Opinion: Apple Mistake Isn’t Censoring Literature… It’s Censoring Everything But

By

post-46786-image-03d3a2961a791ca0b38aad9ff24a3518-jpg

Over at Gizmodo, they’re making a big stink about Apple’s decision to ban two graphic novel adaptations of famous literary works from the App Store for obscenity— namely, James Joyce’s Ulysses and Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest.

Now Apple’s reversed the ban on these two graphic novels… but in the process of doing so, have ironically made themselves look far more hypocritical in their App Store censorship policies than if they’d stuck to their original decision.

In the case of the Ulysses adaptation, Ulysses Seen, Apple demanded the removal of some artful female nudity from the finished app. It certainly seems hypersensitive on Apple’s part, especially given the fact that numerous fine art apps feature paintings of disrobed women that are equally titillating as the offending images. Good on Apple for reversing that decision: Ulysses Seen‘s nudity is neither cheap nor exploitative, but a tasteful and direct artistic interpretation of a source passage from a literary classic. Nothing about it violates a reasonable person’s interpretation of the developer agreement’s anti-porn verbiage.

The same can’t really be said for the offending panels from Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, though: while not explicitly pornographic, it interposes into Wilde’s G-Rated play a series of panels in which Worthing and Fairfax fantasize about fellating each other, giving each other handjobs, having sex in the shower and going to a male strip club.

Talk about Bunburying. Not only is none of this in the play, but unlike Ulysses Seen, it pretty obviously violates the spirit of Apple’s stance on adult content in the app store. If you can’t sell a calendar app full of lingerie pictures on the App Store, a comic depicting blowjobs and buttplay just isn’t going to fly no matter how tastefully done.

Before I continue, let me be clear: as far as I’m concerned, Apple should allow consenting adults to buy whatever content they want on the App Store. Furthermore, a homoerotic, adult-themed adaptation of The Importance of Being Earnest is not only artistically legitimate, but potentially extremely interesting… although without having read the full adaptation, my first impression is to find this interpretation of Wilde’s play to be extremely facile (“Oscar Wilde was gay! Handjobs for his heroes all around!”)

What’s notable to me, though, is why Apple reversed its rejection of the Earnest graphic novel app: because they had a knee-jerk response to being perceived by the public as censoring literature.

That’s completely stupid. First of all, it makes the mistake that a graphic novel adaptation of a work of literature is synonymous with the work of literature itself. Not so: an adaptation of prior art is its own independent work, and can be obscene in ways the original wasn’t, and vice versa. But then it also makes the mistake that a great work of literature should somehow be given a pass for obscenity while less “recognized” works shouldn’t.

I’m surprised to see Apple buying into both of these utterly false premises at once. If the Importance of Being Earnest graphic novel adaptation is okay to be on the App Store despite matching Apple’s definition of obscenity, then it’s hypocritical not to allow any other obscene work — literary in nature or not — on the App Store. After all, a graphic novel app of an Oscar Wilde play is just as far removed an interpretation of the source as a photo gallery app perversely devoted to geriatric gynecology and named James Joyce’s Grey Sunken C**ts Of The World would be from Ulysses.

Look, Apple, I don’t agree with your policy of keeping the App Store free of adult and so-called “obscene” content, but let’s at least be consistent here. Either you think that art consumed on iDevices should be censored for obscenity or you don’t. Giving a pass to “obscene” apps that have co-opted the name of a supposed literary classic makes you look craven and clueless. And if it’s just that you think that graphic novels, as literature, are somehow a more noble form of art than your average boob jiggling app, and therefore exempt from your censorship policies… how about eliminating the hypocrisy entirely and migrating all App Store graphic novels and e-books to iBooks, where there is no censorship at all?

Newsletters

Daily round-ups or a weekly refresher, straight from Cult of Mac to your inbox.

  • The Weekender

    The week's best Apple news, reviews and how-tos from Cult of Mac, every Saturday morning. Our readers say: "Thank you guys for always posting cool stuff" -- Vaughn Nevins. "Very informative" -- Kenly Xavier.