The Briefing Room
General Category => Sports/Entertainment/MSM/Social Media => Books and Authors => Topic started by: Elderberry on February 19, 2023, 12:35:50 pm
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Legal Insurrection February 18, 2023
“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.”
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.”
The Telegraph reports:
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”.
More: https://legalinsurrection.com/2023/02/major-publisher-rewrites-classic-childrens-books-to-appease-leftist-sensitivity/ (https://legalinsurrection.com/2023/02/major-publisher-rewrites-classic-childrens-books-to-appease-leftist-sensitivity/)
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That pretty much is a different book, then - and changing female to woman or fat to enormous really doesn't accomplish anything. *****rollingeyes*****
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Roald Dahl’s children’s books are being rewritten to remove language deemed offensive by the publisher Puffin.
Puffin has hired sensitivity readers to rewrite chunks of the author’s text to make sure the books “can continue to be enjoyed by all today”, resulting in extensive changes across Dahl’s work.
Edits have been made to descriptions of characters’ physical appearances. The word “fat” has been cut from every new edition of relevant books, while the word “ugly” has also been culled, the Daily Telegraph reported.
Augustus Gloop in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is now described as “enormous”. In The Twits, Mrs Twit is no longer “ugly and beastly” but just “beastly”.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/feb/18/roald-dahl-books-rewritten-to-remove-language-deemed-offensive
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Threads merged
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The Western world has waaay too much free time on its hands.
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The Western world has waaay too much free time on its hands.
Seriously. When will they issue the newly woke "Gone with the Wind"?
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:facepalm2:
Well, that certainly just increased the resale value of all those copies of the real Roald Dahl books that are still out there.
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It's a complete and completely irrational rewrite, not just a few edits to make things more "sensitive."
Roald Dahl - 2001 authorized Puffin edition vs 2022 authorized Puffin edition. Read entire thread.
https://twitter.com/incunabula/status/1626860237104857089
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Art is a product of the times in which it was created - That's why Warner Brothers doesn't make new anti-Hitler or anti-Tojo Bugs Bunny cartoons.
The publisher is desecrating literature and history. This is akin to the Taliban demolishing the Buddhist momument in Afghanistan.
If the words make the creampuffs cry, put a warning label on it, like they do music CD's.
(https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2010/10/29/parental-advisory_sq-9d66889fcbe5cb35fac0c6f2de43818975985b5e-s800-c85.jpg)
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If I was an author, I think any and all work done for a publisher would have a legal clause in the contract that no work, wordage, graphics, etc,. can be changed without authorization of the author or author's estate.
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The coming sensitivity rewrite of Gone With The Wind:
Miss Elizabeth de Ville Vanderbilt (formerly known as Mammy): I daresay - I shall travel to Atlanta. Yes, indeed, I shall! To Atlanta, it is! (formerly, "Ah's gwine ta Atlanta, an' gwine Ah is!")
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The coming sensitivity rewrite of Gone With The Wind:
Miss Elizabeth de Ville Vanderbilt (formerly known as Mammy): I daresay - I shall travel to Atlanta. Yes, indeed, I shall! To Atlanta, it is! (formerly, "Ah's gwine ta Atlanta, an' gwine Ah is!")
TCM has pretty much buried the movie. I doubt there will be any re-writes as I expect library purges to be next.
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TCM has pretty much buried the movie. I doubt there will be any re-writes as I expect library purges to be next.
:thumbsup:
1984-style memory-hole treatment.
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catfish sez:
"TCM has pretty much buried the movie. I doubt there will be any re-writes as I expect library purges to be next."
If you want to preserve the movie, the best way is to grab a high-quality restored version from "the torrents". And archive it to your own video drive...
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Art is a product of the times in which it was created - That's why Warner Brothers doesn't make new anti-Hitler or anti-Tojo Bugs Bunny cartoons.
The publisher is desecrating literature and history. This is akin to the Taliban demolishing the Buddhist momument in Afghanistan.
If the words make the creampuffs cry, put a warning label on it, like they do music CD's.
(https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2010/10/29/parental-advisory_sq-9d66889fcbe5cb35fac0c6f2de43818975985b5e-s800-c85.jpg)
@DefiantMassRINO
I couldn't agree more.
Also,the reality is no one is making the publisher do this. His GREED is what is making him to it.
Sometimes it seems like the people with the most money are the ones the most desperate to get more of it.
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If I was an author, I think any and all work done for a publisher would have a legal clause in the contract that no work, wordage, graphics, etc,. can be changed without authorization of the author or author's estate.
