Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Bowdlerising Factory

[Millennie Al]

We know this but not all parents, families or social groups are liberal or free from prejudice. If a child is constantly hearing racist comments, fiction will reinforce those views.

Fiction will only reinforce these views if it never presents a alternative, which can only happen with the aid of censorship. Without censorship we can have a diversity of views available to children and they can learn the differences. Once you permit censorship, it will be used to reinforce the current views of those who are currently powerful. If you look back through history, you can see it happening. You can even see when people looked back and realised that in previous ages people had been wrong, they never then learned from that that they themselves might be wrong.

[Tessa K]

We know this but not all parents, families or social groups are liberal or free from prejudice. If a child is constantly hearing racist comments, fiction will reinforce those views.

Fiction will only reinforce these views if it never presents a alternative, which can only happen with the aid of censorship. Without censorship we can have a diversity of views available to children and they can learn the differences. Once you permit censorship, it will be used to reinforce the current views of those who are currently powerful. If you look back through history, you can see it happening. You can even see when people looked back and realised that in previous ages people had been wrong, they never then learned from that that they themselves might be wrong.

You're right that censorship carries risks. For example, communist governments rewriting history books or the Nazis (and others) burning books - the most extreme form of it.

But re-editing books is different because the original versions still exist to be read by people who want to, both now and for future historians. All it takes is a note inside the book to indicate which edition it is (or people can check the publication date).

[JQH]

Well, we fundamentally disagree.

You think if a child is constantly hearing racist comments, fiction will reinforce those views.

I think if a child is constantly hearing racist comments, fiction can break the child free from those views because it creates new societies for the child to inhabit.

And when a black child reads the protagonist using racist words, innate sense of right and wrong is strong enough for the child to react against the protagonist and gain a stronger sense of self and reinforced sense of right and wrong.

Maybe we should ask a POC rather than making assumptions

It would be a damn sight better than the whitesplaining on this thread.

[dyqik]

We know this but not all parents, families or social groups are liberal or free from prejudice. If a child is constantly hearing racist comments, fiction will reinforce those views.

Fiction will only reinforce these views if it never presents a alternative, which can only happen with the aid of censorship. Without censorship we can have a diversity of views available to children and they can learn the differences. Once you permit censorship, it will be used to reinforce the current views of those who are currently powerful. If you look back through history, you can see it happening. You can even see when people looked back and realised that in previous ages people had been wrong, they never then learned from that that they themselves might be wrong.

You're right that censorship carries risks. For example, communist governments rewriting history books or the Nazis (and others) burning books - the most extreme form of it.

But re-editing books is different because the original versions still exist to be read by people who want to, both now and for future historians. All it takes is a note inside the book to indicate which edition it is (or people can check the publication date).

What's being discussed here isn't censorship at all, in fact. It's publishers choosing to put it an edited new edition of a text in order to increase sales.

No censor is involved. No books, or even words, are banned. It's not even self-censorship, because there's no threat being responded to.

The thread title is correct to call it Bowdlerizing.

[Tessa K]

I don't remember this much fuss when some of the racist characters in Noddy were replaced.

[lpm]

We know this but not all parents, families or social groups are liberal or free from prejudice. If a child is constantly hearing racist comments, fiction will reinforce those views.

Fiction will only reinforce these views if it never presents a alternative, which can only happen with the aid of censorship. Without censorship we can have a diversity of views available to children and they can learn the differences. Once you permit censorship, it will be used to reinforce the current views of those who are currently powerful. If you look back through history, you can see it happening. You can even see when people looked back and realised that in previous ages people had been wrong, they never then learned from that that they themselves might be wrong.

You're right that censorship carries risks. For example, communist governments rewriting history books or the Nazis (and others) burning books - the most extreme form of it.

But re-editing books is different because the original versions still exist to be read by people who want to, both now and for future historians. All it takes is a note inside the book to indicate which edition it is (or people can check the publication date).

E-books on Kindle have been updated to the new language, allegedly. Censorship and editing in the modern era is more complex than you portray.

[KAJ]

<snip>
E-books on Kindle have been updated to the new language, allegedly. Censorship and editing in the modern era is more complex than you portray.

Yes, according to The Times:

Readers who bought electronic versions of the writer’s books, such as Matilda and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, before the controversial updates have discovered their copies have now been changed.

