stories, in fact, frequently contain mention of everything from bestiality to mass murder. The trend in retelling seems to favor sanitization over authenticity in order to protect fragile young minds. One exception is the TV show The Simpsons, whose writers are intelligent enough to r...ecognize that they, too, were once young and that contrary to the pious protestations of those who see their sacred duty as supervising the maturation of children not their own, children can handle grim fairy stories without being bludgeoned into gibbering insanity by such tales’ perceived excesses.MoreLess
Most of us have read about how really grim are the original versions of Grimm’s fairy tales. The bulk of traditional children’s stories, in fact, frequently contain mention of everything from bestiality to mass murder. The trend in retelling seems to favor sanitization over authenticity in order to protect fragile young minds. One exception is the TV show The Simpsons, whose writers are intelligent enough to r...ecognize that they, too, were once young and that contrary to the pious protestations of those who see their sacred duty as supervising the maturation of children not their own, children can handle grim fairy stories without being bludgeoned into gibbering insanity by such tales’ perceived excesses.MoreLess
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