What's your opinion about this whole situation with Roald Dahl's books changes?

[Cubus]

Background:

British book publisher Puffin Book was to release a new edition of Roald Dahl's books with changes "to make these books more inclusive". Notable changes included removing a lot of words like "fat" "ugly" "black" or "ladies and gentlemen".

In "The Witches" the beginning was also changed - it originally explained that real witches look very much like ordinary women and work in ordinary jobs, like “working as a cashier in a supermarket or typing letters for a businessman or driving around in a fancy car”. The part about "cashier" was changed to "“top scientist or running a business”

After a public backlash, with even prime minister Rishi Sunak criticising the changes, publisher decided to print the new edition of books without the changes.

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-64759118

[xHoneyxBeex]

I think it's stupid to change the wording of books to make them more "palatable" to modern audiences. I don't believe in banning books for any reason or making changes to an author's original published work. Plenty of books that were written in the past may have language that is offensive to people today but that doesn't mean the books should be changed. On the contrary, I think it's actually important to be able to read it while keeping in mind a historical context to understand how society has changed over time.

At the end of the day, if the publisher is genuinely concerned about how some people may react to the book, instead of changing the text, I wouldn't care if they just added a short disclaimer at the beginning that the book was written in a different time and therefore, contains content or language that may not be socially acceptable today. That way each individual could decide if they want to continue to read it or not and if they become offended, that's on them.

[Lucy68]

Why is this woke culture trying to ruin my childhood

[Cubus]

Because woke culture cannot create anything, so it destroys instead

[Lucy68]

And that's why we all need to vote strictly Republican/conservative

[Cubus]

In UK they don't have any conservative party.

[Lucy68]

What about republican

[Cubus]

Republicans do not exist in UK

[Lucy68]

So what do they have mind me asking

[Cubus]

They have Labour Party which is left wing.

You have Conservative Party, which is similar to Democrats on world-view issues and similar to Republicans on economy

You have Scottish NAtional Party which wants Scotland to secede from UK, but beside this is left wing.

And you have Liberal Democrats which, I don't honestly see any difference between them and Labour. Maybe they are a bit less left wing on economy, but still more than Democrats.

And there are some smaller parties, that never win elections.

The closest you can get to Republicans is UK Independence Party, which is quite similar to Republicans, except no one votes for them. They are as successful as USA Constitution Party.

[Lucy68]

Really that's actually interesting. Thanks for explaining it to me ☺️

[Cubus]

You're welcome

[Lucy68]

Thank you for the MHO

[Cubus]

You're welcome.

[OlderAndWiser]

"Inclusiveness" is a pile of woke horse manure. They should leave these books alone. Next, they'll be wanting to "update" the Bible so it doesn't offend atheists!

[Cubus]

They already do.

Church of English is already working to change the Bible to make God have gender neutral pronouns.

[Flower7]

It makes no sense to change books that have already been out for decades. Just like all other forms of entertainment, the way they were written is representative of the time that they were written in.

Also, removing the black characters is less inclusive, not more. That’s the opposite of what they seemed to be trying to prove.

[Cubus]

They didn't remove black characters. They just removed the word "black".

From what I heard - in "Big Friendly Giant" they changed the word "black cloak" to "dark cloak"

[NewsReader]

I heard about this. It's wrong and stupid. The content in the book does not hurt anyone. It does not indoctrinate anyone. It's not dangerous. So leave it alone. Write your own book. Plus, how would you feel if someone made changes to your book without your permission and took credit for it?

[BCA6010]

No book or media of any type or origin should be modified from its original form in any way without the explicit consent and cooperation of the original author. Even translating across languages is pretty dubious since some thing get lost or out of context through translation.

The specific changes I've heard of are relatively minor (and by extension pointless except to coddle the mob), but I maintain my absolutist stance on this issue.

[bolverk]

The worst thing is that Roald Dahl's books are now owned by Netflix who will bugger then up no matter what we the public think.
If I were anyone who likes Roald Dahl's books is to get out and buy them now preferably from second hand bookshops and not pass any monies on to Netflix and their likes.

[TrueConfection]

... and it's said the U. S. is the land of opportunity. 😂 If I identify as a physicist, can I get the paycheck that goes with that title?

[DarkLegacy]

It is just removing British culture to be honest, it is the same with all books and culture from our country. Either it is racist, sexist, homophobic or animal cruelty. However im pleased they have now backtracked on that change.

[exitseven]

It is great that Penguin Books is going to publish the original books word for word. I bet these will be the ones people will buy.