In a move that is sure to raise a few eyebrows, corporate giant Wal-Mart announced yesterday that it is canceling its orders for the new Jon Stewart book \America (The Book),"" citing one section as too inappropriate for release in stores.
Stewart's latest literary endeavor follows the mold of his Emmy-winning ""The Daily Show"" in mocking the American government in the guise of a school textbook. Since its release three weeks ago, it has been listed by The New York Times as the top-selling nonfiction hardcover.
The section in question displays the heads of the nine Supreme Court justices photoshopped onto aged, nude bodies. Nine cutout robes lie adjacent to the figures and the reader is instructed to ""restore their dignity by matching each justice with his or her respective robe.""
In a statement Thursday, Wal-Mart claimed that the majority of their customers would be uncomfortable with the work and that it ""makes good business sense"" to only sell products that appeal to the consumer.
Criticisms also abound, however, that Wal-Mart's reasoning is conspicuously insincere.
""We've sold a ton of this book,"" Allen Ruff of Rainbow Books said. ""[Wal-Mart's action] is censorship and it sends out immense messages about what's permissible and what's not permissible for people to look at, to read, to open. It's absurd.""
Though keeping ""America (The Book)"" from their store racks, Wal-Mart still intends to sell the book through its Internet outlet, which the corporation believes applies to a different audience.
Warner Books, publishers of ""America (The Book),"" disagrees that this segment requires censorship. Publisher Jamie Raab said in an interview with the Associated Press, ""It's not gratuitous and it's very much in tune with the rest of the book.""
Wal-Mart has long had a reputation for disallowing material it considers crude, notably in the area of music. The leading retailer of pop music nationwide, Wal-Mart has a notorious ban on CDs with parental advisory warnings and has been known to censor albums with explicit lyrics or covers. The megamart once went as far as to airbrush a bikini on the unclothed model adorning the cover of White Zombie's ""Supersexy Swingin' Sounds"" album, even though the photo revealed nothing.
It is unclear, however, if a toned down verson of ""America (The Book)"" will be released for sale in Wal-Mart.
Even with such precedent the banning of ""America (The Book)"" is coming under fire. Though citing the pictures of Supreme Court justices attached to nude bodies as reason for black-listing Stewart's work, Wal-Mart stores still sell the movie ""About Schmidt,"" which features Kathy Bates in the nude, and sexually explicit romance novels, such as those written by Danielle Steele.
By coming down on the work of one of Comedy Central's most popular stars, Wal-Mart has put itself into the crosshairs of critics who suggest the retailers have an ulterior motive.
""If Jon Stewart was not so vocal, currently, in regards to his criticism of the conservative regime in this country,"" Ruff said, ""then there would be no attempt at censorship of his book.""
