What do you think about the Roald Dahl books being altered?

So what does everyone think about the news that Roald Dahl books are being altered to take out certain words etc?

I have made a video giving my thoughts on the mater but wondered how everyone else feels

OK, an honest observation, the mask is really detrimental to the video. Either be happy to appear on camera, or just be a narrator off screen IMO.

Don't think I disagree with anything you have said, but need to relisten.

I'm not really in favour of altering works, I quite like the Tom & Jerry defence, where there is a disclaimer at the start explaining that some of the content is outdated. I think it's important to show our history, good and bad. That said, I understand why with children's literature that they want to make sure things are inclusive. So it's a difficult one.

Roald Dahl was a banana split of a human being, mind.

I haven’t heard what’s being changed, so I can’t really comment. But some related stuff:

When I was a kid I had a book that was so offensive, just stating the title here could probably get me banned. But it didn’t make me racist in any way. I could see that its depictions were crude, even at that early age.

Agatha Christie’s great murder mystery had title and content changes to make it less objectionable. It didn’t spoil anything, and made it possible for future generations to enjoy the story.

The works of Agatha Christie and Roald Dahl are not high art, to be preserved at all cost. They are, and always were, entertainment. If you can entirely remake video games without it being decried as heresy, a few edits to a novel are nothing to get aerated about.

Albear wrote:OK, first observation. Either be happy to appear on camera, or just be a narrator off screen, the mask is really detrimental to the video. Don't think I disagree with anything you have said, but need to relisten.

The Mask though, gives it a really sinister feel.

Its not a not happy to be on Camera thing, its more of a Character thing, its something that started with my horror videos and spread into my gaming and now I just like having a character/sort of brand thing... the same is true of my little buddy Dwayne Racoon on my shoulder, he is my mascot.

kerr9000 wrote:

Albear wrote:OK, first observation. Either be happy to appear on camera, or just be a narrator off screen, the mask is really detrimental to the video. Don't think I disagree with anything you have said, but need to relisten.

The Mask though, gives it a really sinister feel.

Its not a not happy to be on Camera thing, its more of a Character thing, its something that started with my horror videos and spread into my gaming and now I just like having a character/sort of brand thing... the same is true of my little buddy Dwayne Racoon on my shoulder, he is my mascot.

Ah OK, fair enough. I haven't watched the Horror videos so probably didn't pick up on the Vibe. Also you didn't ask for You tube tips so I will get back in my box.

I don't think we should censor literature. It feels like a slippery slope and I think it's important to remember the past for what it was. Rinks's post almost changed my mind, but I am not sure I want someone to be able to decide what future generations can read.

Albear wrote:

kerr9000 wrote:

Albear wrote:OK, first observation. Either be happy to appear on camera, or just be a narrator off screen, the mask is really detrimental to the video. Don't think I disagree with anything you have said, but need to relisten.

The Mask though, gives it a really sinister feel.

Its not a not happy to be on Camera thing, its more of a Character thing, its something that started with my horror videos and spread into my gaming and now I just like having a character/sort of brand thing... the same is true of my little buddy Dwayne Racoon on my shoulder, he is my mascot.

Ah OK, fair enough. I haven't watched the Horror videos so probably didn't pick up on the Vibe. Also you didn't ask for You tube tips so I will get back in my box.

I don't think we should censor literature. It feels like a slippery slope and I think it's important to remember the past for what it was. Rinks's post almost changed my mind, but I am not sure I want someone to be able to decide what future generations can read.

Thats Ok I dont mind YouTube tips just thought it might make more sense if you knew where the Mask and the Racoon came from lol

You got my opinion exactly there its important to remember what the past was like and not suger coat it, and its a slippy slope.

It's a weird one.

On the one hand, I agree with the stance of having a disclosure before problematic content like Warner Bros did with a lot of older Looney Tunes stuff about how the depiction of harmful stereotypes was wrong then and is wrong now but censorship is more harmful than contextualisation. On the other, that doesn't really work when dealing with material still being marketed directly to kids.

Having loads of warnings in front of badly aged content is all well and good if the audience is old enough to understand it and use that to frame what they're reading. But Little Timmy is hardly going to understand a brief history of British Colonialism in the 1800s before reading about the Oompa Loompas and is just going to want the next chapter about the magical chocolate factory.

It's kind of amusing to see the howls of rage about "lefty woke censorship!", when nobody has asked for it, this has been done by the publisher and/or the estate and most lefties seem to think it's a bit daft.

I am not against books being altered. It's always happened, which is why there are so many different editions of various books.

In this case, the rewrites I've seen range from the pointless , such as removing "fat" but keeping "enormous" in the description for Augustus Gloop, to the ridiculous - changing "cashier" to "top scientist".

The cynic in me thinks that this has only been done for the publicity and they'll soon be making a big fanfare about the originals coming back.

Seems a bit daft tbh, someone must have been really bored to want to start changing old literature.

Depends on what is being changed and how. Like I can get 100% behind the change you mentioned in the video. They had to move on that. It was racist as hell.

I'm not sure about the 2 new changes I've heard. I'm kinda going towards it just being unnecessary. And there's probably another reason they did this also.

