zlacker

>>GavCo+(OP)
Wow. This is so gross. I was a bit put out by the Dr. Seuss controversy a few years back, but at least in those cases, they just stopped printing the books (and, to be fair, the caricatures of various ethnic groups in If I Ran The Zoo are pretty bad).

It feels much more disturbing, though, to just silently update the language in the books to be more in line with modern sensibilities. Dahl was a man of his time, and as a general rule his books have good morals and values exhibited in them. They are perfect children's books, not afraid to dip into a little darkness or to poke fun at the adults who run the world, and that's a huge part of why they've been so successful and universally loved.

The mental attitude and sense of self-superiority it must take to feel comfortable taking the knife to something so well loved is really mind-boggling to me. I am very happy that I bought our collection of Dahl's books before this happened.

>>agentw+em
It can be a hard choice with young children. I grew up watching Christmas Story every year. My son is two and I'm very hesitant to continue that tradition when he's a bit older. I don't want him to think that mocking people for their accents is something to be encouraged. It'd be nice to have a version of the movie where that scene is modified or redubbed because the movie is a creative treasure.

Of course, once he reaches an age where he's old enough to better understand explanations of racism in media, etc, that's a different story. All cultural history has attitudes that may have changed or that we may even view as repugnant. It's important that people learn about the past and what people were like in the past (or still today).

Maybe this type of thing would go off much better if parents were given a choice, and have the opportunity to confront these things with their children when they think they are ready.

>>russdi+7O
I agree; the issue here is more than there's a Monkey Christ level of literary competence that went into these changes (and also what seems like much, much too much ambition about what to change).

>>tptace+hP
I agree to a certain degree, the scope and fairly transparent agenda of the changes definitely make it more of a problem. I'm still put off by the project. I guess there's probably a small set of edits you could make that would be beneficial and not lose the original tone. I'm not convinced of the value of that project but maybe I could get behind it.

>>agentw+BQ
I think a more gifted set of writers could have made the same changes less dunkably, is I guess most of what I have to say here. I sort of do get the idea of excising the fat references, for instance --- I wouldn't, but I get it: these are books for kids, and that's a thing kids absolutely do get victimized over. But if you're going to do it, don't fuck up the music of the prose, or relocate the inflections to Oberlin, Ohio.