CHS Administration and District Censor “Of Mice and Men”

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The Capital High School Administration and the Olympia School District have decided to censor CHS Theatre’s production of “Of Mice and Men.”

Haven Pink, Writer

Capital High School theater’s 2017 production of Of Mice and Men contains offensive language. John Steinbeck, author of Of Mice and Men, uses appropriate word choice for the time period, but times have changed, leaving CHS’s theater with a dilemma. Traditionally, at Capital High School, when theater encounters controversial literary content, they addressed it with a warning on promotional material as well as in the playbill providing additional information to include the context and rationale.

However, if you attend the performance of Of Mice and Men this year, you will watch it without the original use of the racially offensive term, “n—–.” Capital High School’s administrative and the Olympia School District made the decision to replace the “N” word with “negro.” Capital High School Principal, Curtis Cleveringa, clarified that this moment of censorship, to remove a word from a printed text, was no easy call to make.

Capital High School’s ASB Co-President, Elise Braseth, 12, shared her perspective after clarifying her respect for the administration and the difficult situation they were in. “I talked to fellow students and many believe the use of the word is critical to showing its history. During that time period, the word was commonly used. The play highlights the level of privilege people had to outwardly insult an entire race, and though it’s an awful word, the play sheds a light on racism of the time and how it, sadly, still exists today.”

Cleveringa explained the complex decision to remove the word against Capital High School’s theater’s recommendation to keep the word intact. “[CHS’s student culture] did not play any kind of role in the decision that we made as an administration team. It is a matter of respect for all. Context, even if historically accurate, doesn’t make a deeply offensive word okay to use in all settings.”

The novel is a part of Capital High School’s 9th grade curriculum bringing to light the situation of how a classroom environment makes the teaching of the novel acceptable whereas performing it in a high school setting less so, according to the administration. “In a class of thirty, I’m able to have a discussion with my students,” explained Cleveringa, “because I’ve established a relationship with them. As a group, we make a decision on if we’re going to use the word or substitute it. There is no relationship between the cast and the audience in that short amount of time, and we don’t know who’s in the audience and what their history is with that word.”

Cleveringa also explained that the purpose of a production is to encourage the community to attend. “I would love to see our entire student body go to the performances. But I know that with this particular play, there will be students and community members who will avoid the play just because of the publicity around the warnings provided.”

The novel uses other words that are offensive in our current time which addresses the concern of where to draw the line. Meaning, what words stay in a text and which words are removed. “Because we hear offensive language doesn’t make it okay to use it in a public space,” said Cleveringa, “I’m struggling with the other language [in the script], but there aren’t easy alternates to those words. This switch caused the least amount of interaction with the original script. There is a line of when to censor and when not to and it’s a line I’m struggling with.”

Braseth had a similar concern with where to stop censorship once it begins, “Taking out one offensive word but leaving in others illustrates the slippery slope of what to and what not to censor. There is no perfect answer other than to always deal with the truth, and the truth is that the word exists and we have to talk about it all the time.”