Apparently, the radical left is no longer going to insist that classic literature with “harmful material” be banned; instead, they’ll just rewrite literary works to conform to their woke sensibilities.
Think I’m kidding? A group of self-important woke lefties is “fixing” the works of Roald Dahl for a “modern audience.”
Augustus Gloop is no longer fat, Mrs Twit is no longer fearfully ugly, and the Oompa-Loompas have gone gender-neutral in new editions of Roald Dahl’s beloved stories.The publisher, Puffin, has made hundreds of changes to the original text, removing many of Dahl’s colourful descriptions and making his characters less grotesque.The publisher, Puffin, has made hundreds of changes to the original text, removing many of Dahl’s colourful descriptions and making his characters less grotesque.The review of Dahl’s language was undertaken to ensure that the books “can continue to be enjoyed by all today”, Puffin said.References to physical appearance have been heavily edited. The word “fat” has been removed from every book – Augustus Gloop in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory may still look like a ball of dough, but can now only be described as “enormous”.In the same story, the Oompa-Loompas are no longer “tiny”, “titchy” or “no higher than my knee” but merely small. And where once they were “small men”, they are now “small people”.. . . . References to “female” characters have disappeared – Miss Trunchbull in Matilda, once a “most formidable female”, is now a “most formidable woman”. “Boys and girls” has been turned into “children”. The Cloud-Men in James and the Giant Peach have become Cloud-People and Fantastic Mr Fox’s three sons have become daughters.Matilda reads Jane Austen rather than Rudyard Kipling, and a witch posing as “a cashier in a supermarket” now works as “a top scientist”.Mrs Twit’s “fearful ugliness” is reduced to “ugliness”, while Mrs Hoppy in Esio Trot is not an “attractive middle-aged lady” but a “kind middle-aged lady”.
Not content to rewrite existing text, the woke Puffin publishers and Netflix, who acquired Roald Dahl Story Company, decided they would write and insert entirely new text into these children’s classics.
The Telegraph continues:
Passages not written by Dahl have also been added. 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.”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 underwhelming 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.”
Pre-woke writers used delightful turns of phrase, word play and puns, symbolism, and a host of other tropes to convey their story’s meaning. But none of that matters to the defilers of Dahl’s children’s literature.
An emphasis on mental health has led to the removal of “crazy” and “mad”, which Dahl used frequently in comic fashion. A mention in Esio Trot of tortoises being “backward” – the joke behind the book’s title – has been excised.The words “black” and “white” have been removed: characters no longer turn “white with fear” and the Big Friendly Giant in The BFG cannot wear a black cloak.
I’m not sure they can still even be considered Dahl’s works at this point, so why not just erase his name entirely?
Here’s some of the backstory on the decision to desecrate these wonderful literary classics.
The changes were made by the publisher, Puffin, and the Roald Dahl Story Company, now owned by Netflix, with sensitivity readers hired to scrutinise the text.The review began in 2020, when the company was still run by the Dahl family. Netflix acquired the literary estate in 2021 for a reported £500 million.Sensitivities over Dahl’s stories were heightened when a 2020 Hollywood version of The Witches led to a backlash over its depiction of the Grand Witch, played by Anne Hathaway, with fingers missing from each hand.Warner Bros was forced to make an apology after Paralympians and charities said it was offensive to the limb difference community.
Needless to say, people have thoughts.
[Featured image via YouTube]
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