@catfish1957
Frankly,I am very surprised this isn't the case with every book published. After all,who has more of a personal connection to their work that authors and other "artists"?
Maybe the author's relatives sold the publishing rights to the publisher after he died?
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If I was an author, I think any and all work done for a publisher would have a legal clause in the contract that no work, wordage, graphics, etc,. can be changed without authorization of the author or author's estate.
I believe that Dahl's estate either agreed to allow the changes to be made, or else did not impose such a limit when they sold the catalog to, I believe, Netflix.
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It is possible that the threatened wokification of Dahl's works was just a big marketing ploy?
PuffinBooks
@PuffinBooks
Today we announce the Roald Dahl Classic Collection, which will keep Dahl’s classic texts in print. Find more detail here (https://www.penguin.co.uk/articles/company-article/puffin-announces-the-roald-dahl-classic-collection-to-keep-authors-classic-texts-in-print).
7:03 AM · Feb 24, 2023
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mountaineer wrote:
"It is possible that the threatened wokification of Dahl's works was just a big marketing ploy?"
Sounds like they're "walking things back" in the face of overwhelming opprobrium.
Kinda like "New Coke" ??
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It is possible that the threatened wokification of Dahl's works was just a big marketing ploy?
PuffinBooks
@PuffinBooks
Today we announce the Roald Dahl Classic Collection, which will keep Dahl’s classic texts in print. Find more detail here (https://www.penguin.co.uk/articles/company-article/puffin-announces-the-roald-dahl-classic-collection-to-keep-authors-classic-texts-in-print).
7:03 AM · Feb 24, 2023
Failure to do so would have resulted in a decline in sales.
Get woke--go broke!
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Agatha Christie revisions are the writing on the wall
And then there were none (books, that is)
Bruce Pardy, National Post
Published Apr 05, 2023 • Last updated Apr 06, 2023 Last week The Telegraph reported that Agatha Christie’s novels are being sanitized for re-release. HarperCollins, their publisher, is removing references to physique, race and ethnicity in new editions of Miss Marple and selected Poirot novels. Christie joins Roald Dahl and Ian Fleming on the list of dead literary icons whose works have met similar fates in recent weeks. Shakespeare, Dr. Seuss and Mark Twain have been curbed in other ways. If it seems like small potatoes, you may be missing the big picture. When publishers defile literature, you know the writing is on the wall.
These rewrites are not censorship, at least not in the legal sense. Governments don’t need to order it. Publishers are choosing to sanitize their literary icons on their own. Anyone who holds copyright can alter a work as they please, especially when dead authors are not around to object. Just as Christie had no obligation to write her books in the first place and no publisher was required to print and sell them, so these publishers today have no legal duty to reprint them in their original form.
Why would they want to change them? After all, Christie is the bestselling novelist of all time. Which is precisely why her books are ideal for such treatment. Literature, along with other popular arts like music and movies, is called “culture” for a reason. It expresses narratives that tell societies who they are. In 2023, we are social justice nihilists, driven by cultural self-hate and morally panicked about any representation of historical prejudice.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but in high school the best thing I did for my education was skip French class to read Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. In Bradbury’s dystopia, firemen don’t put out fires, but make them to burn books. “Our civilization is flinging itself to pieces,” Bradbury prophetically wrote. “Stand back from the centrifuge.” ...
The National Post (https://nationalpost.com/opinion/agatha-christie-revisions-are-the-writing-on-the-wall)
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After all, Christie is the bestselling novelist of all time.
@mountaineer
I had no idea about this. I am an avid reader,and have never read a single one of her books. Mostly because for some odd reason,I thought they were written to appeal to the senior female readers,and my head hurts enough on a normal day that I don't need to be digging THAT burial hole.
Any of you guys out there read any Agtha Christie novels? If so,what did you think of them?
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Keep all of your old books; they'll be worth more than their weight in gold eventually.
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I read quite a few Christie novels even before I was an oldster, @sneakypete ! :laugh:
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Kamaji predicts:
"Keep all of your old books; they'll be worth more than their weight in gold eventually."
Shades of "Fahrenheit 451"...
Then again, there's still "z-lib.org" -- IF you know how to "get to it"...
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Keep all of your old books; they'll be worth more than their weight in gold eventually.
I have. They go back to the 1740s
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What has happened here is the left controls the public school circulars,and if publishers want to sell any books to school districts,who are MAJOR book-buyers,the publishers have to publish books that agree with communism.
If they didn't,they would go broke.