The woke brigade mucking about with Roald Dahl

[Midas]

Not a fan of revisions unless made by the author themselves.

Dahl's books are established moneyspinners with a certain cachet, and this is obviously about future-proofing their profitability. If Puffin is truly interested in having their output espouse more progressive values, perhaps they should invest in more new writers who write for the times we live in instead of revising 50+ year old books that should have entered their retirement phase long ago?

If a progressive mainstream culture is to flourish, the old totems have to be allowed to die.

[Glebe]

[13 schoolyards]

Has anybody mentioned that the rights to Dahl's work were recently snapped up by Netflix: https://about.netflix.com/en/news/netflix-acquires-iconic-roald-dahl-story-company

I'm guessing now having a major mainstream US media company in the mix churning out adaptations might have something to do with wanting to make sure there's nothing to offend any possible consumers

[Pink Gregory]

Which is interesting considering the high profile exicitly anti-trans comedy specials that they've put out.  Different consumers though.

Is that rights buy-up the reason that Wes Anderson is making another Dahl adapatation?

[Dark Sexy Dangerous]

I suppose it's a lot more understandable when you see Dahl is more of a brand than an author now. Publishers are much less likely to continue profiting from said brand if its target market of young parents and teachers, who are reading this stuff out loud, know they'll have to continually explain things along the away, which they probably can't be arsed to do on top of parenting and teaching kids. Mucking about with the books just helps to maintain market loyalty, or whatever the soul-destroying term is.

But something being understandable doesn't make it any less of an horrendous precedent.

Can see this happening to Tolkien, who's also another brand name now.

Has anybody mentioned that the rights to Dahl's work were recently snapped up by Netflix: https://about.netflix.com/en/news/netflix-acquires-iconic-roald-dahl-story-company

I'm guessing now having a major mainstream US media company in the mix churning out adaptations might have something to do with wanting to make sure there's nothing to offend any possible consumers

Yep. Even though work on revising Dahl's books started before Netflix acquired the estate (or so I heard), they're definitely being primed for the slew of adaptations that are coming up.

[Mister Six]

Maybe it wouldn't be as bad if the new material wasn't so shit.

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."

Loses the playful daftness of the original language, but - worse! - the second one doesn't even scan any more!

[Dark Sexy Dangerous]

Maybe it wouldn't be as bad if the new material wasn't so shit.

Loses the playful daftness of the original language, but - worse! - the second one doesn't even scan any more!

This is why I have little time for people who just shrug at revisions like this as long as 'the message' of a book, as they see it, isn't affected.

It strikes me that a person must have a rather dead appreciation of literature if they think 'the message' is all that's essential to a book while the character of the language, be it its playfulness or musicality, is a luxury that can simply be done away with.

I can't be the only one who thinks Morris' achievements would've been all the lesser if he'd prioritised 'the message' over and above the pleasure of writing sparkling and utterly barmy lines like "The steel vulture of Beelzebub was now just seconds away from the children's soft heads", or "That out there is my big shiny shoe and you are the biggest piece of shit on it. Lick yourself off my shoe", or "Outrageous is as outrageous does and what it does it doesn't when it gets to the end".

[Urinal Cake]

Wait Sophie Dahl married Jamie Callum?

[Phoenix Lazarus]

His work'll be dead or gone at some point. How many children's classics from even two hundred years back are still knocking about today?

[Pink Gregory]

His work'll be dead or gone at some point. How many children's classics from even two hundred years back are still knocking about today?

and even then how many of them aren't firmly in the public domain?

[bgmnts]

Has anybody mentioned that the rights to Dahl's work were recently snapped up by Netflix

Ah. The quest to turn any piece of art into a nothing mulch to sell as much as possible.

[Thomas]

As a member of the woke mob, I actually voted against this motion at our last meeting.

Dahl's views were quite woeful (his anti-Semitic remarks, especially, are shocking), but a book speaks for its time as well as itself. A Dahl story, by now, is a historical document as well as a bit of a fiction. And those lifeless Giant Peach revisions do indeed destroy the very fun and coherence of the text - it becomes a subpar posthumous co-write. Just slap a content/historical context warning on the inside cover if you must.

Like Midas, I don't care if an author sees fit to alter their own work (though we can still criticise - George Lucas, for example). Was it Wordsworth whose own notebooks are a mess of rewrites?

One might argue that this isn't the work of the woke mob at all, but a kowtow to the worriers at Netflix HQ.

[checkoutgirl]

Not only should they not change it, they shouldn't even put a warning on it. Both of those things are idiotic. If you're curious and intelligent enough to read a book then you should be able to handle Roald Dahl unmolested and sans trigger warning.

The same goes for every other book too. If you want to read it then read it.

[checkoutgirl]

Kids get access to BDSM porn as soon as they get a smart phone or ipad which is probably 12 years old these days. Roald Dahl isn't even the lesser of two evils by comparison. It's nothing at all.

[Famous Mortimer]

Kids get access to BDSM porn as soon as they get a smart phone or ipad which is probably 12 years old these days. Roald Dahl isn't even the lesser of two evils by comparison. It's nothing at all.

What a strange comparison.

[Hank_Kingsley]

I quite like the idea of the publishers changing Dahl's text and future young adults subsequently being traumatised when they stumble upon the original text in a Sally Ann's or what have you.

I'm pretty sure I've lived through this happening with Enid Blyton books and golliwogs in Noddy being swapped out for little cishet old white men or teddy bears or something like that.

Noddy still seems to be going in some form or another (and making Enid's distant relatives a bit of cheddar), looks like Dreamworks own the rights to his little tight arse?

