In 2006 when Christopher Handley was accused of owning too much Manga, I didn’t hear about it. I heard about his sentencing yesterday. OK, so the basic story is that this guy, Christopher Handley, owns a crap load of Manga. As I understand it, Manga is Japanese Anime in book form. It comes in various forms from completely innocent to totally grotesque. It goes from Pokemon to Tentacle Porn. It runs the gambit of cute fluffy animals having fun in the forest to people having sex with cute fluffy animals in the forest. It further delves into what could be construed as child pornography…or at least, that’s what they’re calling it. This guy, Christopher Handley, apparently owned a ton of it and a good deal of it involved images of children engaged in sexual acts.
Understand, this is artwork. Manga are cartoons. They are drawings on paper. They are Japanese comic books. Handley is guilty of reading cartoons. According to the articles I’ve read, he’s never acted on these images. He looks at them and ‘bates to them. Hey, whatever floats your boat. So tell me again how that’s a crime?
I don’t read Manga, but my step-daughter does. She reads the cutesy teen romance stories. I had Little House of the Prairie, she has Manga. I’ve seen plenty of Manga, it’s hard to ignore when you’re a Comic-Con attending dork and yes, a good majority of it is about sex, implied or explicit. Big boobs, young girls in smaller than small skirts…but not all sex is profane, some of it’s just inferred and a lot of it’s just kid stuff. Television and movies go further than that, so what are we talking about here?
I wouldn’t read the books Handley does and I don’t even really like Manga, but it doesn’t mean it shouldn’t exist. If he’s just reading, collecting, and ‘batin’, where’s the crime? If no one’s being hurt and this doesn’t uncover some illegal Japanese child pornography ring, why is this man serving time? If my step-daughter is reading Manga, should I be worried? I’m not. Not all Manga is bad. How does this effect my life?
It effects everyone’s life. You, me, your mom, everyone. This law basically states that any implied child pornography, even cartoons, is illegal…which means it’s illegal to own or look at Lewis Carroll’s photographs. Does this mean Anne Geddes is a pedophile? She takes pictures of naked children, where do you draw the line? Why is the line an issue when it comes to art and concepts? This is merely a first step to domination, control, and censorship. Criminalizing art? What’s next? Serving time for killing digital men in video games? Will I go to the big house for allowing Mario to fall of a cliff? It was an accident. This may sound extreme, but once we allow people like Christopher Handley to go to jail for READING and THINKING we lose more and more freedom. It happens slowly enough and enough under the radar that by the time people take notice, it’s too late.
Photography by Lewis Carroll
I think most people agree that child pornography is wronger than wrong, but if artwork depicting it doesn’t actually hurt children and the people reading it aren’t physically committing crimes, what’s the problem? What this boils down to it what George Orwell called “thought crimes”; you think bad things and bad things happen to you. If America is the Land of the Free, why are people being imprisoned for THINKING about child pornography? Let me be clear, this man never acted on the images aside from wanking off (sorry, no one ever said that, but it’s pretty obvious).
I don’t know the law, in fact, if I try to read legal forms I glaze over in a dumbfounded haze which can only be cured by funny cat videos on YouTube. What I do know is that yes, a crime has been committed, just not by Handley…but by the American Justice System. OUR justice system, the one that’s supposed to protect us from the baddies of the world. I bet all those cartoon kids are happy Handley is in the clinker. He can’t hurt them anymore. Wait…THEY’RE CARTOONS! They have no feelings! They’re not even remotely corporeal!
The biggest mistake Handley made wasn’t owning kiddie cartoons, it was pleading guilty. I’m not sure why he did this, but he should be fighting for this rights and the rights of every American. Perhaps he didn’t want the publicity, too late. Perhaps he just figured he’d serve his time and go back to his life. And what? Go back to the life where he can’t read what he wants, where thinking bad things is a crime. Thankfully the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund seems to be on the case. Handley may not be fighting for his rights, but other good people are.
When I’m outraged to this level, I ask myself what I can do. I can do two things: I will not be afraid and I will help spread the word. If anyone has any better ideas, I’d love to hear them.