Okay, Naomi Wolf generated tons of responses from everyone and their third cousin last month when she waded into the world of teen literature with her essay for the NY Times. We all had opinions about whether or not The Gossip Girls and their contemporaries are decent literature or trash (I'm thinking trash) but Wolf gave their popularity all sorts of heavy feminist meaning and suggested that the downfall of civilization as we know it was pending because the books are popular.

Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating but you get the idea.

There was just a hint in that essay though of a ratings system - nothing direct or overt but there was enough of a hint for some bloggers to wonder if she was suggesting labeling books. Well, wonder no more, because in an interview with Newsday, that is exactly what Wolf has to say. (link via Bookslut).

I can't believe this.

Newsday actually - seriously - brings up Nancy Drew in the article:

Young-adult fiction has come a long way from Nancy Drew, the 16-year-old sleuth whose most intimate encounter with a guy was probably a batting of eyelashes at boyfriend Ned Nickerson.

I thought it was interesting that they didn't mention we are also no longer using racial stereotypes in our books like the original Nancys enjoyed (as someone who read the 1930s era editions, I know all about the danger of dark men because of Nancy). I can't imagine anyone thinking that era of teen lit is to be seriously compared to Nancy Drew, just as I can't believe we are having this conversation about something as silly as The Gossip Girls. Naomi Wolf is appalled - appalled because they don't respect their parents or teachers and they want to have sex all the time and they spend money like crazy.

That sounds like teenage utopia to me!

We all know what high school is like and unless you were raised in a bubble, everybody and their third cousin was having sex, thinking about having sex or willing to have sex to gain in popularity. Does that make it a beautiful mature and wonderful thing? No, but sometimes sex is just sex.

Get over it.

As for the disrespect for adults, well, that was my childhood dream and I'm sure it is for most kids today. But just because I read a book where kids plot to kill their parents and takeover the world doesn't mean I'm planning to do that myself, or that I even want to do that.

It's just what I'm reading. And honestly - sometimes it's better to read about it and get your frustrations out that way then by screaming "nobody understands me" while you've locked yourself in the bathroom.

But rating books is a huge step and no, it does not compare to movies. It is insane to me that a teenager would not be allowed to buy a book about teenagers because parents think it is too disrespectful to adults or it has too much sex.

How out of touch with being young can you get?

This is wrong and I'm not even going to scream about censorship or the first amendment or anything else. I'm just going to say that when you have to go school because your parents say so and you have to dress a certain way because the school has dress codes and the popular girls set impossible standards and you worry every fucking day that you look like you should and say what your should and act like you should then it seems like a very stupid and silly and excessive series of books is small consolation for the complete and utter lack of power and control that a teenager has in her life.

Oh - and then you turn 18 and graduate and everyone starts bitching because you don't have your shit together and haven't figured out what you want to do with the rest of your life. (All that time being told what to do has so prepared you for making decisions after all.)

For the record I haven't been able to read one of these Gossip books to the end because they are so stupid. But what really concerns me is that the ratings won't stop with just trashy teen lit - it will affect every book published for young adults, which makes me wonder what a series like Philip Pullman's Dark Materials which challenges the very nature of God would be up against. Or Cecil Castellucci's Queen of Cool where sex is what the kids talk about and do but not at all what the story is about. What happens to them? Who decides how much sex is too much and how much disrespect is too much? Well?

What adult gets to decide what a teenager is allowed to read?

This needs to be left alone, now. It needs to be left alone.