What books, songs, artists, movies, etc were banned in your JW home?

by serenitynow! 77 Replies latest jw friends

  • ana_dote
    ana_dote

    oh man...i think we have all experienced the stupidity of this....a couple examples from my youth:

    i grew up only really being allowed to listen to the easy listening station on the radio....but when i finally did discover music that appealed to my maturing ages (mostly rock/alternative styles like Bush, Live, Alanis Morissette, etc), my friend let me have a bunch of cut-outs of famous musicians that she had saved from magazines and such.....I decided to put them on the back of my bedroom door in a collage style, just to express my interest in music. The only way to see the collage was if you were in my room with the door closed, otherwise it faced a wall and was hidden. (I actually planned it that way because I knew my dad would have thrown a hissy fit if I tried to put it up on a wall or something) WELL. my dad barged in my room one day, as he usually did, but closed the door behind him, which allowed him to actually see my collage. He took one look at the poster of Bush, which had song titles of the album listed...saw that one of the song titles was "everything zen" and immediately yelled at me that i had to get rid of all of it and that it was idol worship blah blah blah....i had to tear them down and throw away my awesome collage :( my friend felt so bad for me that she actually bought me a teddy bear and gave me a card that said in it: here's something your dad can't make you throw away. How sad is that!? (I still have that teddy bear to this day heehee)

    Another gem: when i was in my late teens...probably about 18 or 19, I had taken out a Missy Elliott cd from the library cuz I was wanting to hear a particular song that I heard on the radio and wasn't sure what the song was called or what album it was on, so I just got whatever the library had. I kept it in my car because it had a "parental advisory" label on it (which of course I was banned from having ANY cd with that label on it). Now listen to how crazy this is: I had put the cd in the little side pocked of my car door....with the advisory FACING the door...so the only way to even know what it was or see the label was to pull it out on purpose and look at it. My dad had to move my car one day. Tell me WHY i got into my car after that and found the cd lying on my passenger seat with a post-it note on it that said "Nice choice". WTF! He totally snooped in my car and wrote some ridiculous passive-aggressive note about me making bad choices in entertainment! SO DUMB.

    but yeah....umm....looottsss of tv shows were banned in my house...roseanne, threes company...of course southpark and beavis and butthead...ummmm my parents didn't like the fact that we watched the show Friends either, but oddly enough....toward the end of the shows' term they actually began watching all the new episodes WITH us and loving it! LOL! Oh wow, i totally just had a glimpse of a memory....I think...oh wow I think they even banned us from watching Cheers with them until we reached a certain age! ha! I just remember being excited when they would actually let us stay up late enough to watch one of their "adult" sticoms with them. LOL

    OH and i remember one time austin powers came on TELEVISION....not even cable (which means it would be super edited)...and my dad told me to leave the living room (the MAIN room of the house that you can't really avoid unless you're downstairs or in your bedroom) because i shouldn't watch it. YET he sat there and watched it himself. Hypocrite much? The stupidest part is that (and he knew this too) I had ALREADY SEEN IT BEFORE. But he still felt that it was too inappropriate for a near 20 year old to watch. WTF? LOL

    man...i'm sure i could come up with a bunch more hilarious stupidity if i thought about it enough, but i'll quit while i'm ahead lol

  • jamiebowers
    jamiebowers

    Saturday Night Fever, Grease, all rock music, most tv shows and movies.

  • The Finger
    The Finger

    Batman

  • Broken Promises
    Broken Promises

    Music – no ELO (something to do with Satanism), no Elton John (gay), no KISS (Satanism), Queen (gay)

    No Dungeons and Dragons (Satanism)

    When I was little mum would stand in front of the tv if anything “rude” came on.

    BTW, “Physical” isn’t about working out at the gym. Check out the lyrics.

  • debator
    debator

    This has always been a personal choice issue with warnings given but it is upto the parents to decide what is and isn't appropiate for their children to watch.

    Would any of you let your 5 year old watch "The exorcist" or extemely sexualised music Videos just as parents?

    A lot of what is allowed in the world as a whole is culturally driven of what is currently popular.

    Sometimes we are simply caught unawares. Like children programs making wild animals all cute and cuddly when they are anything but. Depending on the country would it be safe for a child to go upto insects and animals thinking they are safe and cuddly? I think as parents we have to make it clear to children what is real and what is just pretend.

    Currently there is a lot of concern over violent or addictive computer games that kids use.

    "Generally, the research shows that violence in video games increases children's aggressive behavior and decreases their helpful behavior," Carll tells WebMD.

    http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,166251,00.html

    " Players tend to "cocoon" — that is, to withdraw from casual interactions with others."

    Being a witness under Bible morality is extending this natural parenting responsibility and letting God's morality guide you as well.

    30 years ago was massively different culturally to now so to try an draw any sort of comparison with todays total flood of entertainment availability is unrealistic.

  • finallysomepride
    finallysomepride

    Dr Who was banned but we watched star trek, bewitched & alot of other "questionable" stuff

  • four candles
    four candles

    There were 'Knitting films'. Let me explain,my father is not a witness and of course he would have programs and films on that maybe a JW would not watch. When a scene came on that was a sex scene my mum,who was a big knit,she loved knitting,she would say ..'look at me till it's gone' Pretty embarressing.

    I also remember having to cough during Pink Floyds track 'Money' due to the do goody good bullshit bit,so one or two albums managed to get past the censors.

  • CandleLight
    CandleLight

    Chess and battleship (war games) of course GI Joes were out of the question,

    Mario Brothers, smurfs, bewitched, return to Witch mountain, care bears,..ect. (magic-demonic)

    Bad company,(smoking on cover) Guns and Roses (cross on cover) most rock like zepplin, AC/DC, Ozzie osborne, rap was out of the question

    shows like three's company, and Saturday Night Live, Knots landing, Dynasty or any Soap (sexual)

    John Denver (Hated JW's) and Michael Jackson (DF'd)

  • serenitynow!
    serenitynow!

    What is knitting a euphemism for?

  • WTWizard
    WTWizard

    When I was going into the cancer, the humanoid that studied with me wanted virtually everything banned. He was insistent that I was going to be a regular pio-sneer and join the Value Destroyer Training School, and was quite strict with music. Obviously, he wanted me to throw away my records, even mentioning by name Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, Blue Oyster Cult, Black Sabbath, Ozzy Osbourne, Van Halen, Simon & Garfunkel, Journey (the bolded ones were mainstream music, not heavy metal/demonic rock). He also mentioned Culture Club (I would be endorsing taking horse because Boy George was addicted to it), Michael Jackson, Prince (all Prince, not just the dirty stuff--Pop Life is not dirty), Madonna (again, all Madonna--True Blue is not dirty), and anything that had even a mild reference to normal human relationships.

    Now, he never got a chance to go through my collection thoroughly. I simply snake-threw them out (put them in a pile "to be thrown away" and never getting around to it). Eventually, quite close to this, he had to move to another territory and would no longer be able to censor my music. Some time after he left, I went through the pile and decided whether or not the songs were really all that bad. About a third of the ones he told me to throw away were not even bad, and I reinstated them into my collection. I could only imagine what would have happened if this guy would have been able to completely go through the whole collection, and would have had a year or so of time.

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