If we do it to plays and movies, why not books? Thoughts on the re-edited Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

It's a touchy subject, and it may even be a very slippery slope. But on the surface, the decision by New South to release a new edition of Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn without its 219 utterances of the word 'nigger' shouldn't be that shocking. We constantly alter our movies and plays for different audiences. Any high school who has put on Grease over the last thirty years has dealt with how to get around "Greased Lightning", with its references to creaming chicks and pussy-wagons (Christopher Walken had a witty skit based around just this issue on his last Saturday Night Live hosting gig in April 2008). We have no objection to countless movies being edited for television or edited for airplane viewing. The key concept is that no matter what is done to a film or a play for whatever reason, the original film and the play in its original form, remains available for mass consumption. We have always treated books as a somewhat holier art form than the performing arts, but what New South is doing is no different than watching Blazing Saddles on network television.