According to the class description posted on Carroll High School’s website, the purpose of the Literature to Film class at CHS is to, “evaluate how a short story, play or novel is changed for the film. It further states that discussion is a “focus of the class.” If this syllabus were adhered to, the majority of the classroom discussion surrounding What's Eating Gilbert Grape would logically be dominated by the vast differences between the sex-saturated book and its relatively tame film counterpart.

However, a CHS student was quoted in a Daily Times Herald article (“CHS Students Take “Grape” Fight to Net,” 11/22/06) as saying, “In class we never discussed those portions of the book. We only discussed those portions of the book that were meaningful to our lives.”

In what the book’s supporters would have us believe is a typical 27-day slice of small-town Iowa life, the reader is treated to 24-year-old Gilbert’s six erections, five occasions of masturbation, his reception of fellatio from a married mother of two, with whom he has been having an affair since he was 17, Gilbert watching while the local insurance agent has sexual intercourse with his secretary on her desk, Gilbert’s lustful obsession with a 15-year-old girl whom he is desperate to bed, and his 16-year-old “Born Again” sister having sex in the back of a hearse with the town’s 29-year-old mortician.

In addition to the incessant sexual references in the book, Gilbert repeatedly calls his mentally challenged brother a retard and uses derogatory terms to describe his morbidly obese mother. Another blatant theme is Gilbert’s disdain and mockery of Christians, which defenders of the book seem to have missed - or purposely glossed over - altogether.

This dark, hate-filled story ends with the Grape children burning down their family home to save their now-dead mother the embarrassment of having to be extricated with a crane. There is no happy ending, there is no moral to the story and there is no epiphany for Gilbert. In short, there is no redeeming literary value to this book.

If Peter Hedges’ story were put to film - as written - it likely would have received an NC-17 rating for its numerous, sexually explicit depictions, one of which is particularly lengthy and graphic, easily qualifying as porn. However, the PG-13 movie is almost completely devoid of the moral transgressions outlined above with the exception of Gilbert receiving oral sex from a married woman which is alluded to without nudity. It seems some clear-thinking movie producer, or perhaps Hedges himself when he wrote the screenplay, came to the logical conclusion that the gratuitous sex in the book would not be embraced by the general public as entertainment.

Those who fought the removal of this tasteless book from Carroll High’s curriculum and library did so for selfish reasons. For the students, theirs was an exercise in rebellion against authority. For the teachers, it was a condescending defense of their own poor judgement. (Maybe if the scene in which Gilbert urinated on his former teacher’s fresh grave had been brought to the forefront, they would have reconsidered.) As for the local press, it appears to have been about preserving Carroll’s image, even though one student remarked in her letter to the editor that the book was about “dead-end, small-town life” and the kids could “relate to this book.” (DTH, 11/24/06)
Sadly, the entire Gilbert Grape debate was a botched opportunity on the part of many adults to teach children, who rely on them for guidance, about striving for higher standards and choosing right over wrong.
 

Wow. Peggy really gets around. She's posted this diatribe at every blog that covered this story. Makes me wonder what she's got in for Peter Hedges?

I know someone from Carroll, in fact I am from Carroll. What's funny about your comment regarding enrollment decline is that for the last 15 years, it's the private school's enrollment that's gone into a decline. When I was a CHS student, the private school's enrollment was about 40% greater. Now this has reversed. The private school's administration came in and did a massive overhaul/reorganization of their system and refused to re-sign contracts of several teachers. These were not people who were making waves or causing trouble, not teachers with poor performance a la NCLB, they were people who were getting paid too much money because they were 20+ year employees and thus at the top of the Catholic schoolteacher's pay scale (which is still significantly less than the public school pay scale in Iowa). Look it up, circa 1995/6. That's not the kind of values I'd like my kids exposed to, "porn book" or no.

Back to the book. I've read it. I didn't really care for it. BUT at least I READ IT. Which is more than Rob Cordes can say. It was chosen because it's a class about books that are made into films. While there are several other Iowan authored books out there, I don't think "Bridges of Madison County" would be any more appropriate. How about "1000 Acres"? It's the film-lit connection that matters.

Is it the right book for these kids? I don't know. Was their fight worth fighting? Absolutely. Understand that (despite what Peggy would have you believe) these kids were not fighting "the man" nor were they fighting to read a "porn book". They were fighting a system where ONE man, made a decision for everyone, on very small amounts of information. As a parent, I would not want my children to attend a school where a single man can make a unilateral decision affecting curriculum.

The whole hullabaloo is not about the content of the book, it's about how decisions are made in the school. Cordes circumvented procedures in place for this type of issue by making a unilateral decision. That was his error. And the good people of Carroll recognized this.

I'm proud of those kids for standing up for their right to be educated. Think for yourselves and let others do the same.
 