So, I guess wokewashing worked in terms of the bottom line because golliwogs would most certainly not be making a cameo in the next Shrek I reckon.

If my racist old grandad had written a best selling series of beloved fatphobic children's books I can assure you I would not give a fuck about his artistic legacy once he was dead and buried. I'm doing whatever it takes to keep me from having to get a real job.

[Alternative Carpark]

His work'll be dead or gone at some point. How many children's classics from even two hundred years back are still knocking about today?

Alice in Wonderland's over 150 years old, could that count?

Could perhaps make a case for Gulliver's Travels, which is 297 years old this year, except that wasn't originally written as a children's book.

[Mister Six]

Treasure Island? I bloody loved that as a kid. Dunno if it's still being read today, mind you.

[Famous Mortimer]

I'm pretty sure I've lived through this happening with Enid Blyton books and golliwogs in Noddy being swapped out for little cishet old white men or teddy bears or something like that.

You've also got Kipling removing the swastika from the cover of all his books.

https://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/facts_swastika.htm

Philip Pullman has the best opinion on this whole storm in a teacup, I think.

[Pink Gregory]

Not only should they not change it, they shouldn't even put a warning on it. Both of those things are idiotic. If you're curious and intelligent enough to read a book then you should be able to handle Roald Dahl unmolested and sans trigger warning.

The same goes for every other book too. If you want to read it then read it.

surely the content warnings are more for educational settings?

[Phoenix Lazarus]

It would have been about 1977 when I got Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.  I just missed the Oompa-Loompas being illustrated as black savages.

[Mr Banlon]

Interesting houseguests and goings on at the Dahl residence :
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/video/news/video-1157239/Gary-Glitter-reacts-school-girls-uniform-anecdote-TV.html

[checkoutgirl]

surely the content warnings are more for educational settings?

To be honest I don't know the ins and outs. The only expertise being enjoying most of his childrens books as a nipper and not recalling anything remotely upsetting. If a kid or a teacher can't handle a Roald Dahl book how are they gonna deal with To Kill a Mockingbird and shit? Sure we can progress as a society but this seems like a proper waste of time.

[Pink Gregory]

To be honest I don't know the ins and outs. The only expertise being enjoying most of his childrens books as a nipper and not recalling anything remotely upsetting. If a kid or a teacher can't handle a Roald Dahl book how are they gonna deal with To Kill a Mockingbird and shit? Sure we can progress as a society but this seems like a proper waste of time.

considering that he's such a well known author and that there is an eponymous promotional company that continues to promote them it's hard to imagine anyone being at all surprised by what's in them

[Phoenix Lazarus]

Could perhaps make a case for Gulliver's Travels, which is 297 years old this year, except that wasn't originally written as a children's book.

The children's version excised him pissing on the fire in Lilliput.

[Famous Mortimer]

If a kid or a teacher can't handle a Roald Dahl book how are they gonna deal with To Kill a Mockingbird and shit? Sure we can progress as a society but this seems like a proper waste of time.

I'd hazard a guess that "To Kill A Mockingbird" isn't part of that many school curricula these days, so they (kid and teacher) probably won't have to deal with it at all. Perhaps there are other books that deal with racism, published in the last 60 years, that schools are using.

[Cuellar]

[bgmnts]

Ah fuck stuff like that makes me want this.

Fucksaaaaake nooooo.

Imagine the one lesson you learnt from a children's author is to judge a book by its cover. How did that sperm get through? Fucksake.

[Milo]

I'd imagine this is more about trying to keep the books on school reading lists and maintain their relevance than anything else. All the stuff about being overweight or unattractive = evil isn't a great message.

[Phoenix Lazarus]

a child star of the original 1971 movie, Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, which starred Gene Wilder, has spoken out to defend the author.

German actor Michael Böllner played the glutinous boy Augustus Gloop, who departs the film after he falls into the chocolate river in Wonka's factory.

Now Böllner, of the original 1971 movie, Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, which starred Gene Wilder, has spoken out to defend the author

Now child star, Michael Böllner, of the original 1971 movie, Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, which starred Gene Wilder, has spoken out to defend the author

The german actor played the glutinous boy Augustus Gloop, who departs the film after he falls into the chocolate river in Wonka's factory. He said: 'I don't think this chocolate factory story was politically incorrect at all

The german actor played the glutinous boy Augustus Gloop, who departs the film after he falls into the chocolate river in Wonka's factory. He said: 'I don't think this chocolate factory story was politically incorrect at all

According to reports, as a result of the changes made by publishers Puffin and the Roald Dahl Story Company, Gloop is no longer called fat in new versions of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Speaking from his home in Germany the actor, now 64, told the Daily Mail the book did not need to be rewritten and the story was 'very good'.

He said: 'I don't think this chocolate factory story was politically incorrect at all.

'Down here in Bavaria, we are used to people making jokes at us a little, and we are kind of very well known for being very fond of all our traditional food and that's ok.

'It is really fine. So I don't have feeling like it was cruel or politically incorrect or anything.'

He added: 'Performing on the set never made me sad or anything like this, really on the contrary.

'So from my point of view it is really fine I think – fine with the book and story, and I definitely don't think it has to be rewritten at all.'

Böllner said: 'I also think that the story is actually very good too - it shows you bad things and bad behaviours - like that kids should not watch TV and should not eat too much, and it shows you that the good guys who do the right thing, they win in the end. All this is are good things, I think, so why stop children knowing about this?'

'The film was made a long time again so maybe it could be that some of the views back then were a little different to things today. Maybe, But basically I think it is a very good story, and that there is nothing harmful about it, and people should therefore just let it be this way.'