Puffin Books, the company which publishes Dahl novels, updated the electronic novels, in which Augustus Gloop is no longer described as fat or Mrs Twit as fearfully ugly, on devices such as the Amazon Kindle.

Dahl’s biographer Matthew Dennison last night accused the publisher of “strong-arming readers into accepting a new orthodoxy in which Dahl himself has played no part.”

[dyqik]

That's what you agree to when you buy Kindle books rather than other eBooks or paper books.

[Stephanie]

You're all reacting like Dahl etc is packed with bigotry. Which is nonsense. Anyone got examples of what they want removed?

No. I was simply making the point that this board isn't exactly diverse

[discovolante]

It really isn't is it, and it shows.

LPM's posts remind me of those people who complain that kids never get hit by their parents any more because 'I turned out ok', apart from the fact that they want children to be hit.

[lpm]

What the f.ck? Where did that come from?

[dyqik]

What the f.ck? Where did that come from?

It comes from your insistence that children being exposed to bigotry in entertainment is necessary, and it never did anyone* any harm.

[lpm]

Right wing commentators like to claim it, but children are not snowflakes. I'm a bit worried that people on this forum have adopted this view that kids today are snowflakes. Your urge to cotton wool them is wrong.

Maybe it's because none of you except Bagpuss are recent regular readers of children's fiction? And you are misremembering things you read decades ago? There was someone on the thread who couldn't even remember the plot of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Children's books are incredibly challenging from a young age. They address death, crime, war, racism, abandonment, bullying, sexism, abuse, terrorism, disability and the holocaust. And I'm talking 9-11 here for this list, not teenagers. Children as young as 6-9 face mortal peril and death of characters, they see the Secret Police hauling away enemies of the state, they see the grief of loss.

Do I want children hit in fiction? Yes. Is that analogous to wanting children hit in real life? Don't be stupid.

I described children's fiction at the start of this thread as an inoculation. Now there's an analogy that works. An inoculation isn't safe inert material. It's live dangerous material. It will cause inflammation and distress. But it's delivered in a safe environment. Through fiction, the child temporarily inhabits the body of a character in a fictional world and gets this inoculation. The child experiences tyranny and evil, and this isn't for snowflakes. But at this age the books nearly always have happy endings, with resolution in favour of good and the defeat of cruelty. The child in the safety of her bedroom comes through the journey of the book and even if it was distressing it ends with satisfaction. To diminish this to "entertainment" is an amazing missing of the point.

Yes, I'm absolutely insistent that children should be exposed to this live dangerous material. But that's the opposite of wanting them to be harmed. It's what gives protection from harm and starts the journey towards empathy. Do you lot want children reading bland unchallenging books? Where everything is safe and nice? You want girls to be reading books where girls are never assigned stereotypical gender roles? You want black children reading books that don't expose them to full-on racism? You never want children to be enraged, distressed or traumatised by what they read? If so, then what you'll get is nothingness where children, particularly boys, stop reading fiction and fail to expand the empathy that comes from inhabiting the bodies of fictional characters.

Fundamentally the idiot group on this thread are failing to trust in the intelligence of children and fail to appreciate the better educated children of today. You seem to think delivering nicer Roald Dahl books to children is good when it's actually the darker side of Dahl that's important.

[monkey]

Stuff.

I'm not arguing that children shouldn't learn about the bad stuff in life from books (or film, tv, whatever). It obviously depends on context*. I was arguing against your proposal that in a specific situation (a black child reading the protagonist using racist words) is a good way to make that child stronger. (I disagreed). The key bit there is "the protagonist", the hero. The one to look up to.

Good guys beating the bad racist is a good lesson. The bad guy is bad because they are racist, the good guy is good because they are not. Simple, easy to understand, even for a young child. The good guy being racist, but learning that they're wrong and growing to be better because of that is also a good lesson. I reckon kids can lean that people can be flawed too, but you have to learn that the flaw is a flaw.

But the good guy being 1950's style casual racist with no comeuppance is a bad lesson because it teaches that 1950s style racism is not a flaw, and something that is OK to be.

Children's literature should teach that bigotry is bad, not that it is acceptable. The kid who you think will grow stronger will encounter the kid that learnt from the same source that it's ok to be a tw.t to them.


*And of course it needs to be age/maturity appropriate too. They can learn about this stuff, but maybe not that much.

[lpm]

Yet again, provide examples. Which book are you thinking of where the good guy is a casual racist with no comeuppance? Are you talking about a book from the last 25 years or 100 years ago or what?

