'Faust' opera video stirs angry parents

[Squatch]

BENNETT, Colo. - Some parents in this prairie town are angry with an elementary school music teacher for showing pupils a video about the opera "Faust," whose title character sells his soul to the devil in exchange for being young again.

"Any adult with common sense would not think that video was appropriate for a young person to see. I'm not sure it's appropriate for a high school student," Robby Warner said after two of her children saw the video.

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Faust was one of the earliest pieces of literature I read. I may have been 12 or 13. Then again, I grew up in Germany...

[Midlodemocrat]

1. Why would any sane person

try to expose small children to an element of culture that they might not have heard of before? I mean, what an asshat.

:sarcasm:

[hatrack]

2. So, we'll keep them watching Teletubbies until they're 17 . . .

And then we'll take them all to see "The Passion of the Christ" - is that the plan?

:eyes:

[Squatch]

3. Do you think they'd have the same reaction over LoTR?

[hatrack]

4. Oh, probably - if it's not Jesus 24/7, it's got to be sinful

Same for Narnia, I'm sure - and we all know how satanic C.S. Lewis was!!

:puke:

[FreedomAngel82]

10. Strange enough

on this board for this Christian band I like (they're going a little bit more mainstream now days though) and a lot of the Christian's there LOVED LOTR but they didn't like "Harry Potter" and they loved "Narnia." :crazy: :shrug:

[hatrack]

16. Stopped-clock syndrome on Harry Potter

A local business columnist, who's so stupid he couldn't find his asshole with a mirror, actually hit the nail on the head regarding dear old Harry. He pretty much laughed out loud at all of the Concerned Parents, saying "Get down on your knees and thank God that they're READING!"

Pretty much said it all for me.

[bobbieinok]

36. CSLewis and Tolkien are MAJOR icons in the evangelical community

they're the subject of courses, workshops, books

Lewis and Tolkien were members of the Inklings

http://personal.bgsu.edu/~edwards/lewis.html

Admirers, students, and critical readers of C. S. Lewis and the Inklings, sit down, prop up your feet, and stay a while! This site's purpose is to provide key information, original scholarship, and other links to hypertextual resources about these writers and their literary "kin." Its center is "Jack" Lewis, but it also attempts to provide connections to other Inklings resources, that group of Anglo/Irish writers and friends who met as a community of like-minded thinkers and readers to create some of the 20th Century's best fantasy literature and Christian apologetics.

Lewis wrote 2 of the 20th centuries best Christian classics, The Screwtape Letters and Mere Christianity.

http://www.readinggroupguides.com/guides/screwtape_letters.asp

A masterpiece of satire, this classic has entertained and enlightened readers the world over with its sly and ironic portrayal of human life from the vantage point of Screwtape, a highly placed assistant to "Our Father Below." At once wildly comic, deadly serious, and strikingly original, C.S. Lewis gives us the correspondence of the worldly-wise old devil to his nephew Wormwood, a novice demon in charge of securing the damnation of an ordinary young man. The Screwtape Letters is the most engaging and humorous account of temptation -- and triumph over it -- ever written.

(have you ever read this? you might enjoy it)

[hatrack]

37. True enough - and yet, for the really frothing Thumpers, they're EVIL

I'm talking about the Jack Chick/John Ashcroft types, of whom we've got plenty around here.

Loved "That Hideous Strength" by the way, along with Screwtape.

[malaise]

5. Morans

keep them in ignorance. Teach them Bushspeak.

[hobbit709]

6. AH! So you were taught how to think

which evidenly the good people of Bennett are afraid to do.
I grew up in Vienna

[FreedomAngel82]

7. Oh brother

So are they going to protest Shakespeare next?

[hobbit709]

13. They already have

There's been attempts to censor old William more than once.

[FreedomAngel82]

14. Why am I not surprised?

I loved reading Shakespeare. I even understud it. :D

[Squatch]

17. Not a fan of WS...

though I do love classic epic poetry like Dante, Goethe, etc.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

8. I read it in my high school German class

spent half a year discussing it-in German! I was 16 or 17 at the time. Don't see that it did me any harm. Only wish I'd kept up my German so I could speak and write in it.

[FreedomAngel82]

15. That would be neat

I took Latin but sadly failed. I do know how to say "I Love You" in Latin though. :P

[lectrobyte]

9. The article does mention these are 1st, 2nd and 3rd graders...

so they'd be aged 6 to 9 approximately. I could see where Faust might be upsetting to a sheltered first grader, but probably not that big a deal in the grand scheme of things.

[FreedomAngel82]

18. Don't they by that age

watch shows like "Power Rangers" and "Harry Potter"?

[lectrobyte]

23. Probably -- Faust would be fine for most of them I'd think but there

might be a sheltered kid that would be freaked by it. I can remember one of my younger siblings being traumatized by Bambi's mother getting killed, so you never know. Like I said, probably not that big of a deal in the grand scheme...

