To Ban or Not to Ban : The Color Pur­ple and Harry Pot­ter

Warn­ing: This ar­ti­cle may con­tain spoil­ers.

Sine 1982, over 11, 300 books have been chal­lenged and banned in the United States alone. From the years 2018 to 2020, over 1,133 books were banned in school li­braries, class­rooms, and pub­lic li­braries. For cen­turies, gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials, or­ga­ni­za­tions, and par­ents have sought to con­trol what their chil­dren read by ban­ning cer­tain pieces of lit­er­a­ture. Most books are chal­lenged or banned be­cause of the con­tent pre­sented in the books. The con­tent be­ing banned or chal­lenged can in­clude sex­ual ref­er­ences, vi­o­lence, pro­fan­ity, and un­suited for cer­tain age groups. Even prior to the year 1982, banned books and cen­sor­ship has been an is­sue for schools all across the United States for these var­i­ous rea­sons. Many of the books banned to­day are books that many of us grew up read­ing in pri­mary school, as well as our par­ents. It might be shock­ing to some to find out that the nov­els The Color Pur­ple by Al­lice Walker and Harry Pot­ter and the Sor­cer­er’s Stone by J.K. Rowl­ing are just some of the pop­u­lar house­hold names on the banned list.

The Color Pur­ple

The Color Pur­ple by Al­lice Walker has been banned in schools across the United States sine 1984, just two years af­ter the book was pub­lished. The book was banned for its sex­ual con­tent and sit­u­a­tions of abuse and do­mes­tic vi­o­lence.

This book is a his­tor­i­cal fic­tion about a 14-year-old African Amer­i­can girl named Celie, who writes let­ters to God be­cause her fa­ther abuses her. Celie’s fa­ther forces her to marry a man who she does not know. Celie refers to this man as ‘’Mis­ter,’’ who also does­n’t treat her well. Through­out the story, Celie writes let­ters to God about how she deals with be­ing a wife while also dis­cov­er­ing more about who she is along the way.

When it was first re­leased, it as­signed as a re­quired read­ing for many high school Eng­lish classes. Par­ents were not happy, say­ing it was in­ap­pro­pri­ate for their age group. Par­ents also said it was too vi­o­lent and had too much sex­ual con­tent for the age group. The book was orig­i­nally banned be­cause ”it went against God and their be­liefs.” In the book, Celie de­vel­ops a same-sex re­la­tion­ship with a char­ac­ter named Shug. Par­ents claimed that their scenes in the book were too graphic and un­nec­es­sary.

Harry Pot­ter Se­ries

The fa­mous Harry Pot­ter se­ries by J.K. Rowl­ing was banned on mul­ti­ple oc­ca­sions. Harry Pot­ter and the Sor­cer­er’s Stone was pub­lished in 1997. In 2001, the book was banned be­cause of ”sa­tanism and anti-fam­ily themes.” In 2002-2004, the book was banned for its fo­cus on wiz­ardry and magic. How­ever, these bans did not stop Rowl­ing from writ­ing the rest of the se­ries.

This book is a chil­dren’s fan­tasy book about a char­ac­ter names Harry Pot­ter, an or­phan brought up by his aunt and un­cle. Harry is unloved by his aunt and un­cle, but on his eleventh birth­day every­thing changes. Harry learns that he is an or­phan of two of the most pow­er­ful wiz­ards and has mag­i­cal pow­ers of his own. Harry is sum­moned to join Hog­warts school of witch­craft and wiz­ardry. There, he meets his clos­est friends who help him dis­cover the truth about his par­ents.

Ma­jor Mo­tion Pic­tures

The art of sto­ry­telling has al­ways been deemed con­tro­ver­sial, which has lead works across var­i­ous dif­fer­ent medi­ums to be banned. It’s sur­pris­ing to see how many hit movies are based on books that have been banned at one point. La­bel­ing a book as banned, or scan­dalous, makes in­di­vid­u­als want to read the book or see the film adap­ta­tion even more. There are some peo­ple who are not big read­ers, but they are big movie-go­ers. Turn­ing a banned book into a film al­lows those who are not in­ter­ested in read­ing to form their own opin­ion on the mat­ter, even if they only saw the film.

Both of these banned books were turned into movies. The Color Pur­ple was re­leased in 1985. Some of the cast mem­bers in­clude Oprah Win­frey, Steven Spiel­berg, Whoopi Gold­berg, Danny Glover, and Mar­garet Av­ery.

The Harry Pot­ter se­ries was first re­leased in 2001, and the last movie was re­leased in 2011. Even though the se­ries has ended, many peo­ple are ob­sessed with Harry Pot­ter. The fran­chise has also grown to be very pop­u­lar among many gen­er­a­tions. There are many tourist at­trac­tions in re­la­tion to the Harry Pot­ter books. There are many Harry Pot­ter themed Airbn­b’s. Uni­ver­sal Or­lando also has a Harry Pot­ter at­trac­tion called The Wiz­ard­ing World of Harry Pot­ter. Fans can also visit over 25 Harry Pot­ter des­ti­na­tions to tap into their in­ner wiz­ard. 

Why Stu­dents Think These Books Are Banned

The Color Pur­ple and the Harry Pot­ter se­ries are books that many are fa­mil­iar with and grew up read­ing in school. Uni­ver­sity stu­dents were asked why they think these books were banned. Sopho­more Alex We­ston states ‘’ I be­lieve that every­one de­serves the right and ac­cess to lit­er­a­ture. I grew up read­ing the Harry Pot­ter books and have seen all the movies. I un­der­stand that peo­ple have dif­fer­ent re­li­gious view­points, but that does­n’t mean that every stu­dent should­n’t have ac­cess to read­ing these books. The Harry Pot­ter books are a sta­ple and will con­tinue to be.’’ Ju­nior Kerinna Kan­ters also ex­pressed her opin­ions on why she be­lieves these books have been placed on the banned list. ‘’I think peo­ple want this or any book banned be­cause it is not the mes­sage they want their kids to be ex­posed to.’’

Cen­sored Read­ing

Par­ents, or­ga­ni­za­tions, and gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials chal­lenge or ban books be­cause they don’t agree with the con­tent be­ing pre­sented in the book. Whether it is sex­ual con­tent, of­fen­sive lan­guage, not ap­pro­pri­ate for the age group, they still be­lieve that it should not be read in the class­room. This dis­cour­ages chil­dren from broad­en­ing their hori­zons when it comes to lit­er­a­ture. As Mark Twain once said, ‘’Folks who can and don’t read good books have no ad­van­tage over the man who can’t read them.’’