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‘Fahrenheit 451’ stays relevant amid surging book bans
Fahrenheit 451 starring Michael B. Jordan is a 2018 movie that’s highly relevant as book bans in the US have reached an all-time record.
The film is based on Ray Bradbury’s novel describing a time in the US when firemen’s job is to burn all books because they’re all banned.
Ramin Bahrani, who directed the film, writes in an article titled “Why ‘Fahrenheit 451’ Is the Book for Our Social Media Age”:
“Fahrenheit 451 was written in the early 1950s, not long after Nazis burned books and, eventually, human beings. America was living under a cloud of fear created by the House Un-American Activities Committee and McCarthyism, which brought political repression, blacklists and censorship of literature and art.”so what?
The story is fiction but its premise rhymes with today’s reality.
US libraries last year made requests to withdraw 2,571 titles, double the number from the previous year, EL PAÍS reports.
In Florida, for example, new laws set jail terms of up to five years for teachers and librarians who disregard the bans.
The extreme fiction of Fahrenheit 451 helps visualize the problem with banning books and limiting the spread of ideas. 
Reference shelf:
Why ‘Fahrenheit 451’ Is the Book for Our Social Media Age (New York Times)
Book bans reach all-time record in the US (EL PAÍS)
flicks - movies new and old to help understand today’s big issues
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