DrewMerson wrote:

There’s quite a lot of pearl-clutching going on in this thread considering the lack of detail of what changes have actually been made to Dahl’s text.

There's a fair bit of it explained in the Sundays. Fat is now enormous apparantly.  A horse faced woman now has a face. The penmanship is breathtaking.

So that's all right then.

Quietly replacing things and supposing (and probably being right) that nobody will notice seems in some way more insidious. I think if you can justify changing and rewriting 'art' because it aligns with your moral point of view or what you perceive as the greater good, then we must also accept other groups editing out perceived immoralities, such as references to homosexuality, evolution, or whatever because it aligns with their views or communities. I mean, of course, you don't have to accept it but it seems a bit hypocritical. We can make changes because we're right, but you can't because you're wrong.

That's their prerogative. Don't read it. Changing it in hindsight is a slippery slope.

In the new edition of Witches, a supernatural female posing as an ordinary woman may be working as a “top scientist or running a business” instead of as a “cashier in a supermarket or typing letters for a businessman”.

The word “black” was removed from the description of the terrible tractors in 1970s The Fabulous Mr Fox. The machines are now simply “murderous, brutal-looking monsters”.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/feb/20/roald-dahl-books-rewrites-criticism-language-altered

The gf once got told off by a woman who had written books about white privilege for using the term ‘black and white thinking’ because it apparently casts black as a negative term. These things all start from good intentions but quickly slide into the absurd.

‘black and white thinking’ because it apparently casts black as a negative term.

It's stuff like that that's so counter-productive for progressivism. Language itself is never inherently harmful, it's how people act according to it. If you're hurt by the word "fat" or something like that it's because people have used it to label and insult you or people like you, it's people that are the problem, obfuscating the terminology isn't going to do anything other than give you some kind of temporary safety blanket.

When we remove terms from our media it should be for a very good reason, with clear logical and causal links between the words and the perpetuation of hate and harm.

I think there are a couple of issues. Firstly, as Davy says, it’s clearly censorship. Secondly, it’s not even *good* censorship. Some of the changes (the disclaimer about women in wigs, for instance) don’t sound remotely like Dahl any more. Others miss the point. Calling Mrs Twit “ugly” is to convey more than her physical appearance- it’s a statement on her personality too. Indeed, the whole concept of The Twits is that their awful appearance reflects their awful personalities. You can rightly say that’s a horrible notion to establish in the minds of children - but that’s the story. Editing out the word “ugly” is both artistically nonsensical and failing to achieve what you’re wanting.

Of course it’s normal for stories to change over time. Any tale worth telling will get rewritten many times to match the prevailing culture. But we don’t claim it’s the original text. We leave chunks out of Shakespeare plays on a regular basis, or remake them for modern audiences with an “inspired by” credit, and that’s all fine. But changing the words, whilst keeping the author’s name, as if they’d had anything to do with it, is bizarre.

(If you’re going to do it, do it openly - my kids have a copy of “The Magic Pudding” in which a chunk is removed due to anti-semitism. It has a long introduction explaining what they removed, and why…)

I may have made this up but I always thought of The Twits as it being that their awful personalities kind of begot their outward appearances. Maybe that's not actually in the story but that's what I internalised from my reading of it all those years ago.

GurtTractor wrote:

I may have made this up but I always thought of The Twits as it being that their awful personalities kind of begot their outward appearances. Maybe that's not actually in the story but that's what I internalised from my reading of it all those years ago.

That's how it was. Who knows what botch job they will have made of it though.

GurtTractor wrote:

I may have made this up but I always thought of The Twits as it being that their awful personalities kind of begot their outward appearances. Maybe that's not actually in the story but that's what I internalised from my reading of it all those years ago.

 

Thats exactly the point of the ugliness in the twits. Although I do remember a lad in school crying over the Beard chapter as his dad had a big bushy beard.

I've just come through a fairly in dept reading period with my daughter and the Dahl books over the past year - She's read Matilda, BFG, the two Charlies, Magic Finger, Mr Fox, Twits, Giant Peach in the past year. There are one or two passages I squirmed a little on but they were not related to personal insults. Mr Fox slicing the chickens neck was a bit of a hmmm moment as was reading about the Farmers Cider drinking. Otherwise I dont see any issues. Its true that Dahl does poke fun at fat people to an extent but its always balanced by the greediness. 

But I do think we are living in a far more sensitive period. I see it with the young people who work for me. They do take things way more personally than I would have at their age. Some see this as a negative on them but maybe its more that we accepted way more. I'm not sure where I stand - as a Manager, I'm completely against it for obvious reasons, but growing up I loved the banter and didnt mind if it was directed at me (plus you can tell when there's malice behind it). So maybe the books do need some tweeking - it seems ott to me but so do people talking about micro aggressions. Times change. 

I do like the idea of putting an "inspired by" tag for the ammended one and maybe both versions can be published. As a parent you can choose if you approve or not. 

monkey wrote:

If you’re fat, they’ve got your back. If you need braces, fuck you, welcome to the real world, bugs bunny.

Spit my coffee reading that - top work.

Ah. Dahl’s ‘estate’ turns out to be Netflix who bought the whole lot a couple of years ago - publishing rights, film rights, the whole shebang.

Yeah. Brace yourself for Content.

Hopefully this generated enough flack that they won't fucking do it again without way more of a headsup.

Someone racist enough to maintain the feel of the original.

Heh.