Have you read up on this and are you aware of what is being changed ? If not, please don’t comment. I don’t want to discuss if you haven¨t really read up on this. For me this is a big, big, big, big issue and very important.
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Yes, unless I got something wrong. At the very least, I recall there was a negative portrayal of someone who was fat, among many other things. This in particular I remember because it was suggested as an example that people are overly sensitive.
Not mentioning of course that fat-shaming is a very real thing, and that different body types and body ideals are also a very real thing.
I think it was discussed on here, but the re-editing of Roald Dahl’s books was sanctioned by his estate and are probably related to copyright issues - essentially trying to extend the copyright life of the original published works.
Having said that, Britain has a history of this. Thomas Bowdler re-edited Shakespeare to remove all the rude bits and make it “family friendly”. This is where the word “bowdlerise” comes from.
From a personal perspective I’d far rather that the original text was kept with a footnote as to the original usage and prevailing views of the time.
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Wasn’t the final outcome that they would publish two versions? Of course, it only serves to further the notion that they didn’t actually care about the issues, just about the state of the copyright…
It is the author’s work. He wanted to show case a man who was fat, he wrote fat. There is nothing wrong with that. They changed fat to enormous which is of course much more insulting to anyone who is overweight than the word fat. Worse, in the Witches, where under the wig a witch is describes as bald is changed to some fucked up sentence description where they say “there is nothing wrong with having less hair” or some nonsense like that. It is sensitivity taken to North Korean levels and incredibly authoritarian and shows zero respect for the authour.
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Flynn says energy bills haven’t been frozen £2,500 and that the average bill in Scotland is more like £3,000.
He says the chancellor is about to scrap the £400 energy rebate for everyone and accuses the Conservatives of freezing households rather than energy bills.
Sunak replies that his government is helping households across the UK and attacks the SNP’s record on transport, the police and the NHS.
Look!!!
Over there!!!
A bird!
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Roald Dahl specifically threatened publishers with a crocodile if they censored him. This is extremely problematic and disrespectful to the authour. Thankfully, in my country, you almost won’t find people who think this can be defended. I have probably read something like 15 articles of this in the press, most of which is criticism from, thankfully, the left.
But yeah, wahtcing how people in the Uk defend this as something sensible and not something outrageus is really alarming to me.
I have spoken extensively about this issue before, about how if you’re not in that minority group which is affected by this issue, it’s quite easy to be very dismissive of the real issues.
Such hyperbole does not serve any meaningful purpose to the discussion at all. The editing might have been poor, the intention cynical, but for me, it highlights a very important issue. I don’t care if they stumbled into it and had the completely wrong motives, or terrible implementation, it does show how problematic much of children’s literature can be.
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Yes, it’s a complete scam!
Having said that, I can remember our local library having versions of Dahl in Scots. Hence The Twits, for example, becomes The Eejits. Translation is one thing but I don’t think there is any harm in rendering abridged versions in modern language. I also recall that the children’s section had modern language versions of Oliver Twist and the like which renders them less daunting for younger readers.
I suspect I feel differently about this issue because (a) I don’t worship Roald Dahl, (b) I think hagiography of authors, and on a wider basis, anyone in general, is part of the myopia that afflicts society today.
If he wrote something that deserves disrespect, so be it. I don’t particularly care about that, and I don’t care about respect that commands to be given, rather than earned.
With Dahl, I think some sort of measures are necessary, given how overt the racism and anti-Semitism is. Ironic, considering how the stories are such beloved children’s tales that many think they are much older than they are. Precisely what those measures are is difficult, but there is simply no way that the Oompa Loompas can be presented as written in a modern pluralistic society.
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I am done. You defend this attack on free thinking and free speech and I find it abominable. None of your arguments are unknown to me, but they are all terrible and hold no water in my eyes. The idea that children will be damaged by roald Dahl specifically using forbidden language in his bok (you don’t get that I think) is bonkers and mental sanitation taken to extreme levels. There is nothing problematic in his books, I have read them all as a child.
That you defend this is on you. I have nothing more to say to this as it is very easy to see what kind of rethoric you use here and what your opinions of censorship is. I am against litterary censorship, for free speech, for protection of intellects and against mental hygiene sanitation.
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He re-edited books himself. Some of this was minor, for example, changing words for pre-decimal coinage which a younger audience would be unaware of; but he also changed major plot points. For example, the original Charlie and the Chocolate Factory had pygmies as workers rather than the fictional “umpalumpa”. He changed this himself when one of the film’s script-writers pointed out that this made him look like a slave-trader. Quite how the plight of the umpalumpa was any different is anyone’s guess. Maybe they had trade union representation?
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That is actually a shocking statement.
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and the description of them remained deeply problematic. I know of an elementary school teacher who changed the description in a read-aloud because of children’s tendency to identify the few Black kids in the class as Oompa Loompas. Is that censorship, or a necessary accommodation to allow the creative work to remain relevant?
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Are you discounting all the psychological evidence to the exact opposite conclusion?
I have no interest in free speech without limitations. Speech is power, and with great power comes great responsibilities, as the ever-so-wise Uncle Ben (RIP) points out. You cannot on the one hand talk about how propaganda is so effective, while on the other dismissing the effect that words have on children.
I grew up reading Enid Blyton, and if she taught me one thing, it’s that Mrs SBYM doesn’t want me getting in the way of the cooking and cleaning.
Those are her things and I should just leave her to it.
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It is also worth noting what an utter bastard Dahl actually was. Sometimes the problematic parts of a work are there and real because the author is in fact really problematic. I don’t think his publisher should be required to make changes, in the end that is free speech. But if his publisher wishes to have schools and public libraries make the books available (and loved) for future generations, they face a choice.
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I still laugh my arse off that Blyton’s character in The Wishing Chair was ‘Chinky’ and that it took until 2018 for this to become ‘Binky’.