Noticed today that one of the Tintin books recently got banned from being sold in the childrens section of book shops because of it's racist portrayal of black people. I was never a huge Tintin fan and can't specifically remember that book so can't really say whether it was justified or not. I know that the author was a belgian nazi sympathizer so it hardly surprises me.
But that's not the point of this topic. I think the thing that struck me is that when they did this, because of media attention sales went up.
Let's look at another example that's recently come to light. S. Rushdies satanic verses would have been a reasonably well recieved book that a few people would have read and may or may not have enjoyed that would have been largely forgotten about. However by the muslim world issuing a fatwa on his head and it being banned in multiple countries, he has shot to fame and the book has been read by millions and many more know of it even if they haven't read it and he's still well known all these years later.
When Marilyn Manson got a partial blame for school shootings, again sales went up.
So when will people realise that by banning, trying to ban or otherwise they are actually doing more harm for their cause than good. I'm just glad that I live in a world where these morons try and ban stuff as controversial material would probably be largely forgotten otherwise.
Having said that maybe sub-standard but controversial material really should be forgotten because without controversy it's nothing.