Thanks, both of you, for your comments. I side with the person who objects to the coarse content of "Gilbert Grape," though the other person has a good point about the need to keep special-interest intellectual vigilantes away from curriculum selection. Maybe it comes down to this: by high school, kids ought to be given a huge menu of books that they can read and respond to with a paper or Q&A with a teacher, and everybody do their own Independent Study Project with, say, a decent-length novel per quarter of the year. So the top 25% of the class can read the classics, as they should, and if the bottom 25% will only read crud like "Gilbert Grape," then that should be their choice -- theirs and their parents'. What do you think?
 

Well, for what it's worth, the kids were given a list of books that were scheduled to be read during the class and a permission slip to read them was to be signed and returned by the parent. So really, the parents were given full disclosure about the materials and then given the option to select another book if something was disagreeable.

I'm not really certain what happened in this case, other than that one woman was quoted as saying she didn't want her child "signaled [sic] out" if she refused Gilbert Grape. I guess I think that's poor parenting. She's willing to take the moral high road and drag her high school kid through the newsmedia, but she doesn't want him singled out? Huh? Cause I can guarantee he's been signaled out now! (As have several of his siblings).

I think the fact that the parents had full disclosure is the part that really sticks in my craw. It's not about the book. It's about the way this happened. Knee-jerk, reactionary, make the Iowans look like hicks, stupidity.
 

Sorry, I can't agree. It looks like SOMEBODY was exercising good judgment, that's all. I admire the people who stood up against "Gilbert Grape." They are right. That book wouldn't even make my top 10,000. :>) Obviously, people are getting jobs as secondary-level teachers without taking much, if any, college English classes so that they know stuff from apple butter. The mostly-mediocre, often-horrible books on assigned reading lists in high schools coast to coast reflect that all too well. As do the test scores: garbage in, garbage out.

It's funny: Iowans go to great lengths to maintain the quality of the food they produce to go into our bodies. You'd think they'd have at least a so-so standard of care with the mental "food" they're putting in their own children's minds, through school assignments.

Oh, well: if educators don't like the idea of menu-driven English assignments with at LEAST as much to choose from as at the local McDonald's (!!!), then at the very least they should get a majority on those book selection committees who are parents and taxpayers, NOT paid staff, to ensure that groupthink and defensiveness aren't getting in the way of good choices for kids. Do you agree?
 

I can agree that there needs to be a committee of more than just one type of person (eg: not all of them school employees) when such concerns arise. Since at least the mid-1980s at CHS, there has been a committee that reviews complaints about literature used/held in the schools. It consists of staff, students and community members. Why the original complaint was not brought to this group, I assume has to do with the fact that the book was in the curriculum, not just on the library shelves.

As for your statement that "SOMEBODY was using good judgment." I can't agree. At least not completely. SOMEBODY was using judgment, but it was their own opinion. You say those who stood up against the book were "right" but I disagree.

Primarily because what is right and good for one person or one group of people is not consistently right for all people. What is morally just to you, may not be morally just to me or the guy down the street. And I personally feel we do students, particularly students at this age level (the class is offered only at the junior and senior level), a disservice by not giving them the chance to absorb information and then make decisions about what to do with that information. Knowledge is never a bad thing. You cannot have too much. Even if the knowledge is about sexual practices (and let me interject here that the sexual references in this book are NOT new info to kids of this age - I knew about everything covered in the book by jr. high, and I just read the book a few months ago) can be a springboard to a greater understanding of what NOT to do, rather than saying "wow, I need to go find a neglected housewife and see if I can get her to give me head!" Even Gilbert realizes the path he trod was bitter and foolish.

I also cannot agree with your assessment of the teacher of this class. I think that's an unfair jab of a woman you do not know, and may never meet.

The problem here is not the quality of the book, it's not the subject matter of the book. The book might be junk. It might be a shining light. It's certainly not my favorite book, but I've read worse.

The problem is that two sets of parents objected and one man, who admitted to reading only a selected "objectionable" passage...not the whole book, made a decision as to what was best for EVERYONE.

As a parent that concerns me, especially when the parents in question were given the opportunity to option out of this book, in a class that is elective.

It's the selectivity that is the issue here, not the sex. You say the book is not in your top 10,000, but one person cannot be the gold standard of literature. Just like art and music, tastes in literature are quite subjective.

And again, for the purposes of this particular class, the book had to be something that was put to film, which reduces the chances of the good quality literature you're talking about available.

I know you'd like me to agree with you, but you'll have more luck with Peggy there, if she ever comes back. I am not trying to perversely argue in favor of the book. I didn't really care for it myself and I really don't see any value in a lit-to-film English class either. But I can't say that the book is trash and equal to Penthouse as one of the protesting parents said. I can't condone a unilateral choice for all students and their families. Because while that choice may have been in your favorable opinion, who's to say the next one won't be?