Stephen Colbert Says He Is A 'Huge Fan Of Censorship': Jokingly Praises New 'Huckleberry Finn' (VIDEO)

"Nation, I am on record as being a huge fan of censorship," Stephen Colbert said last night. "Of course, you wont actually find it in the record -- I had it taken out."

Colbert used this to preface his thoughts on the new edition of Mark Twain's classic novel "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," which publisher NewSouth Books has edited significantly by replacing each instance of the 'N-word' with the word 'slave.' The expurgated edition has sparked a wave of controversy, igniting reactions from both scholars and readers who denounce the edits as unnecesary censorship.

About the book's author, Colbert noted: "He dropped the N-word over 200 times! That proves Mark Twain wasn't only his pen name, it was his rap name."

In conclusion, Colbert stated, "I think all of this is a great move. My only worry here: what are the publishers going to do with all those N-words they take out? They're just going to pile up around the office. They might end up in other classics. And frankly, I don't want to read my kids, 'Goodnight N-word'," the TV host joked.

WATCH:

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Huckleberry Finn Censorship
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog March to Keep Fear Alive

Comments

[pierre F Lherisson]

04:01 PM on 01/07/2011

This is the equivalency of literary time travel to change the past.
Altering the realities of precedent epochs or generations for the convenience of the present is unethical at best; It is a dangerous revision of history and an Orwellian nightmare at its worst form Printed matters seem to be in their way out and will be replaced by digital media. That means, those that control the media will be able to alters or erase the breath,the scope or the essence of historical documents for their convenience while destroying or vilify the facts about their adversaries. Now it is easy to delete any information from those electronics books or the web sites.
Could you imagine that in a thousand years from now a new empire decided to revise history and declared that the United States of America never existed and it was a myth like the Atlantis They could alter history to say that the black plague, the extermination of the people in the new world, Black slavery in the Americas or the holocaust were myth. Could you imagine after a slow process of altering words and paragraphs from the facts whether it would take 100 or 10,000 years they will arrive to prove that people such as Hitler, Stalin, Alexander the Great, Voltaire, Franz Kafka, Isaac Newton, James Maxwell, Albert Einstein, Martin Luther King Jr, Abraham Lincoln, Douglass Mc Arthur,Richard Milhous Nixon,William Jefferson Clinton,George Bush,Or Barack Hussein Obama never existed.
This revision of history is wrong.

[Wintersoldier7020]

09:37 AM on 01/11/2011

"Now it is easy to delete any informatio­n from those electronic­s books or the web sites"

You're so right, personally I've felt an unease about the new revision of history movement.

"And if all others accepted the lie which the party imposed----if all records told the same tale---then the lie would pass into history and became the truth."Who controls the past", ran the party slogan, "controls the future: who controls the present controls the past."And yet the past, though of it's nature alterable, never had been altered. Whatever was true now was true from everlasting to everlasting." George Orwell 1984

[Billyeveryteen]

10:37 AM on 01/07/2011

Yes, twain reps the west side... word.

[bigcypress]

03:45 PM on 01/07/2011

I believe it's pronounced "west siy-eede".

[EuropeWindAndFire]

07:35 PM on 01/06/2011

It would be like WikiPedia... changing books is just NOT done. History must tell their tale of bigotry and freedom. Including the somewhat NP words. It's a classic of it's time. I say: don't touch the book!