[monkey]

Yet again, provide examples. Which book are you thinking of where the good guy is a casual racist with no comeuppance? Are you talking about a book from the last 25 years or 100 years ago or what?

Why should I give an example? I'm not the one who came up with the situation.

And when a black child reads the protagonist using racist words, innate sense of right and wrong is strong enough for the child to react against the protagonist and gain a stronger sense of self and reinforced sense of right and wrong.

[nekomatic]

When I was a kid I thought Roald Dahl was brilliant. When I was a slightly older kid and fancied myself a bit sophisticated I decided he was rubbish. When I had kids, I decided he was brilliant again. Make of that what you will. My kids and I are white and male so I acknowledge I’m missing an experience that others may have. I do think there’s a role for fiction that shows us things we don’t like though, even to the point of seeming to celebrate those things, if it makes us think about those things and helps us understand why we don’t like them.

[lpm]

Yet again, provide examples. Which book are you thinking of where the good guy is a casual racist with no comeuppance? Are you talking about a book from the last 25 years or 100 years ago or what?

Why should I give an example? I'm not the one who came up with the situation.

And when a black child reads the protagonist using racist words, innate sense of right and wrong is strong enough for the child to react against the protagonist and gain a stronger sense of self and reinforced sense of right and wrong.

Twain is the go-to example. Tom Sawyer's racism is developed through the book.

[jimbob]

Yet again, provide examples. Which book are you thinking of where the good guy is a casual racist with no comeuppance? Are you talking about a book from the last 25 years or 100 years ago or what?

I am really confused about your point.

You seem to be saying both that Dahl used bigoted tropes and that minor changes are good and that they are counterproductive.

From what I have read, several David Walliams books contain either racism or classic.

[lpm]

? I said in my 1st and 2nd posts that I don't care about the changing of unnecessary words. Those change zero of the substance of the book. What bigoted tropes are you thinking of in Dahl?

[Millennie Al]

You're right that censorship carries risks. For example, communist governments rewriting history books or the Nazis (and others) burning books - the most extreme form of it.

Such extreme examples make it seem like it is a distant problem. Think more of Section 28.

But re-editing books is different because the original versions still exist to be read by people who want to, both now and for future historians. All it takes is a note inside the book to indicate which edition it is (or people can check the publication date).

You must be reading a different thread to me, as I see people advocating changes for the specific purpose of preventing readers from encountering particular things. And the readers who are targeted by this are particularly vulnerable as they lack the life experience to realise what is being done to them.

[jimbob]

? I said in my 1st and 2nd posts that I don't care about the changing of unnecessary words. Those change zero of the substance of the book. What bigoted tropes are you thinking of in Dahl?

The initial oompa loompas for a start. But I was also thinking about the names, which we all seem to agree are fine to be changed.

I have more issues with David Whalliams

[JQH]

<doubling down>

May I ask you to consider an analogous situation: what if there were a load of misogynistic descriptions of characters and a bunch of mansplainers came along and told you it's fine and girls need to get used to misogyny as they'll encounter it in the real world? What would your reaction be?

[lpm]

There are loads of misogynistic descriptions. And society is misogynistic. How do girls respond to that? By learning to fight back, of course. A big part of that learning is via fiction.

For children reading is not a passive entertainment. It's active. They get involved. To sanitise books of misogynistic content would be a disaster because it would stop them getting involved in misogyny via fiction

Children are not empty vessels who are filled by content they read. They are reactive learning machines who wrestle with the world from infancy.

[Tessa K]

There are loads of misogynistic descriptions. And society is misogynistic. How do girls respond to that? By learning to fight back, of course. A big part of that learning is via fiction.

For children reading is not a passive entertainment. It's active. They get involved. To sanitise books of misogynistic content would be a disaster because it would stop them getting involved in misogyny via fiction

Children are not empty vessels who are filled by content they read. They are reactive learning machines who wrestle with the world from infancy.

A lot of girls and women don't or can't fight back. Reading is part of the constant attrition of misogyny that contributes to eating disorders, body dismorphia, the inability to negotiate consent, fear of walking alone at night, mental health issues, the need for #MeToo and on and on. You're being overoptimistic. If fighting back was the main response to 100+ years of misogyny in fiction things would have got a lot better by now.

Yes, they are better than they were in some Western countries but not in many others.