Librarians are often unfairly seen as not performing a very glamorous or particularly interesting role in our everyday lives. Titling a film ‘The Librarians’ might not therefore be likely to attract a large audience but in this case I beg you not to overlook this title currently available in the UK on BBC iPlayer in the Storyville strand of documentaries. The librarians in the film work in schools in the United States and they are currently literally in the firing line facing up to the Republican right in Trump’s America simply because they believe that in a democracy children have the right to read books of all kinds that might help them to find a place in the modern world. Forget horror films, this is one of the most terrifying films released this year. It feels like a mash-up of Orwell, Kafka, Ira Levin’s The Stepford Wives and Alan J. Pakula’s The Parallax View (US 1974).
My sketchy understanding of the American school system suggests that public schools (what in the UK would be deemed ‘state schools’) are under the control of each state which in turn delegates local control to school boards at local county level. Political pressure from the centre in the form of House Representatives and Governors pushes down to school boards and in Republican states that means pressure to ban books in school libraries if they don’t conform with right-wing and conservative Christian religious ideologies. One particular aspect of this is the operation of a company like Patriot Mobile, a ‘Christian Conservative’ company selling mobile phone coverage plans. Customers can buy a ‘Freedom of Speech’ plan (oh, the irony) and 5% of the company’s income from these phone contracts goes straight into funding of local groups dedicated to pushing right-wing ideologies. The film illustrates this with footage of Donald Trump Jr. praising the company for this action and encouraging supporters to support such action themselves.
Watching this film from a European perspective does need some care. It is difficult to judge the scale of this kind of political action. The material in the film focuses on what is happening in a handful of Republican states, specifically Texas, Florida and Louisiana, but this doesn’t mean there aren’t problems for librarians (and children and families) elsewhere. A major new organisation is ‘Moms for Liberty’ shown in the film launching nationally with a New York conference. The group was formed in 2021 growing out of the anti-mask movement during COVID. The action against school librarians is part of the principal aim of ‘Moms for Liberty’ which is to restrict school curricula in relation to any discussion/study of gender identity, LGBTQ+ issues, non-white histories, critical race theories etc. In tabloid terms it is about ‘anti-wokeism’. In Texas a House Representative has published a list of 850 book titles which he believes should be removed from libraries and this has been used by local school boards to remove books, creating a major problems for librarians. Those librarians who attempt to resist such removals have been harassed, accused of various misdemeanours and in some cases fired from their positions. One of the main simplistic charges relates to ‘pornography’. It’s the easiest way to rouse parents. Who wouldn’t be worried to hear that a school library offers pornographic books as available for children? Some of the examples of books on the list include a graphic novel of the Diary of Anne Frank which shows a young woman walking past classical statues. This is the threat of nudity! Similarly the celebrated graphic novel Maus by Art Spiegelman is charged with ‘mouse nudity’.
It’s too easy to sit in the UK and laugh off these ludicrous claims but we must not be complacent. These people are dangerous and to make the point, director Kim A. Snyder and her team intercut parts of their report with clips from films such as Truffaut’s adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 (UK-France 1966) and documentary footage of the Nazis book-burning in May 1933 when 25,000 books mainly by Jewish authors were destroyed. Wikipedia has quite a useful list of book-burnings dating back to antiquity. Of course, an alternative for fascists in the modern age is to close libraries and take over digital services, a far less visible form of censorship. But what is clear is that American right-wing groups are perfecting new playbooks to promote their ideologies effectively. We have already seen the entry of American funders for anti-abortion campaigns in the UK. Attacks on the school curriculum are likely to increase here as well, especially with politicians such as Farage sucking up to Trump and co.
But is this documentary any good as a film, you might ask? Yes it is. The film mixes witness statements with live scenes of public meetings as well as the archive inserts discussed above and some other archive material which was issued as public information material to promote libraries for children. This is very useful to remind us of more hopeful times in terms of proper education. I do have a slight reservation about the structure of the film which could I think be more coherent in moving from one case to another. On the other hand it does work by finding ‘library heroes’, all women I think, who have been the target of these right-wing groups and who have suffered as a result, some losing their jobs, others being abused or falsely accused. Characters like these do appeal to a wider audience. These are brave women. There is also a brave young man, one of nine children of a mother who has herself joined the ‘book banners’. Coming out as gay to his family he found himself completely ostracised and forced to leave his family home. Recently he returned to his small town after living away. He spoke at a school board meeting at which his mother recorded everything he said. I don’t think they will be reconciled soon. Ironically, several of the librarians accused by the religious right wing zealots appear to be members of religious families and in one or more cases ministers/preachers themselves. I know that most Americans are decent human beings but Trump will still be in power until 2028. Librarians are shown as organising themselves to support each other but it’s time there was some more effective opposition on a national scale.
My thanks to a fellow blogger who provided an introduction to this film. If you are looking for The Librarians on iPlayer, just search for ‘Storyville’. It is listed as available for the next 12 months. It is also available from Apple, Amazon and Sky. Here’s how one US morning news show covered the film’s release:
itp Global Film 