zlacker

>>GavCo+(OP)
Rewriting stories for children to reflect the values and anxieties of contemporary culture has occurred forever.

For instance, see “The Family Shakespeare” by the Bowdlers. Interestingly, critics seemed to pan it for similar reasons to HN’s commentators, but the book sold well:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Family_Shakespeare

I’m considerably less dogmatic about this than I used to be. Enid Blyton was a staple of my childhood, but do I really have to explain to my daughter why golliwogs are offensive if I want to give her a copy of the Magic Faraway Tree?

>>rgmerk+yg1
100% agree with the Enid Blyton take. I loved Blyton's books as a kid, to the point I actually developed a British-esque accent from reading them so much (I'm Australian). But if I had children, I would not read those books to them as they are. They're full of racist, sexist and generally outdated language, and were written by someone who was considered overly conservative for the 1930s!!

As long as the original books exist somewhere, I don't really think it matters if we give a cleaned up version to modern kids.

>>yosame+Zk1
Same. If you watch Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom or the Police Academy films, they're so racist that if they were still popular they'd need massive disclaimers. Books are easier to edit so they have.

>>nprate+Gm1
Police is still is racist around the globe and the Indiana Jones movie was set in the 1930 when the world was a lot more racist. Setting movies in those eras and places without depicting racism wouldn't feel right either?

>>TomK32+nK1
Police Academy isn't meant to be a documentary :D

And it wasn't the depiction due to the time period the Indy film was set in that made it racist, it's the depiction of Indians as primitives who eat monkey brains and all that rubbish. It was just a trope in the '80s. If they aren't from the West, they must be primitives, etc.