Green Day - Clean Version of American Idiot Anywhere?

[tdempsey]

I still get a huge kick out of learning that my 5-year old daughter let the word "shi*" slip out last year.

 

Typical parental response after first infraction: "Where did you learn that word?"

 

Answer: "Mommy always says it!"

 

 

Of course, Mom doesn't even know she uses it that much. Sponges, indeed.

[Jeff da Weasel]

Originally posted by felix I guess there's also a possiblity that there's no clean version because Green Day decided to give the finger to Wal-Mart.

 

I find that the more likely case.

 

While I empathize with you as a fellow parent, Felix... I have to side in the direction of artistic integrity. I don't want my kid hearing more profanity than he encounters in daily life. But I'd rather him hear the words to this record than grow up in a bowlderized world, sanitized so that my comfort level as a parent is the top priority.

 

For those reasons, I actually applaud Green Day for not authorizing a "clean version" for retail sale. It proves to me that some artists are less interested in the almighty dollar than they are of preserving their message. Green Day has made millions of dollars off this record, and I doubt they care so much about money that they'd cave their standards in order to sell even more copies.

 

I've played the uncut version for my 6-yo, and so far he hasn't turned into a serial killer. I'll keep you updated.

 

- Jeff

[Magpel]

 

Originally posted by Jeff da Weasel While I empathize with you as a fellow parent, Felix... I have to side in the direction of artistic integrity. I don't want my kid hearing more profanity than he encounters in daily life. But I'd rather him hear the words to this record than grow up in a bowlderized world, sanitized so that my comfort level as a parent is the top priority.

 

 

I agree with everything the pneumo-maniacal weasel said, and "sided" similary in my own domestic Green Day debate...

 

...but that's not why I write: I write because Jeff used the wonderful and completely approrpiate word "bowdlerized" in his post, which, until very recently, I too thought was spelled "bowlderized."

 

Bowdlerized, I have since learned, recognizes the great achievement of Thomas Bowdler, the man resposible for cleaning up Shakespeare in the late 18th and early 19th century. This is what happens if you go to far in the pursuit of sanitized, expurgated art for delicate sensibilities or in the name of moral rectitude: your last name gets turned into to a derogatory verb.

[State 6000]

So...your kids aren't mature enough to understand swearing, yet they're mature enough to understand what Green Day's songs are about? Ooookay.

 

9 year olds are still a few years away from the stage of development where they can rationalize their own opinions...so Green Day is probably really just pretty melodies and blah blah blah to them anyway.

 

Green Day can easily say "our music isn't for kids". Which is fair enough.

[Jeff da Weasel]

 

Originally posted by Magpel I write because Jeff used the wonderful and completely appropriate word "bowdlerized" in his post, which, until very recently, I too thought was spelled "bowlderized."

 

 

Not only are you correct, but I've now realized I've spelled/pronounced this word incorrectly my entire life, so I thank you for the info!

 

 

Bowdlerized, I have since learned, recognizes the great achievement of Thomas Bowdler, the man resposible for cleaning up Shakespeare in the late 18th and early 19th century.

 

 

And, interestingly enough, he did so for the PRECISE reason that Felix has offered here, in a slightly more religious-oriented context. From Wiki:

 

In 1818, after retiring to the Isle of Wight, he published his Family Shakespeare in 10 volumes, in which he "endeavoured to remove every thing that could give just offence to the religious and virtuous mind" and "in which nothing is added to the original text, but those words and expressions are omitted which cannot with propriety be read aloud in a family."

 

As the saying goes, there's nothing new under the sun.

 

- Jeff