World Book Day is designed to encourage young readers through a variety of events and promotions. One of the most popular activities for schools and nurseries is to allow the children to dress up as their favoured characters from their favoured books.
Alice in Wonderland: Blue dress and blonde wig
Charlie and The Chocolate Factory: Top hat and bow tie
The Gruffalo: Monster foot shoes and false sharp teeth
Fifty Shades of Grey: suit, cable ties and blindfold
The mother of the pupil who turned up as Mr. Grey tweeted him in his costume with the statement: "offensive costume.Excluded from photos, told to change yet teacher dressed as a serial killer and others with guns?"
The tweet found the attention of the media and the story was told.
The school, on understanding the costume, insisted the character was "modified" from Grey to Bond, James Bond. The cable ties and blindfold now to take a double-agent hostage rather than an agent provocateur.
According to the boy's mother this was hypocritical in the extreme of the school.
She pointed to the teachers dressing as Dexter (the psychotic character of the popular Dexter book series), the Wicked Witch from the classic book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (by L. F. Baum) and Darth Vader... from the... er... the... Star Wars Annual number 1. All fictionally much worse in their actions than Mr Grey.
What I find more troubling is that the teachers were in costumes at all. This is a day for the children. That's why adults have Masquerade Balls. If anything, if they wanted to join in, the teachers should have come as the favourite characters from books they read when they were children. Long John Silver, Lucy from the Chronicles of Narnia, Mr. Tickle. Ok, maybe not Mr. Tickle. And I might be forgetting the age of teachers these days.
Anyway, I digress.
According to the mother of the 11 year old Liam, in this article, Liam had the idea for dressing as the character.
Liam himself confirmed it, explaining the reasoning behind the decision: "It was my idea, it's all you've seen around: on the telly and magazines, just everywhere really. And if there's one film talked about at school, it always Fifty Shades of Grey. He seems such a big character over the past few years.. I thought I should go in as him for a bit of fun."
So... not... read it then? Not actually popped into the local bookshop with your book tokens from your auntie for your birthday and bought the book? Not waived your junior library card at a librarian and borrowed it?
What about the accoutrements? The cable ties? The blindfold?
Liam's mum: "The cable ties. Following the film being released, there was lots of comments all over Twitter, all over Facebook, saying they've 'been to see the film and now off to B&Q to get me cable ties'. So, that was out there for everyone to see. So, yeah, we thought we'd let [Liam] have a couple of little cable ties - tiny ones - and the eye mask."
So... not... because you read about them in the book then? Not actually read the description in the book to ensure it was accurate to the requirements of the written character?
I am starting to question if there is a copy of this book in the family home at all.
This is what is the real tragedy here. Get beyond the book's subject matter, the idea that by somehow banning an 11 year old student dressing as a sexual sadist the school is censoring the material - the real issue is that this is not appropriate because it had nothing to do with the book. Any book.
This was for World Book Day! Not World Film Adaptation I Read Something On A Tweet Day!
If the mother of Liam and Liam really wanted to celebrate the book Fifty Shades of Grey then the school should have set work for Liam based on it: 1400 words discussing the screenplay deficiencies or otherwise in relating the actions described in the book to the audience.
At least then when Liam arrived for class ready to restrain and blindfold the school pet hamster on World Book Day everyone would be able to accept this was something Liam at least knows is a book.
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