Moggy wrote:It's kind of amusing to see the howls of rage about "lefty woke censorship!", when nobody has asked for it, this has been done by the publisher and/or the estate and most lefties seem to think it's a bit daft.

I am not against books being altered. It's always happened, which is why there are so many different editions of various books.

In this case, the rewrites I've seen range from the pointless , such as removing "fat" but keeping "enormous" in the description for Augustus Gloop, to the ridiculous - changing "cashier" to "top scientist".

The cynic in me thinks that this has only been done for the publicity and they'll soon be making a big fanfare about the originals coming back.

Yup, it's entirely for a marketing stunt I think to generate outrage amongst the "strawberry floating woke left ruining are literature!!!!" people who will be overjoyed when the old versions come back, when this is something nobody has ever asked for or even cares about.

The best thing to do is teach people to read better books, or have some kind of disclaimer saying that some language used in this book was acceptable at the time of writing, but is now offensive or something.

Qikz wrote:
Yup, it's entirely for a marketing stunt I think to generate outrage amongst the "strawberry floating woke left ruining are literature!!!!" people who will be overjoyed when the old versions come back, when this is something nobody has ever asked for or even cares about.

A bit like this a few years ago with Blyton.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/ ... date-flops

Of course we didn't hear much about that (if anything) at the time because we were not in the grip of a "woke!!!!" moral panic.

rinks wrote:Agatha Christie’s great murder mystery had title and content changes to make it less objectionable. It didn’t spoil anything, and made it possible for future generations to enjoy the story.

I've still got a copy of that on the bookshelf. The cover art, too... Stuff like that I can totally get, because otherwise it'd be totally lost to the ages.

I've seen a couple of people grumbling about how it's a pretty half-hearted attempt to edit them, like removing the word "fat" but the rest of the description still paints a really vivid picture of a little fat kid. Would be interesting to get them rewritten completely in a way that still keeps the style quite true, rather than just deleting words here and there.

When are they going to come for David Walliams is what I want to know

Moggy wrote:It's kind of amusing to see the howls of rage about "lefty woke censorship!", when nobody has asked for it, this has been done by the publisher and/or the estate and most lefties seem to think it's a bit daft.

I am not against books being altered. It's always happened, which is why there are so many different editions of various books.

In this case, the rewrites I've seen range from the pointless , such as removing "fat" but keeping "enormous" in the description for Augustus Gloop, to the ridiculous - changing "cashier" to "top scientist".

Yep. In the last few years publishers of various things have taken it on themselves to react to calls for social justice and acknowledgement of systemic prejudices by withdrawing stuff they imagine as being insensitive or offensive.

No serious activist is calling for these kinds of changes but it'll be activists who will bear the brunt of the ire at these decisions.

Frank wrote:

rinks wrote:Agatha Christie’s great murder mystery had title and content changes to make it less objectionable. It didn’t spoil anything, and made it possible for future generations to enjoy the story.

I've still got a copy of that on the bookshelf. The cover art, too... Stuff like that I can totally get, because otherwise it'd be totally lost to the ages.

I've seen a couple of people grumbling about how it's a pretty half-hearted attempt to edit them, like removing the word "fat" but the rest of the description still paints a really vivid picture of a little fat kid. Would be interesting to get them rewritten completely in a way that still keeps the style quite true, rather than just deleting words here and there.

When are they going to come for David Walliams is what I want to know

Hell yeah, at least Dahl has the excuse of the times the books were written.

It amuses me that I see so many irate responses regarding this across the web, didn't realise there was such a high amount of adults still reading Dahl works or care enough to moan about it.

I just don't care. Its a decision from the estate, and if it means a few more kids don't necessarily feel put out or feel down due to the stereotypical fat/ugly = villain traits then I suppose there's some positives.

End of the day these are books for younger kids. It's not like say editing Mice and Men or whatever else is in the GCSE syllabus. Those books are the sort of ones to look into the context and use of language when originally written.

And the older prints (no doubt some would call them 'pure' with no irony) will still be around in life. My mum has kept loads of my old books so if I want my kid to have fat Augustus Gloop ill just grab those.

It's fine. Next!

I wonder if people are demanding the books go back to the 1970 version?

In the first published edition, the Oompa-Loompas were described as African pygmies, and were drawn this way in the original printed edition.

After the announcement of a film adaptation sparked a statement from the NAACP, which expressed concern that the transportation of Oompa-Loompas to Wonka's factory resembled slavery, Dahl found himself sympathising with their concerns and published a revised edition.

In this edition, as well as the subsequent sequel, the Oompa-Loompas were drawn as being white and appearing similar to hippies, and the references to Africa were deleted.

And I guess we better go back to Enid Blyton's original text as well. Including the original names of the three golliwogs

There are some truly vile people in that thread btw, I guess it shows what reading the original Blyton words does to people.

The only thing I find annoying about this is that it's one of those fringe examples that will be used by bellends when they argue against progressive initiatives/policies or even just the general idea of equalising representation in society, culture and media. There will be genuinely useful and important movements in this regard, and your gammon down the pub will argue against them by picking out things like this.