[CTyankee]

11. Elementary school is a little early

While I don't think exposure to "Faust" harmed any of the kids, it is a pretty rough story. Faust wants to be young again to seduce a young woman whose life he ruins and she ends up murdering the baby she has by him and is sent to prison. When I was in graduate school there was a course on the Faust legend that the male students all wanted to take. It was interesting. The female students were not as enthusiastic.

[FreedomAngel82]

19. Wow

Out of all those things you mentioned they picked the devil thing? What about murder and seduction? I guess those things are fine?

[Mist]

12. Only them libruls like -real- culture

[otohara]

20. Every Damn Day Some Group is Outraged

in this country, and it's usually the closed-minded wingnuts on the right.

Good Gawd, it's art -

I'm sick of this shit. All right-wingers should homeschool their precious little brats - don't expose them to art.

[Binka]

21. Only Thomas Kincaid Painter Of Light For Fundie Tots

Now that is ART!

[JeffR]

24. Don't forget Pat Boone

[Bridget Burke]

22. The students' youth was not the only problem....

Tresa Waggoner showed approximately 250 first-, second- and third-graders at Bennett Elementary portions of a 33-year-old series titled "Who's Afraid of Opera" a few weeks ago.

The video features the soprano Dame Joan Sutherland and three puppet friends discussing Gounod's "Faust." Waggoner thought it would be a good introduction to opera.

Her critics questioned the decision to show children a portrayal of the devil, Mephistopheles, along with a scene showing a man being killed by a sword and a reference to suicide....

"I was definitely not sensitive to the conservative nature of the community, and I've learned that," Waggoner said in Sunday's editions of The Denver Post. "However, from what has been said about me, that I'm a Satan worshipper, my character, I can't believe all of this. My intention was just to expose the kids to opera."

This was a video meant for children. The teacher was criticized for being a "Satanist"--not just for exposing kids to the seamy side of opera. With puppets!

I seem to remember from my readings of the Faust story (there are different versions) that selling your soul to the Devil never ends well. I doubt the kids will be looking to sign on the dotted line any time soon.

[Lisa]

35. I guess they won't be putting on "Damn Yankees!" as the school play!

As you say, there are a whole bunch of versions of the Faust storyline out there (in a pretty diverse range of cultures, too) -- and they're all cautionary tales.

Personally I am all in favor of teaching kids, from an early age, to be skeptical of "too good to be true" offers from well-dressed strangers (free candy, get-rich-quick schemes, cushy jobs, overnight weight-loss, recording or modeling contracts, etc.) -- because that decreases the chance that they will be defrauded, abused, or end up doing the perp-walk someday.

Some of those politicians who took money from lobbyists missed out on that valuable lesson, I suspect.

[jane_pippin]

25. "... parent, Casey Goodwin: "I think it glorifies Satan in some way"

But, since you've never seen it or read it, you can't define what that vague "some way" is, can you? You just feel like maybe since there was a reference to satan it probably means the school's turning your kid into a satanist, right Casey?

Try this on for size my dear:
I haven't read the bible, but I hear satan gets some mention in it. I think it might glorify satan in some way. I'd like whoever wrote it condemned as a wretched, child corrupting satanist immediately.

How's that grab ya?

I've had it up to here with this kind of crap.

Now, I don't know that I'd show it to little tiny kids because I don't think they'd even understand it. But my beef certainly wouldn't be that they might start worshiping satan over it.

[JeffR]

26. A story about a man who is destroyed by Satan

Is glorifying Satan in some way? WTF?

[Squatch]

27. Just shows that they haven't read the story and have

no idea what the fuck they are talking about.

[JeffR]

28. Funny how they always gripe about

books they haven't read, movies & TV shows they haven't seen, etc.

[jane_pippin]

30. There's a great article in this month's Harper's about the Dover

school district and the Intelligent Design/Evolution trial, written by the great grandson of Darwin who attended the trial and interviewed several people involved with it.

He talks about this kind of jumping to conclusions thing that's been going on, and in the course of the article he discovers how the controversy started in the first place. Turns out the woman who seconded the whole ID thing and was a vocal supporter of ID didn't know a thing about Darwin, evolution, and barely even knew about ID. In the article he describes her as a person who "has no intellectual curiosity about anything" even her most deeply held beliefs--she just knows she's right.

I suspect it's this same kind of attitude at work here. Satan=Bad, and that's all there is to it.

[Skidmore]

29. As opposed to teaching your children to sell their souls

for the almighty dollar--training courtesy the R party now.

[Squatch]

31. Check this out...

:rofl:

Notice anything?

http://www.bennett29j.k12.co.us/information/default.asp?NavPageID=5813

[sakabatou]

32. Farenheit 451 anyone?

[wryter2000]

Sheeze

Why would any sane person subject a child to Mel Gibson's biblical snuff film?

[JitterbugPerfume]

33. their little darlings

are exposed to murder and mayhem daily on tv -dumasses

[RB TexLa]

34. Best not teach those kids the Bible then

Lot's of scary stories in there.

[hippiechick]

38. Wow, that's whacked ...

... and here I am, getting ready to take HippieKid with me to Bonnaroo this summer for her 15th Birthday !! I must be a horrible parent !!! :eyes: