14 votes

Roald Dahl books rewritten to remove language deemed offensive

19 comments

  1. [3]
    vord
    (edited )
    Link
    I'll kick it off with: Sure, mostly fine. But these next few I take issue with. That added line is pointless fluff that anyone with 2 braincells and a whiff of empathy will figure out on their...

    I'll kick it off with: Sure, mostly fine. But these next few I take issue with.

    In The Witches, a paragraph explaining that witches are bald beneath their wigs ends with the new line: “There are plenty of other reasons why women might wear wigs and there is certainly nothing wrong with that.”

    That added line is pointless fluff that anyone with 2 braincells and a whiff of empathy will figure out on their own.

    In previous editions of James and the Giant Peach, the Centipede sings: “Aunt Sponge was terrifically fat / And tremendously flabby at that,” and, “Aunt Spiker was thin as a wire / And dry as a bone, only drier.”

    Both verses have been removed, and in their place are the rhymes: “Aunt Sponge was a nasty old brute / And deserved to be squashed by the fruit,” and, “Aunt Spiker was much of the same / And deserves half of the blame.”

    This is the big one. The new lines are watered down and wishy washy.

    I'm not down for posthumous editing. I'll read the OG line with "slut" in Revolting Rhymes to my elementary child then have a discussion about why that word is a problem and how we're trying to do better as a society. Hence it being a good inclusion for The Prince to be using it.

    Leave problematic portions of old works and use it as a teachable moment about tolerance and progress, rather than trying to rinse clean the sins of the past.

    Hell, Matilda as an entire book works on the premise that disobedience is justified and eating a whole cake is a heroic moment. I find that far more offensive as a parent of a young child.

    But it turns out disobedience is an important lesson to learn. Learning it in fiction is far preferable.

    21 votes
    1. Akir
      Link Parent
      I completely agree. Not only do I find these edits unnecessary but they actively weaken the messages of the books. I am fat enough that I fit in the “hamplanet” category and I actually find it...

      I completely agree. Not only do I find these edits unnecessary but they actively weaken the messages of the books. I am fat enough that I fit in the “hamplanet” category and I actually find it more offensive that they removed references to characters being fat or thin. Those descriptions are not without purpose and generally they help to reinforce the messages the story is trying to teach. Every kid in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is there to demonstrate bad habits or personality traits and Agustus Gloop’s fatness is there specifically to illustrate why overeating is a bad habit.

      And what is the purpose of taking these things out? Because they are rude? Well, guess what? They were rude when the book was written. It’s almost like it was written that way on purpose.

      The one concession I will give is that calling Oompa Loompas people makes it more readable to todays audiences since we don’t use the term “men” to refer to a collective people anymore. Though I don’t think that was enough reason to actually make the change.

      17 votes
    2. Grzmot
      Link Parent
      Why can't they do it in the same way that Looney Tunes did it, where they changed nothing, but simply added a disclaimer that these cartoons were made in a different time with different cultural...

      Why can't they do it in the same way that Looney Tunes did it, where they changed nothing, but simply added a disclaimer that these cartoons were made in a different time with different cultural sensitivities present or not present? Why apply invisible changes like this?

      It's not that this is a particularly new phenomenon, but in the one example that I know of, The Arabian Nights, a lot of sexual details were removed in the process of shortening the work down into one publishable volume from eight. This was done to avoid causing a ruckus, as the translator was known as, what people at the time would likely call, a sexual deviant, who took great care to translate those details. But as I said, there it's at least defendable.

      3 votes
  2. [3]
    streblo
    Link
    Why bother learning lessons from the mistakes of the past when we can just edit it to make sure there weren’t any. Seems pretty straight forward.

    Why bother learning lessons from the mistakes of the past when we can just edit it to make sure there weren’t any. Seems pretty straight forward.

    14 votes
    1. [2]
      vord
      Link Parent
      We have always been at war with Eurasia.

      We have always been at war with Eurasia.

      8 votes
      1. mtset
        Link Parent
        Given that this is a private entity using their own money to do something they think will increase their profits on their IP, and that we live in an era of actual increasing government censorship...

        Given that this is a private entity using their own money to do something they think will increase their profits on their IP, and that we live in an era of actual increasing government censorship and revisionism of various varieties, the comparison strikes me as unfounded.

        This is not the Ministry of Truth, it's some businesspeople making a bad decision.

        9 votes
  3. [6]
    JXM
    (edited )
    Link
    So, given Roald Dahl's well known moral failings, I was expecting to see something much more substantive happening. But they're mostly minor changes that seem pointless. Removing lines about a...

    So, given Roald Dahl's well known moral failings, I was expecting to see something much more substantive happening.

    But they're mostly minor changes that seem pointless. Removing lines about a character being bald or fat seems a bit much. It's different than something like say, changing Huckleberry Finn to remove the N word. That's what I was expecting.

    I think erasing the past is a bad idea. The important thing is to emphasize what's changed since the book was written, to put the book in a larger context.

    I've mentioned it before when this type of thing has come up, but the way that Warner Bros. handled the release of older Looney Toons cartoons is the gold standard for how these things should be done. As Whoopi Goldberg says in the introduction:

    "These jokes were wrong then and they are wrong today, but removing these inexcusable jokes would be the same as saying they never existed. So they are presented here to accurately reflect a part of our history that cannot and should not be ignored."

    12 votes
    1. cloud_loud
      Link Parent
      Speaking of Huckleberry Finn, this reminds me of my 11th grade English class. Which was about American Literature. And I think the rubric had Huckleberry Finn on there but the teacher refused to...

      Speaking of Huckleberry Finn, this reminds me of my 11th grade English class. Which was about American Literature. And I think the rubric had Huckleberry Finn on there but the teacher refused to make it part of the class because of the n word. That teacher was a little weird cause she would send students to the principal for minor things, like one of my friends said MLK cheated on his wife in a conversation with another student and she called him racist.

      That doesn’t add much to the conversation but it was just a weird thing I remembered just now.

      3 votes
    2. [4]
      vord
      Link Parent
      I don't see many moral failings. Being anti-Israel isn't being antisemetic. Modern Israel had a violent imperialistic birth and has treated the native populations as poorly as the USA treated its...

      I don't see many moral failings. Being anti-Israel isn't being antisemetic. Modern Israel had a violent imperialistic birth and has treated the native populations as poorly as the USA treated its own native populations at its birth.

      2 votes
      1. [3]
        Litmus2336
        Link Parent
        "There's a trait in the Jewish character that does provoke animosity, maybe it's a kind of lack of generosity towards non-Jews. I mean there is always a reason why anti-anything crops up anywhere;...

        "There's a trait in the Jewish character that does provoke animosity, maybe it's a kind of lack of generosity towards non-Jews. I mean there is always a reason why anti-anything crops up anywhere; even a stinker like Hitler didn't just pick on them for no reason." - Roald Dahl

        "There aren't any non-Jewish publishers anywhere, they control the media—jolly clever thing to do—that's why the president of the United States has to sell all this stuff to Israel." - Roald Dahl

        7 votes
        1. [2]
          vord
          Link Parent
          That'll teach me to take wikipedia at its word.

          That'll teach me to take wikipedia at its word.

          2 votes
          1. Fal
            Link Parent
            In fairness to Wikipedia, both of those quotes are in the linked section.

            In fairness to Wikipedia, both of those quotes are in the linked section.

            4 votes
  4. [3]
    noble_pleb
    Link
    The people who spent money on this rewriting could have made a much better contribution to humanity by feeding some poor or donating to a cause by using that money. That's all I have to say.

    The people who spent money on this rewriting could have made a much better contribution to humanity by feeding some poor or donating to a cause by using that money. That's all I have to say.

    8 votes
    1. [2]
      HoolaBoola
      Link Parent
      You can say that about basically anything, though.

      You can say that about basically anything, though.

      9 votes
      1. river
        Link Parent
        You can't say it about feeding the poor

        You can't say it about feeding the poor

  5. [3]
    AugustusFerdinand
    Link
    Roald Dahl Publisher to Rerelease Author’s Original Texts After Editing Controversy: ‘We Are Offering Readers the Choice’ Backpedaling or marketing?
    4 votes
    1. nukeman
      Link Parent
      Why not both? Honestly I wouldn’t be surprised if they are worried about people publishing pirate versions of the original and undercutting sales.

      Why not both?

      Honestly I wouldn’t be surprised if they are worried about people publishing pirate versions of the original and undercutting sales.

      4 votes
    2. cloud_loud
      Link Parent
      100% marketing. They do this originally to stir up headlines and gain attention in the online culture wars. And then end up selling to people who participate heavily in those culture wars. From an...

      100% marketing. They do this originally to stir up headlines and gain attention in the online culture wars. And then end up selling to people who participate heavily in those culture wars. From an outside perspective it doesn’t seem like there’s enough people to justify this type of marketing tactic, but I’m not seeing the actual numbers so what do I know. Reminds me of this.

      2 votes