UC Riverside’s Palm Desert campus will host a free screening of 1992’s “Of Mice and Men” Saturday as part of its movie series featuring films based on banned or challenged young adult books.
The movie will get underway at 1 p.m. in the Palm Springs Cultural Center, 2300 East Baristo Road, according to a statement from UCR’s Palm Desert Campus. Though the community series is free, attendees are encouraged to RSVP at palmdesert.ucr.edu/events-programs.
“As there has been a surge in book suppression and censorship across the country, we’ve decided to focus on banned or challenged young adult books,” college officials wrote in a statement. “During the first half of the 2022-2023 school year, PEN America’s index of school book bans lists 1,477 instances of individual books banned, affecting 874 unique titles.”
The 1992 adaptation of John Steinbeck’s 1937 novel was directed by Gary Sinise, who also stars with John Malkovich as the story’s two main characters, George and Lenny. A previous film version in 1939 starred Burgess Meredith and Lon Chaney Jr.
The Depression-era novel tells the story of two migrant workers, one of whom is developmentally disabled, who live and work in central California and dream of acquiring their own piece of land.
It has been one of the most challenged books since its release, usually because of strong language including profanity and racially insensitive terms, depressing themes, an alleged anti-business bias and its depiction of the developmentally disabled.
Faced with choosing three books to be read and discussed for this year’s summer series, college officials also hosted a screening 0f “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” last month and will close out the series next month with a screening of “The Kite Runner.”
The series launched in 2012 with goals of digging into good writing, having a space to discuss books that have been turned into movies, and to offer educational programming in the desert during summer months, college officials said.
“After more than a decade of Lit Flicks, this season the popular series is growing even more,” PDC officials wrote in a statement. “We’ve changed venues and will be hosting each event at the Palm Springs Cultural Center. This gives us more room to welcome a larger audience and get more of our Palm Springs friends involved.”