And they come for Roald Dahl.

[FAST6191]

The fun police (in this case Netflix having grabbed rights in 2021 but Puffin are still doing various things as part of this, he died in 1990 so copyright is likely to last a while yet, UK being 70 years after the author’s death, the books being from the 1960s to a few just after his death for those place that do since published) having smeared their greasy selves over aspects of popular culture now appear to be after legendary children's book (and a few other things but mostly known for that) author Roald Dahl. Author of such classics as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (and its sequel the great glass elevator), George and the Giant Peach, the BFG, the Witches, Matilda, Fantastic Mr Fox, The Twits, George's Marvellous Medicine, Danny the Champion of the World, most of which have been made into legendary films. In this case they appear to have employed "sensitivity readers" as they called to justify their existence in the company by finding something that someone might imagine they are offended by (one of which is "fat" as a descriptor for characters).

News article (there are several others if you prefer) covering some of the change
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2...rewritten-to-remove-language-deemed-offensive
A video


Usual boo censorship. Anything that particularly strikes you as odd in the examples? Got any waiting in your attic for ebay (assuming they don't ban old versions like they did for some other things)? Going to now have to avoid these versions for your kids or are you delighted that your kids or subsequent reads will be untroubled (at least until a new crop of words becomes time to come over all unnecessary).

Previously we saw this happen for legendary American children's book author Dr Seuss. https://gbatemp.net/threads/some-dr-seuss-books-taken-down.584207/
Another little interesting read into it happening for a author being published
https://unherd.com/2022/02/how-sensitivity-readers-corrupted-literature/ and again several others have published their experiences with such if you want that.

 

[DaFixer]

I heard about this last time on a podcast, I get really tired this kind off censorship.
As a kid I loved the books and the first Charlie and the Chocolate Factory movies.

 

[JuanMena]

Jesus Craigst

See? This is why I hate young people.

 

[Beaukilla]

Lol, who cares, lots of boomers probably. Yawn

 

[MoshpitWorkout]

As much as I'd like to have a knee-jerk reaction to them changing something that was a big part of my childhood, I believe this issue is a bit more complicated.

On the one hand these kinds of changes come with a danger of erasing our history and pretending it didn't happen. People spoke differently before and got away with being more crass, more racist, more sexist, more whatever-ist than they do now. Changing the language in classic literature (or any other media) to remove such things is hiding the ugly fact that it was a part of how people behaved not that long ago. The adage "those who forget their history are doomed to repeat it" should be a reminder that we can't cover over the disagreeable parts of our past as if that'll stop it from happening in the future.

On the other hand we're talking about some small, seemingly benign, word changes in a children's book. Children are highly susceptible to influence and you may not want to teach them that judging people by their appearance is acceptable. Someone being ugly, fat, skinny, or covered in warts has no bearing on their character and conflating the two is in danger of teaching kids the wrong lesson. It may make someone who is fat think that they are inherently a bad person or give some little shit ammunition which to use against their peers.

I think this is more complicated than just "boo censorship" and I want to believe that we have to try to satisfy both viewpoints. I would be OK with it if the most commonly published versions are censored along with a prelude in the book explaining that it has been changed to fit with modern sensibilities. But there needs to exists unchanged versions for those who want it, kind of like how there are abridged and unabridged versions of classic novels. It needs to be explicit whether or not you have the original text or if it has been changed.

 

[Veho]

They first came for Roald Dahl when they made him change Charlie Bucket to be white, because a black protagonist would "not appeal to readers". Imagine if the absolute shitstorm that would ensue if someone today tried to restore Dahl's original vision from before he was forced to change it by the cancel culture snowflakes. You know, the actual ones.